POLLy Jean Harvey - The PJ Harvey results thread

Victory is a great song, but back in 1992 when I was first listening to Dry I couldn't help but hear the similarities to the then recent Inspiral Carpets song Sackville. It seems absurd two decades later, and it is a very simple riff no doubt found on dozens of songs, but I couldn't ever enjoy the song as a result. I really hated Inspiral Carpets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBgygp73gFM

egads! that's bad !

how can all and everyone, a boring ballad without any spark, be so close to the magnificent victory in this poll? best version is the peel session btw.

hahaha! iirc inspiral carpets also had a song called "joe" and sinead o'connor had "just call me joe" and there was that concrete blonde song "joey" and i remember thinking that naming a song "joe" was a bit cliched too! (i also had a totally brain consuming and pointless crush on a boy named joe, which is why i had catalogued songs named joe in my head)

"a boring ballad without any spark"

I think you might be listening to an Inspiral Carpets song called All and Everyone by mistake.

Listening to A Woman A Man Walked By again, and reiterate that this album is deeply underrated. I love how both this and Dance Hall At Louse Point feel so loose performance-wise, in a funny way although they show Polly at her most theatrical there's a sense in which, overall, they're closest to capturing her as she is, maybe because she's so frequently funny. But yeah the way she wails "ERICA!... DANIELLE!" on "Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen"... This is a song that feels like it could fit into basically any of her albums right up to Uh Huh Her, not in the sense of being generic PJ Harvey, but in the sense of sharing something of what is so fascinating about each of her incarnations over the course of that entire period.

I'll admit that I voted for Is That All There Is? for theatricality (and also because I love that song and her singing it is next level yesssss)

Yeah "Is That All There Is" is totally theatrical but also kind of unaffected in that theatricality? Like, there's something very honest-feeling about its overblown vamping?

That's partly the song, I think -- there's so much devil-may-care who-gives-a-shit why-bother in the song itself that it translates automatically no matter how it's sung. I love her version of it.

Oh yeah that too but I just mean that you really feel how much PJ loves plugging into the song's vibe and going ham with it, and that feels as "true" a pose as, like, brute churning rockers or windswept bronte balladry.

"Is That All There Is?" made my top 10 -- i think it captures the colour of the lyrics better than other version i've heard -- PJ's medicine seams to always be accompanied with the most appropriate dose.

That's why she is so wonderful imo! She can wear so many elaborate costumes with conviction. She is extremely versatile, and the dexterity she moves with is impressive.

no doubt -- a true cameleon

I've just listened to her 'Is That All There Is?' for the first time and realised it's the same song as this one that my dad got in the late 80s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w6bHzvikl8

Peggy Lee's was the version I knew and loved -- it's Leiber and Stoller!

many similarities with Giant Sand (whose 'Tucson' album is something all should hear) version, yet much more "carnival" and "come-what-may" in it's delivery than PJs dirge. Peggy Lee's harps on burlesque, and divine.

Victory seems kinda low. Thought that would be much higher.

Re: Inspiral Carpets
While listening to everything (some of it for the first time in years) before making my ballot I made a couple of strange connections. 'Meet Ze Monsta' reminded me of Spacemen 3 - Losing Touch With My Mind (just one of the guitar sounds really) and something about the bass in the early parts of 'Angeline' made me think of Joe Jackson - Geraldine and John.

47. The Devil - 112 points, 6 votes

outrageously low, shameful

http://vimeo.com/22956489

http://991.com/newGallery/ZZ-Top-Legs-289364.jpg

46. Legs - 112 points, 6 votes

Not great dinner party music

didn't realize it was a cover

xp, great song, i mean "the devil". somehow i did not include it in my ballot. in the beginning of the video her high-pitch singig makes me think of oskar matzerath, the kid drummer from the "tin drum" by grass. and i expect the water glass to burst. miraculously it does not break.

just a minor request: would it be possible to put the album in brackets after the song, nbs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM-tIpWtqYk

I really like The Devil. It's such a great title, I'd probably have voted for it anyway even if it wasn't such a fine tune.

^ satanist

46. Legs - 112 points, 6 votes
DAMMIT!

I'm surprised but happy about how "White Chalk" is doing. I've always thought it was really underrated.

The album, that is.

http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/32800000/Catherine-Tate-ginger-heads-32891554-280-390.jpg

45. Catherine (Is This Desire?) - 113 points, 5 votes

wow, shockingly low for one of the highlights - if not THE highlight and centrepiece - of the album that placed second...

― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Friday, April 26, 2013 10:30 AM (Yesterday)

re: "white chalk". otm. it is the highlight and centerpiece of the album. expected it to place in the top 20.

that's probably true re: "the devil" but i think i love "dear darkness" from wc even more. and i expect it to place.

Gave you my heart/you left the thing stinking

When Under Ether will probably be the highest from White Chalk, but still, the title cut wuz robbed! Far too low. It's one of the creepiest songs you'll ever hear.

http://www.gardenvisit.com/assets/madge/clandon_park_dutch_garden/original/clandon_park_dutch_garden_original.jpg

44. The Garden (Is This Desire?) - 116 points, 7 votes

Catherine and The Garden were both late cuts from my ballot.

Catherine was one of my re-discoveries from ITD?

For confusion that's how I approve of acronyming ITD?

another phantastic powerful song (that bass!) which should have been in the top 20.

"and there was trouble taking place"

http://www.usingenglish.com/resources/letter.gif

43. The Letter (Uh Huh Her) - 122 points, 8 votes

Erk. Just noticed a foolish error.

So..... I foolishly forgot to put a column in the spreadsheet for the position of each song in the chart and was reading their positions from the row number, but obviously there were two blank rows at the top (with headings) which means every position I've given so far has been two too low. Fortunately I've noticed this early enough for it not to be a big deal - the poll would have been somewhat anticlimactic if it had built up to number three and then stopped (although I suppose it would have been funny seeing people scratching their heads trying as we entered the top five trying to work out what on earth could possibly be in it that they hadn't been expecting).

So you need to subtract two from every position I've given so far. I'll post a proper countdown shortly, but first we need to go back to the *real* number 60 and 59....

bonus results...nice

http://www.drugson-line.info/images/photos/ecstasy.jpg