POLLy Jean Harvey - The PJ Harvey results thread

I think it suffers from coming so quick on TMYML's heels, coming off like a followup that it wasn't. The reviews weren't near as positive, and speaking as a fan getting on the bus soon after (summer '97 picking up and getting blown away by RoM & TMYML over successive weeks), it never felt like an essential purchase. Hearing it now (got it cheap before the poll), it still feels like a letdown, but some essential tracks too.

I've contributed plenty; learn to use the search tool. Under this name and "christoff" I have contributed and authored many discussions. Celebrating my exit without even knowing what I've put forth typifies the level of ignorance I've come to expect from this site. Piss off.

― suspecterrain, Thursday, May 2, 2013 7:01 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa9LNPwZIGA

After a week or two thinking of PJ, I decided to try to get vinyl versions of all of her albums. Already had Dry and the most recent two (plus A Woman A Man Walked By). I used to have Rid of Me before an ex borrowed it permanently. But they're pretty expensive! This afternoon I got a replacement Rid of Me for £42 and 4-Track Demos for £20 on ebay. There's an Uh Huh Her auction ending in half an hour, but it's at £43 already goddammit.

― Eyeball Kicks, Sunday, April 28, 2013 8:15 PM (1 month ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Looks like her whole Island-era catalogue is being reissued on vinyl this month with download codes. Great news - the run from Is This Desire? to Uh Huh Her until now was especially expensive and there are a lot of fakes going around.

Details on reissues please? UK only?

Sorry, don't know the details. All I know is that they're quietly appearing on a few websites with release dates later this month, e.g. http://www.musicdirect.com/p-136911-pj-harvey-stories-from-the-city-stories-from-the-sea-180g-import-lp.aspx.

"To Bring You My Love" is great on a recent re-listen. Has this album ever been polled? It's a transitional record between her racuous earlier blues punk material and what would become "Is This Desire". The gnarled low bass hum of tracks like " I think I'm a Mother" could easily have fit on "Is This Desire" with tracks like "Joy" and "My Beautiful Leah".

Had no clue this poll ever happened until now! Wish I'd been able to contribute, but great discussion.

dunk you
under
deep salt
water

The two best PJ albums IMO are To Bring You My Love and Is This Desire. TBYML features some of her finest vocal performances ("TBYML" and "Teclo") and ITD is akin to PJ 's "Dreaming", an album full of diverse narrative characters, her most beautiful work IMO

I honestly always go back to "Dry," everything after that has been degrees of bonus goodness.

there's a favorite PJ album for everyone
for me it's Rid of Me
that's how versatile she is!

^ do you rate the 4 track demos?

LOVE the 4 track demos
love love love
it's how i learned how songs are built. i bought it when it came out

plus Easy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhaqK9NdKEY

Here for the 4-Track Demos appreciation!

I guess Rid of Me, To Bring You My Love, Is This Desire?, White Chalk, and Let England Shake are all my favourites, each of them speaking to a different mood or perhaps to a different side of me. But she hasn't released a weak one in my opinion - even her messier and less cohesive efforts (i.e. Uh Huh Her) contain enough gems to redeem them. Such a stellar run of LPs.

agree with you ʌglɪɪst preɪ, stories is my least favourite but it has "We Float", "Horses In My Dreams", "Kamikaze" and "One Line".

Feel like her last record with John Parrish is underrated - it's a curious record, opening with "Black Hearted Love" which is classic PJ, but then going into all sorts of tangents.

I agree, it's way underrated. It might not be the most cohesive LP ever, but it definitely showcases their talents in many different fields, both John's as a composer/producer and Polly's as a lyricist/vocalist. The songs are so different from each other that they don't really hang together well - I guess it's partially why it's so underappreciated as an album - but damn, they are some good songs. And there are not many rock singers out there who can deliver vocal performances as different as "Leaving California," "The Chair," "April," and "A Woman a Man Walked By" - all over the course of 15 minutes on one record.

was happy to see the crowd cheer for Parrish at the seattle show for the last tour. Basically you're speaking my langhuage prei, cheers.

Dry is for sure one of the best debut records in history, like marquee moon ballpark. So fully formed and rich already.

4 track demos might be the one I've played the most though.

Only recently started brushing up on later stuff. Let England Shake is amazing + uncanny

This was her Twitter post earlier. New remasters afoot? Some unusual titles/unheard stuff on these tapes from the look of it.. experts can say more i don't doubt.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EYjIbTRX0AA5dgr?format=jpg

"Clothes" and "He's Just My Type" have never been released, the rest is out there in some shape or form (though some, like "Primed & Ticking," are only live bootlegs). I wonder if it hints at actual reissues of the 90s stuff or it's just a case of bored PJ spending lockdown doing spring cleaning.

ooooooh this is exciting
feels good just looking at the song titles

Maybe she's going to release the Iggy Pop mix of "Rid of Me."

Seriously though, expanded reissues of those first few albums would be great, even though they all already sound pretty good (in their own respective ways).

Would be exciting... she's so boring on Instagram/Twitter though (which I'd expect her to be). Just a cycle of contextless old images that don't mean anything. I assumed this was just a shot of tapes of early mixes of old albums + related tracks that did not imply any current activity. Things she found in the back of a wardrobe. I would love to be wrong.

Her being “boring” on social media makes me love her even more

Yeah, I mean I wouldn't expect her to participate. I don't know who it is who puts out these old photos in rotation. It could be barely caring assistants. It could be her, not giving a fuck. I just mean I don't think an image of an old cassette indicates anything.

Reissues are afoot. A friend is working on them.

Excellent, thanks! I hoped as much.

Great!

Fantastic news! <3

And re: her social media, I think 95% of the time it's someone from her management handling it, but she has posted an occasional tour selfie (or a poetry collection endorsement recently) and she apparenly enjoys compiling playlists (she seems to be into Colin Stetson, Tirzah, and Big Thieg atm). But it's so rare that I'm always a bit surprised when once in a blue moon there's some activity.

I had that double lp version of "Dry" with the demos. I did record it to minidisc ...

I didn't realise that the corresponding cd edition wasn't two CDs as well, but one long one.

Is that getting the remaster reissue treatment?

If so, would it be a rare instance of ... remastered demos?

Well, I meant the package...

Still, it wouldn't be the first time

‘Dry’ vinyl reissue and ‘Dry - Demos’ vinyl/CD/download – released 24th July 2020. Full back catalogue of vinyl reissues and stand-alone demo albums to follow.

Pre-order:
Dry - Demos: https://t.co/kZTJDz5KtK
Dry vinyl: https://t.co/1kFbfgoCAo pic.twitter.com/UxarCGnqcT

— PJ Harvey (@PJHarveyUK) May 28, 2020

Here they are

thank god these are finally going to be rolling out. Dry has always needed a remaster, to my ears.

Dry has always sounded great to me, imo.

Does that include any of that unreleased stuff seen on the cassette labels?

Yeah I've always liked the sound of Dry

it's just so quiet. I'm not asking for all the dynamics to be gone, but a little more heft and a volume boost would be appreciated

I found my minidisc copy of Dry&demos yesterday.

DRY DEMOS!!!

Oh man want to hear

I bought the original Dry vinyl + demos back in 1991. The demos are great - to me, much more satisfying than the Rid of Me demos. That Dry+demo release is probably one of the records I have that is worth most cash – I guess this is likely to change now. I'm more excited about the reissues to come later though. If they're all going to come out one by one, she's missing a trick – I would happily splash out £200 on a complete box set, but if there isn't going to be one, I'll just pick up what I don't already have on vinyl (Is This Desire? + Stories).

I have never heard the Dry demos, only the ones released as 4-track Demos, which was my introduction to learning how songs are made. I was 18 or 19 at the time and didn't know much about how music actually got written/recorded.

yeah would like an expanded 4-track Demos please (also a live Hope Six and/or all new)(haven't heard the soundtracks, are they good?)

Was "Easy" ever released on another album other than 4 track demos?

it is easily (lol) one of my favorites of her early songs

akm OTM IMHO. Even by the standards of its time, the original release of Dry was mastered at a curiously low volume.

I bought the original Dry vinyl + demos back in 1991. The demos are great - to me, much more satisfying than the Rid of Me demos. That Dry+demo release is probably one of the records I have that is worth most cash [...]

― Eyeball Kicks, Thursday, 28 May 2020 18:41 (thirty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah same here. 1992, I think actually. I checked Discogs a while back and it was selling for an average of £200

The idea of releasing demos for To Bring You My Love, Is This Desire, White Chalk, or Let England Shake makes me ridiculously excited for this reissue series.

I was weighing getting out of vinyl completely but a full set of PJH is making me rethink it.