POLLy Jean Harvey (The PJ Harvey ballot poll voting thread)

http://www.amoeba.com/dynamic-images/blog/Brad/pjharvey-2.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PJ_Harvey_discography
Tracks
Pick your top 22 tracks and rank them 1-22, scoring system as follows:
1:40, 2:36, 3:33, 4:30, 5:28, 6:26, 7:25, 8:24, 9:23, 10:22, 11:21, 12:20, 13:19, 14:18, 15:17, 16:16, 17:15, 18:14, 19:13, 20:12, 21:11, 22:10
Albums
Pick your top 5 albums and rank them 1-5, scoring system:
1:10, 2:8, 3:6, 4:4, 2:2.
Voting closes on Monday 22nd April. Send your ballots to: nastybrutishnsh✧✧✧@gm✧✧✧.c✧✧.

loving that photo

Shame on you for that thread title

that picture is amazing. really looking forward to this one, it'll be the first poll I've voted in for quite a long time.

Did a kindly mod edit that e-mail address to keep away spam or did I somehow type that myself without realising?
Just in case there's any doubt, the missing bit at the end is 'ort' (and the other bits are even more obvious).

Yay, finally a new poll! (Miles and the Fall were really not my thing.)

It happens automatically to save you from randomly-generated hate mail, etc. I'll see what I can work up myself.

i'm gonna vote in all this polls

This one's gonna be more interesting than these usually are because there's basically zero consensus as to what represents 'The best PJ Harvey song', although there's loads of contenders.

Think I may be an outlier in that I rate the first 2 albums way more than anything else she's done (the only other one that I even like is LES)

I dunno, that's a perfectly defensible stance to take. Dry is probably my second favourite after Let England Shake. Although weirdly I've never much cared for Rid of Me, or To Bring You My Love (which was kinda the canonical pick for years).

I think her first one is her best. Although I like Rid of Me, it's a bit too abrasive. I wasn't impressed by Uh Huh Her and I don't think I've even heard White Chalk.

WC is the only one that leaves me unmoved, but who knows? With PJ there's always next time.

Rid Of Me has the best songs I think, but the production is just too confrontational for anything other than an (admittedly impressive) art statement. Four Track Demos is just as abrasive in its way, but way less harsh.

Actually, I take it you're not counting the different versions of those songs separately?

Nope

Think I may be an outlier in that I rate the first 2 albums way more than anything else she's done (the only other one that I even like is LES)

― pandemic, Saturday, April 13, 2013 8:31 AM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel the same way. They were probably my favorite band at that time, but TBYML was a huge disappointment. LES and WC are great, but I don't think she ever fully regained the urgency of those first two records.

Sent. This was an enormous pleasure to do. I got off the bus after Rid of Me and have barely heard her since - the catalogue is *incredibly* strong, I ended up with about forty songs on first pass, and it's not like the ones I was throwing away were dross either.

I was on board through Is This Desire (which I'll be repping for in the voting, because it seems to have become her most overlooked record), but then was not very interested again until LES. I could easily make a ballot from just those 5 albums, and probably will...

MY HERO

(Peej, that is)

An insanely talented and fearless person, she is.

Think I may be an outlier in that I rate the first 2 albums way more than anything else she's done (the only other one that I even like is LES)

― pandemic, Saturday, April 13, 2013 8:31 AM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I feel the same way. They were probably my favorite band at that time, but TBYML was a huge disappointment. LES and WC are great, but I don't think she ever fully regained the urgency of those first two records.

― Pope Frank is the messenger of your doom (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Saturday, April 13, 2013 9:34 AM (1 hour ago)

me three

her post-rid of me peel session posits the 3rd album w/ the trio to be one of the great unrealized threats in music history

Reminder to self: vote in this one!

4 track demos are some of my favorite things she has ever done -- who could possibly argue with Easy?!

sorry

eeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaassaaaaaaaaay

oh man i really want to vote in this one. she is the best.

this'll be very tough to narrow down to 22 songs

She lost me with Is This Desire?, got me back big time with Stories, lost me again big time with White Chalk, got me back with Let England Shake. Honestly no idea what makes her tick. A major artist.

agree that the first couple albums (and the 4-track demos) set a very high bar, one from which she slipped in ditching the band. i've come to accept both to bring you my love and is this desire, but at the time, the former felt like a disappointing waste of potential.

that abrupt, mid-90s shift in approach caused me to tune out for several years. she's done great work in the new century, though. i love stories from the city (her most underrated set, imo), white chalk and let england shake. yeah, the thrilling punk intensity of those early records is for the most part gone, but she's traded it for a much wider field of musical possibility and emotional expression.

First two albums are my favorites, with White Chalk coming in at #3. I guess I love her best at the fringes.

Agree with that. The music press wet itself a bit when she emerged in 91, but she never seemed to need or engage with that aspect of the business at all. I dunno if she's completely self-contained in reality, but she gives that impression to me. I could equally imagine her as a visual artist, putting on shows that she doesn't attend or talk about.

I think she's better now than she's ever been. At the moment about a quarter of my ballot is Let England Shake with only one a piece from Dry and Rid of Me. Agree with Matt DC that the lack of consensus will make this really interesting.

Like with Bowie, we're going to have our favorite Peej phases. It took me a while to warm to Is This Desire?; now it sounds like the ruminative coda to To Bring You My Love. The only anomalous album in retrospect is Stories.

it's also the only album of hers to fit the kind of reductive narrative -- her "happy NYC" album and reach for higher sales -- she's avoided.

Hmm, I think White Chalk is the only real outlier. It's totally enervating (to me), but "Stories" is basically the "pop" apotheosis of what she does. But I think it's one of her most intense albums, actually, and the most personal (to me) of all the accidental 9/11 albums. I don't hear it as happy at all.

The Uh Huh Her-White Chalk-LES phase, on the other hand, sounds lke an attempt to record three discrete sonic and thematic entities.

(speaking of, if ITD was once the forgotten album, UHH most needs the rehab)

haha actually "Is This Desire?" is a better title for Stories if you think about it

Has she talked much about:

1) Why she disbanded the trio (though I guess stuck with Ellis)?

2) Largely shies away from the guitar?

3) Has abandoned touring?

as much as I love her style, the terms of the critical discussion -- by men -- so often made her merits commensurate with her guitar playing (remember all those reviews in 2000 going "Polly Jean is back and rocking!") that I can understand the reluctance.

CHRISTMAS IN APRIL!

Question for myself is whether Uh Huh Her is worth revisiting to try to glean any nominees from it. If not for my very fitful relationship with Rid of Me, UHH is the runaway winner for least favorite Peej disc.

People! Rep some of her b-sides/rarities!

For instance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm_vz_3VelU

It's funny that I adore the obvious folk influences in ^^^ and yet Let England Shake has been so difficult for me to access.

Actually, I take it you're not counting the different versions of those songs separately?

― Ismael Klata, Saturday, April 13, 2013 6:26 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nope

― BBC 'Witch' Song (Nasty, Brutish & Short), Saturday, April 13, 2013 6:32 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OK because it's early and I'm an idiot who can't parse double negatives, a vote for a demo version of say "50Ft Queenie" and a vote for the ROM version of "50Ft Queenie" will be combined?

Very much looking forward to this, although it will be a tough one.

People! Rep some of her b-sides/rarities!

Early, pre-relistening knee-jerk thought for my #1 is a b-side, actually. Of course I'll to go back to the earlier albums that I've neglected these past few years.

Quick question: can we vote for Dance Hall at Louse Point and A Woman A Man Walked By and songs from those albums?

50ft Queenie is the only one where I definitely prefer the Rid of Me version

xp I have voted for both tracks & albums from those fwiw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tPfPBlo5oY

Uh Huh Her is probably my least favourite album, but I love It's You and placed it very highly

People! Rep some of her b-sides/rarities!

Probably half my votes will be non-album tracks. Will post some good ones in days to come. First, here's Claudine The Inflatable One - don't think was even a b-side, might just be from a Peel session. Rid of Me-era sexy song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xw5QXwuQgcs

xpost: Okay, I would think those albums (the PJ/Parrish co-billed albums) count, but it's not me running the poll. . .

OK because it's early and I'm an idiot who can't parse double negatives, a vote for a demo version of say "50Ft Queenie" and a vote for the ROM version of "50Ft Queenie" will be combined?

It won't not be combined.

Quick question: can we vote for Dance Hall at Louse Point and A Woman A Man Walked By and songs from those albums?

Yes.

xpostish, she's such a great guitarist, surely she didn't tone down the playing because "OMG, girl with guitar!"

The first two albums are good but that's definitely not my favourite PJ era. This is going to be tough, I've been revisiting some of the albums and have rediscovered Is This Desire?.

How's she a great guitarist? I'd've said she was perfectly competent, but I don't hear anything amazing on those early albums.

I think she was pretty early in adapting blues tropes to an indie-rock context. Or maybe I should say, bending blues tropes to her context. The rhythm section is monstrous on those two albums, but I really like how she fills the rest of the space.

Just because I was curious, I read Christgau's capsules of the first two. (Positive) letter grade aside, they are so full of shit I can barely take the time to parse them:

Dry [Indigo, 1992]
Since she doesn't fancy comparisons to Sinead or Kate Bush--"I'm like anyone as long as they're female. If they've got dark hair it's even better"--perhaps she'd prefer Cream or the Doors. Island Records sure would, but in a sexist world she's unlikely to achieve such heights of rockist catalogue stuffing--I just meant a band that sounds great until you listen to the words when you're not stoned and decide they're self-indulgent blather. This fate she's spared by the cloudy but essential feminist distinction between egoist bullroar and honest irrational outpouring--and of course by her postrockist guitar, where she starts to reinvent her instrument the way grrrl-punks reinvent their form. A-

Rid of Me [Indigo, 1993]
Never mind sexual--if snatches like "Make me gag," "Lick my injuries," and "Rub 'til it bleeds" aren't genital per se, I'm a dirty old man. And if the cold raw meat of her guitar isn't yowling for phallic equality, I'm Robert Bly, which is probably the same thing. She wants that cock--a specific one, it would seem, attached to a full-fledged, nonobjectified male human being, or maybe an array or succession of cocks, it's hard to tell. But when she gets pissed off, which given the habits of male human beings happens all the time, she thinks it would be simpler just to posit or grow or strap on or cut off a cock of her own. After which it's bend-over-Casanova and every man for him or herself. A

gonna try to vote in this one

Both backing you up on guitar though xp. That vengeful feminist angle on her was standard contemporaneously iirc, but it ... not never rang true exactly, but it was more that she was completely unknowable - the songs were as likely to be character studies and the whole thing an art project, in fact more so because would someone so viciously macabre really refuse a pulpit?

All of which I find extremely interesting now, but may well have turned me off at the time.

I will stan for the thread title.

Still haven't listened to everything in her mid-catalog as i sort of lost track after the pleasant, but decidedly less visceral "Louse Point" and "Is This Desire".

1. Dry
2. White Chalk
3. Let England Shake
4. 4-Track Demos
5. ~~~ (Vote Abstained)

As for track ratings; really, who has the time for such things? And 22 track listings - what's up with that? Yet, i will list a few faves that come to mind.

Oh My Lover
Plants and Rags
Water
When Under Ether
White Calk
Silence
On Battleship Hill
Last Living Rose
Working For the Man
Is That All There Is?

you're...not from around here are you?

lol

How's she a great guitarist? I'd've said she was perfectly competent, but I don't hear anything amazing on those early albums

for me it was always about that tone (of her guitar sound) that is just so ballsy and perfect

xxxpost

not sure "ballsy" works if we're discussing PJ Harvey, brah

PJ is plenty ballsy, and more so than the following 27.8 male guitarists.....

it really was the only adjective I could think of that fit her early (pre-is this desire) guitar sound

xpost

if by ballsy you mean powerful, i'm ok with that. she is todo poderoso imo.

I played "Dry" for my guitar teacher ( I had him teach me the entire album). He'd never heard her before, but was downright obsessed with the way the album sounded. He kept comparing it to the way Led Zeppelin was recorded.

^^That's Albini! "Ecstasy" has some of the best slide guitar sounds ever.

No, "Dry," the first album, I mean. I didn't even play him "Rid of Me."

Albini production is like Led Zeppelin, but leaden.

Oh, I thought you meant "Dry" the song (off R.o.M).

PJ is a great guitarist cos the way she plays guitar is so fun to listen to.

She's probably just a competent guitarist cos anyone who can play guitar could do that stuff except they don't which is a pity cos then they might be fun to listen to.

I keep meaning to take guitar lessons, and when I do I have in mind to take certain PJ Harvey songs as a reference. In the weeks when I'm not learning her songs I'll be learning Marc Bolan riffs. They are very similar, to me, and that's as far as I would ever wanna take guitar playing. I'd be in heaven, just doing what they do.

I hope "Black Hearted Love" gets some, er, love in this poll. As someone who had a serious IDGI relationship with White Chalk, this single was a wonderful sign of life between it and Let England Shake.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AupNf6DOaPg

Agreed. I think both collabo albums are underrated.

oh i had no idea this poll was gonna happen! awesome.

i consider dance hall at louse point firmly in the middle of PJ's peak years - 1995-98 are when she made her best work for me, though there's definitely the argument that she's in a second imperial phase right now. i don't think she's ever given a reason to get off the bus though - even the albums which are comparatively minor are always interesting, indicative of an artist who'se continuing to grow/not rest on her laurels...

I don't think I've ever heard Dance Hall At Louse Point. I will totally rep for Is This Desire though - astonishing album.

EVEN THE SON OF GOD HAD TO DIE MY DARRRRLIIIIINNNNN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGgcfQY1emU

I wanna vote but I don't know her discography backwards like some people here.

No need. It's only about ten albums, you can listen in a day.

Gargantuan b-side:

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

I guess we're past that physical media moment, but it's a crime that Island never did a proper annotated comp of her stray material. IIRC, the closest they ever came was an limited edition expanded TBYML (9 extra songs) that's listed on AMG, and B-Sides, an indie store exclusive ep from 2004 that has 5 Uh Huh Her outtakes and a demo. I guess the Dry demos disc might fit here too.

Hey so Uh Huh Her isn't as top-to-bottom rubbish as I remembered!

I still really like Stories From The City...

ashamed to say I hadn't paid attention to her more recent efforts, an omission which this poll will now rectify :)

does anyone think so? At worst it's Peej sitting down and saying "OK I'm going to make what people expect a nineties PJ Harvey record to sound like."

Uh Huh Her is kinda what you expect a b-sides record to sound like: some decent songs, some weaker retreads of her old stuff, unfocused. It just sounds like a random bunch of PJ Harvey songs, whereas all her other albums have definite sounds/themes. Who The Fuck?, Shame and Slow Drug are ace, but there are a lot of weak choruses on the record and her voice sounds weak too.

worth noting it's her only real solo album to date.

Really? I did not know that.

It's self-produced and she played just about every instrument.

Solo as in playing almost all of the instruments? xpost ah!

I actually think that her more sedate songs are the best on there now, and the more ersatz '90s songs (e.g. "WTF?") are among the weakest on the album.

in 2004 I would yell WHOOOOOOOOO in friend's ears.

Best song: "The Darker Days of Me & Him"

otm

with no neurosis
no psychosis
no psychoanalysis
and no sadness

and how she drags out those polysyllables as if hoping to extract her pain

I remember a friend saying that Uh Huh Her sounded like she'd just gone and recorded two or three songs in the style of each of her previous albums and thrown them together, which I thought was pretty otm. I'm listening to bits of it again though because I haven't played it in years. The two tracks I always liked were 'Shame' (for the octave leaps on "I jump for you into the fire") and 'You Came Through'.

Uh Huh Her and White Chalk are my least favourite. I loved To Bring You My Love when it came out, and caught her live for the first time on that tour (Tricky supporting IIRC) - so those songs have an emotional significance for me. But Dry still tops them all.

I remember buying Dry on the Saturday before the Monday it was officially released (i.e. on 28 March 1992, before the 30 March release) because my local record shop owner let slip that he had on that day received a batch of the LPs, which included the limited LP of demos.

I saw PJ Harvey on their (because she insisted "PJ Harvey" was a band, not an individual) 1993 tour at Metro in Chicago. They seemed a little remote from each other, and I later found out that they had decided to break up a week or so earlier, but had to complete their tour. I was first in line to get in, and got a spot right against the stage. Scrawl opened and were absolutely brilliant. They played a bunch of new songs I didn't know, but that would soon be released on Velvet Hammer. Gallon Drunk were next, and they were fine, but their baritone saxophonist was amazing, getting all sorts of multiphonics out of the most unwieldy of saxophones. PJ came out in her dress, and opened with "Rid Of Me." The crowd was listening intently; you could've heard a pin drop. The third song was "O Stella," and per 1993 law, the crowd surged forward and people started crowd surfing. Since the stage was not made of a flexible material, I had bruises on my stomach for weeks afterward. Overall, it was a fine show, but a slight letdown. Also, it was weird observing Rob Ellis; his movements were incredibly stiff, in contrast to the swinging nature of his playing on record.

In searching for a good live clip of "O Stella," I found the actual show I attended:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cEw8nMfzI8
It's better than I remember.

It's interesting that some have posited that she moved away from guitar because too many people were "OMG, girl with guitar!" Interesting, because the shift coincided with her playing up the out of nowhere glam of makeup and shiny dresses. She seemed like the last person who would go for that, which is maybe why she went for that.

Scrawl opened and were absolutely brilliant.

SHUT UP you saw Scrawl and PJ Harvey on the same night and did not spontaneously combust?! I would have in 1993!!

Like, half glam, half taking the piss:

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/351236/PJ+Harvey.jpg

http://culturespill.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/pjharvey.jpg

I totally was going to see the trio at the TLA in Philly in fall of '93, but no one wanted to see her with me! :(

Matt, FWIW the two John Parish albums are the most like Let England Shake of anything she did prior, in my opinion.

SHUT UP you saw Scrawl and PJ Harvey on the same night and did not spontaneously combust?! I would have in 1993!!

― and that sounds like a gong-concert (La Lechera), Sunday, April 14, 2013 5:47 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I also saw Scrawl open for Sugar almost exactly a year earlier, also at Metro. They were still breaking in their new drummer; Sue and Marcy did a few songs as a duo, with Marcy playing acoustic.

But yeah, Scrawl and PJ Harvey on the same bill was beyond perfect. Scrawl never gets enough love. They were (are -- they still do shows around Columbus, iirc) one of the best bands ever.

Ballot: Done and sent!

Just sent.

If anything, this poll has made really reassess Rid of Me (in a really good way) and To Bring You My Love (in a not so good way).

Got three more ballots in overnight - I'll tally those up and send confirmations this evening

Been expecting this poll, she's one of those artists Ive never really given a chance... Almost everything I've heard from her sounds a tad... dry... I expect this poll to show me what IVe been missing.

Correction: my earlier vote included the track "Water" -- mistake; please replace with "Ecstasy".

MOKA --- the results of this vote may fail to deliver the most congruent goods.... PJ has many flavors and whatever the final tally of this vote reveals, may still not identify the most appropriate ingress... suggest you sift...

"To Bring You My Love" disappointed me in '95 because I wanted another 8593 "Rid of Me"'s. It slowly grew on me over the years and now I think it's her most listenable album, i.e. the PJH album I'm always in the mood to hear (as opposed to "Rid of Me" or "Is This Desire", where you really need to be in the right frame of mind before putting it on).

I can never understand why people prefer "Dry" to "Rid Of Me". ROM is rawer, more caustic, and rocks harder, what's not to prefer?

I can never understand why people prefer "Dry" to "Rid Of Me". ROM is rawer, more caustic, and rocks harder, what's not to prefer?

Same here, ROM has (overall) better songs and better production.

Correction: my earlier vote included the track "Water" -- mistake; please replace with "Ecstasy".

You, er, haven't actually voted, you've just posted a short unordered list of tracks you like in this thread.

I like "Dry" (the album) better than "Rid of Me" (the album).

Never could understand the hype re: "To Bring You My Love," except that likely it was the first PJ Harvey album a wider range of critics glommed onto once they started paying attention to "alternative" music. More listenable, less noisy, cleaner production, post-Nirvana, spooky MTV video for a song that got radio play, etc. It could be the standard case of people liking most what they heard first. I'm glad few consider it her number one go-to disc.

Hmm, looking back, the first two did place in the top four in Pazz and Jop, But "To Bring You My Love" topped a weird/lame 1995 slate:

1. PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
2. Tricky - Maxinquaye
3. Moby - Everything Is Wrong
4. Elastica - Elastica
5. Neil Young - Mirror Ball
6. Foo Fighters - Foo Fighters
7. Björk - Post
8. Bruce Springsteen - The Ghost Of Tom Joad
9. Yo La Tengo - Electr-O-Pura
10. Oasis - (What's The Story) Morning Glory?
11. Joan Osborne - Relish
12. Emmylou Harris - Wrecking Ball
13. Son Volt - Trace
14. Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness
15. Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx...
16. Rancid - ...And Out Come The Wolves
17. Pavement - Wowee Zowee
18. Sonic Youth - Washing Machine
19. Garbage - Garbage
20. Matthew Sweet - 100% Fun

By quite a margin too…

1 PJ Harvey: To Bring You My Love (Island) 1492 120
2 Tricky: Maxinquaye (Island) 868 71

Yeah, so the only thing I can think of is that lots of people were playing catch-up consensus.

so it's her ac/dc album

a weird/lame 1995 slate:

Wow, apart from Rawkwon, YLT, and Tricky, that's an overwhelmingly tepid poll.

Raekwon, even.

Björk!

paves & sy still p well regarded

that list gave me nostalgia whiplash
kind of dnw but it's always pleasant to think of old friends and good times i guess.

nice to think that she was around before that list, has persisted through time and released an album recently that i really really liked.

that was a long time ago ppl

on a style note, her "i'm going to wear a pink bodysuit and a shit ton of makeup deal with it" audacious phase reminds me of alice cooper, this song in particular. the album version ends at 2:30 but this performance goes on for 4 more minutes. (sidenote: i would LOVE to hear her cover this version of this song!!!)
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4079/4929714734_a592016b0e_z.jpg

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

i appreciate the range of styles she has experimented with and pulled off over the years.

good catch!

Wow. She would have done a great job with that in 1995.

The part where it gets all slow and slinky and starts to be about the graveyard and the bones, and then the owoowowowowowowowowowoown part would have looked good on her then and now too, though I dunno how she feels about howling these days.

Dry is way more pop than RoM!

Matt, FWIW the two John Parish albums are the most like Let England Shake of anything she did prior, in my opinion

I've heard A Man A Woman Walked By - it was pretty good but I don't remember feeling motivated to go back to it very often. It's only Dance Hall I've never actually listened to.

Dance Hall is great, there are some of her most intense vocal performances on there. I only listened to AMAWWB a couple of times and can't really remember anything about it.

yeah, AMAWWB has completely evaporated from my memory

Only about halfway into my Is This Desire? revisit, but it's like all the best parts of 1998 rolled into one thus far.

Definitely gonna revisit that one. Was non-plussed by it at the time, thought she was trying to be Bjork, but heard it years later and dug it.

Loved Is This Desire? when it was released, but have cooled off on it a lot. Hasn't aged well for me.

Didn't hear Is This Desire? when it came out but it's become my second favourite after LES. Something from an interview I did with PJH circa White Chalk:

"I love that record. It’s one of the records I’m most pleased with. I feel like I explored electronica in a very rudimenatry way. It wasn’t at all what it ended up sounding lilke. I had one keyboard the size of a small handbag and I used to play it through a guitar distortion pedal and a tiny little speaker, and that was it. I recorded it all onto a four-track cassette machine. I don’t really know how to operate modules and things like that.… I think it’s only happened three times, where I felt that I’d fulfilled my intial ambition for that piece of work. The other times I’ve had a sense of falling short. This album, Is This Desire? and To Bring You My Love. I felt those three records absolutely achieved my vision at the time, and the other albums weren’t as realised as I wanted them to be."

Is that interview online anywhere? I love it when she starts talking about how the music actually gets made.

Not in that form. I just cut and pasted it from my old transcript. It was for a Spin Q&A and there wasn't a lot of space for the fanboy behind-the-scenes stuff. Here's a bit about Uh Huh Her:

"I always try not to repeat myself and I think I have greater or lesser degrees of success with that. I think for instance with Uh Huh Her my goal was the same – to get as far away from what I’d done before as possible. Now you see I could throw up that album as an example of not doing it very successfully. When I look back, songs like The Slow Drug and The Darker Days Of Me and Him or Desperate kingdome of Love feel new to me. Then there’s things in there like Cat on the Wall and The Life and Death of Mr Badman which are typical Polly Harvey really. At this stage in my life I’m just not interested in doing thinsg that are comfortable, because I can do them all. I can write PJ Harvey albums until the cows come home, but that doesn’t interest me. I’d much rather write a not particularly strong song record that sounded different than writing a bunch of strong songs in the same old way."

And on Stories:

"It was an experiment. I went into that record thinking I wanted to make an album of great pop songs that I wanted to dance about to, and I did that and I thought now I want to do something else. It didn’t feel like something I wanted to explore anymore. I didn’t feel that my soul is enagged in that style of songwriting. I’m really glad that I tried to do it and I would never cast it off as being irrelevant but my soul doesn’t really feel there so I had to keep looking."

I've always liked PJ talking about her own work, she has a very clear-sighted take on it I think.

Yeah - her views seem to tally with mine on what's been successful for her, too

Then there’s things in there like Cat on the Wall and The Life and Death of Mr Badman which are typical Polly Harvey really.

It's cool she recognizes the trap into which she can fall.

Her four favourite albums are mine too. It's quite rare that my preferences tally with an artist's own.

yeah dry will probably always be my fave cuz it was first. that or to bring you my love cuz it was such a surprise and the first complete assurance that this was she had several tricks in her bag plus i'll never forget the first time i heard anything from it, deep winter, driving back from reykjavik in complete darkness, and that guitar hook just slowly emerges and builds from the radio, it felt like suddenly being in a horror movie. pretty sure i've played sftc, sfts most but mainly cuz that's the easiest to play at work or just throw on while doing dishes or whatever. my ballot's pretty evenly divided thru the nineties and then a handful of tracks after that.

What's the fourth of her favourites?

Let England Shake, which wasn't out the first time I interviewed her.

seems to me that artists usually tout their most recent work (barring genuinely awful process mishaps), which is as it should be. it's only when it comes to their evaluation of older work that their idiosyncrasies show through. i can see why pj would be especially proud of her first true solo works, but also why her insistence on unimpeded self expression and the realization of a personal vision might cause her to underrate the earlier, more collaborative work.

there's probably a synonym for "work" out there somewhere...

driving back from reykjavik

Where to?

keflavik

Dag, I've never heard this before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5ymH5fyxvo

bump - not had any ballots recently

Need the weekend!

May tackle this tonight. If not, soon.

yeah i am taking all available time for this one tbh

aagh deadline so soon and won't have much time over weekend and it's been too sunny this week for PJH

haven't even gone thru b-sides to post some here

Working on this.

Meanwhile, When Will I See You Again?:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaNvMQ_l1E8

Just voted.

man, that "primed & ticking" is a hell of a thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-HPITkugzc

You Said Something still floors me

Hey, is "Henry Lee" eligible in this? It could make my ballot. (Would definitely make list of best PJ videos.)

Has anyone ever noticed that the structure of Is This Desire is a lot like Cloud Atlas (the book)?

...i can't say i have, though i would love to read an elucidation of that!

ANYWAY just throwing some of my fav b-sides into the mix - weirdly, the ones i'm most attached to are from the stories era, ie her worst album by some distance

"as close as this"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ8sejah6iA

"66 promises"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1NKNGLqKoU

"who will love me now?"

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

that primed and ticking/claudine/naked cousin/wang dang doodle session might be my favourite thing by her - explosive energy + menace - along with Rid of Me and Let England Shake. MUST have a proper listen to White Chalk before do ballot tho.

Lex, I feel like the songs are "matched", 1 to 12, 2 to 11, 3 to 10 and so on.

oh WAU that's 100% otm

it's been ages since i read cloud atlas so i didn't remember that aspect of it - but i've always had the feeling certain songs on ITD had a match-up, i just hadn't noticed that exact pattern!

HOW HAS NO ONE ASKED HER ABOUT THIS IN 15 YEARS

literally staring at the track listing with my jaw open

http://thisdistractedglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/JFK-1991-Kevin-Costner-Donald-Sutherland-pic-2.jpg

"Each track was matched, like the chapters in the David Mitchell nove, symmetrically. Nothing was left to chance, Mr. Finney. She could not be allowed to record a mere 'album.'"

Are you Donald Sutherland? Or Kevin Bacon? Or Joe Pesci?

But yeah I first noticed it before I'd read Cloud Atlas but hadn't focused on the symmetrical strictness of it until afterwards.

Listening to Parish II: WOW @ "The Crow Knows..." (pol(l)y-rhythmic jam half of title track). Some of the rest sounds like a dry run for LES.

Yes! Also the faux-Laika of "The Chair". It's a great album!

I feel like the songs are "matched", 1 to 12, 2 to 11, 3 to 10 and so on

In what way? Musically? Lyrically? I don't really see it myself.

Two more ballots received - I'll send confirmations once I've added them on

Xp sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes feel, sometimes a combination of those things.

Like:

1, 12: widescreen and yearning prairie songs
2,11: charged rockers
3,10: mysterious and deceptively gentle haunters
4, 9: claustrophobic machinic femme odes
5, 8: arch and narrativist and foreboding
6, 7: enervated but spooky soft femme odes

Nah, if that's all there is to it, it doesn't work.

Okay done. Turns out I was mistaken way way up thread and I actually like 'Stories From The City' more than I remembered. Also apparently I only like 2 tracks on LES which I'm sure is way fewer than when I was playing the record a lot 2 years ago.

"as close as this"
― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Friday, April 19, 2013 12:58 AM (Yesterday)

'As Close as This' was literally #23 on my ballot after I sorted everything out. Dah well. . .

damn re "As Close as This." Where can I get this one (besides the "A Place Called Home" single)?

really glad i've still got the weekend to refine my ballot and catch up on stray tracks and b-sides i haven't heard in forever. have spent the last week p intently digging through the canon and come away with a few thoughts...

for one thing, everyone was right: stories from the city, stories from the sea is a lesser album. at the time, i appreciated (and perhaps needed) the simplicity, soulful optimism and drive toward anthemic release, but in effectively delivering those things, it sacrifices the perversity, menace and mystery that keep her best work so endlessly fascinating over the long haul. i still enjoy certain songs, but they're far from the top of my favorites list, and taken as a whole, the album doesn't command a strong response of any sort. it's quite pleasant, but inessential.

second, i realize that i primarily relate to PJ harvey as a writer/performer of individual songs. outside a period of intense fascination with rid of me and the 4-track demos, i've never really loved a pj harvey album as front-to-back, single-serve sit down and listen (let england shake comes close). i initially wrestle with them as units, and each rewards attention to the whole, but i ultimately take away only a select few tracks. honestly, i find even my favorite PJ harvey albums a bit trying when i put them on repeat. this doesn't diminish my affection and respect for the artist. the most challenging aspects of her work seem inextricably tied to what i love best: the interest in minimalism, violence and emotional extremes, the focused exploration of theme and mood, the dry-tooth clangor and scrape of timbres against one another. the "difficult" material seems to provide the soil from which the more easily embraceable moments grow.

finally, my initial resistance to to bring you my love and is this desire? had nothing to do with the abandonment of "guitar rock" and little with the specifics of the sonic palette she embraced. i liked the bassiness, electronics and room cleared for subtle shading. the problem, for me, was and is nick cave. i listen to those albums and i hear an overwhelmingly gifted artist diluting her own vision in the sudden embrace of another's. to my mind, dry and rid of me are wholly and entirely "pj harvey albums". they don't sound like anything or anyone else. the musical voice owes something to its era, of course, with the emphasis on distorted guitars, emotional turmoil and heavy rock pounding, but the language, ideas and articulation are utterly distinct. this wasn't lost when she ditched the band and incorporated cave's portentous, story-driven, bible-gothic style, with its mythic grandeur and apocalyptic conflation of lust, faith and murder. she's still singing her song through those secondhand affectations, bending them to suit her needs and interests. nevertheless, i'm distracted by the costuming. it's too much, and too familiar besides. nevertheless, these are endlessly fascinating albums that contain many of her finest moments. they certainly offer more long-term reward than stories from the city.

Nick Cave could stumble off a cliff for all I care, which is why PJ's transmutation of his musicians and ideas startles me. She's at once lighter and scarier than Cave because these goth tropes don't come secondhand to her (a Cave fan will disagree).

agree abt nick cave. could hardly care less, though i do enjoy the odd song and harbor a lingering affection for the birthday party. i also think she makes nick's fascination with devotion-unto-murder more interesting in processing it through her interest in gender and identity. nick always seems to be operating at a fictional (and rather campy) distance, where pj uses his tropes to get at something more emotionally honest.

TBYML is the only album that Nick Cave might have essayed imo. From Is This Desire onwards he's choking on her dust.

nick always seems to be operating at a fictional (and rather campy) distance, where pj uses his tropes to get at something more emotionally honest.

Hm. I'd invert this theory. Harvey is often funny-scary and hence more moving whereas Cave is so damn serious that his work turns into camp.

hmm. i don't have any real problem with cave's horror movie shtick, which does often seem to come with a wink (or maybe i'm just imagining that). it's the cartoonish theatricality that repels me, especially when combined with the insistence on beating you about the head with DARKNESS. which is maybe what you mean by "so damn serious".

one of the things i like about pj harvey's work is that she's spent such a long time digging at the loss of self in romantic and sexual devotion, emotion that overwhelms us and casts us adrift, leaves us searching as much for "me" as "you". in cave's hands this is often reduced to a state of gothy ~madness~ that enables some thrillingly awful turn of events, but pj uses it to explore at a sense of instability-in-ecstasy to which i can much more easily relate.

which isn't to say she's not funny

Robert De Niro, sit on my face.

as much as i love what Rid of Me is about, and as much as i love each and every song, it's a very difficult album for me to listen to. not because it's too emotional or intense, but because of how it sounds. it's just really, incredibly raw and confronting in a way that very few albums are. i think it's essential to listen to at least once through, but i would genuinely put it into the category of "too wild for everyday listening", and i'm obviously somebody who listens to a lot of extreme music.

otm, and xp otm too

for one thing, everyone was right: stories from the city, stories from the sea is a lesser album

Don't lump me in with these people!

Nah, if that's all there is to it, it doesn't work.

― Eyeball Kicks, Saturday, April 20, 2013 11:36 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Doesn't work for what? What bar must be cleared for a pattern to be extant?

Nine ballots so far (I still haven't done my own yet). Some of my favourite tracks had worryingly not received any votes at all, but the last three ballots have finally seen them pick up some points.

Get voting you bozos, nine ballots is stupidly few

forgot to tip my hat to tim f during the above summary! i had a very good time searching for the symmetry you mentioned yesterday. it works just fine, imo. i suspect that it's in large part something discovered happily during track sequencing, and not a decision made during songwriting that helps "explain" the album. either way, it's obvious once you notice it:

"angeline" yearns for a man who will make her whole, while joseph and dawn wonder if their sense of yearning connection is sufficient ("is this desire?").

the female subject of "the sky lit up" is released by her ardor, while the male subject of "no girl so sweet" seems trapped in his. neat little point of connection in "drive" / "car", but it probably doesn't mean much.

"the river" and "the wind" both describe people offering their overwhelming grief to an echoing aspect of the natural world, searching for release and seeming to find none.

"my beautiful leah" and "joy" both describe women as fading presences as seen through another's eyes. leah, we're told, knew only "nightmares and her sadness never lifted / and slowly over the years her lovely face twisted." meanwhile, joy "came face to face with her own innocence / surrounding her until it never was a question / innocence so suffocating, now she cannot move." we have reason, perhaps, to doubt the observer's characterization in both cases, but it's interesting that one is consumed by desperate horror and the other by hope unfulfilled.

"a perfect day elise" and "the garden" are fun in that they might be two halves of the same tale. they both concern men who become ensnared by ardor, pursuing a vision they cannot capture or possess. he finds her, but she will not have him. he searches for her and seems in the darkness to find something, but it vanishes by morning's light.

the relationship of "catherine" to "electric light" is very similar, though in first person. men are consumed by what they want and cannot let go. i like the album's reliance on a few central themes and images, desperate want, the scattering of light.

^ in addition to the sonic/musical similarities

voted!

I will vote in this tomorrow, I promise. but my ballot will almost exclusively consist of TBYML and Is This Desire.

Mine was spread around the whole discography, but it probably favors the first two the most.

Nine different albums featured on mine:

Dry 2; RoM/4TD 6; TBYML 1; ITD? 1; SFTCSFTC 2; UHH 2; WC 4; AWAMWB 1; LES 3

Dry: 6
TBYML: 6
DHALP: 1
SFTCSTFS: 4
WC: 1
LES: 1
B-sides: 3

btw, thanks to pandemic and johnny fever for putting the points next to the tracks on their ballots - makes my life easier

(only a small part of my life, and only briefly, but stil....)

submission submit. very much enjoyed pulling all this stuff out again. amazing body of work.

e.g. in isolation i would say i really like tbyml, but in context of everything else i realized it is my 2nd least favourite album of her main studio stuff, and i didn't pick a single song off it.

Sent!

Dry is the only album I don't own.

I'll be giving a ballot for this. listening to Is This Desire? for the first time since...maybe ever? sounds like she was listening to The Downward Spiral a bunch, or else it's just the late 90s.

also listened to Let England Shake for the first time today, got pretty annoyed at the quaveryness of it about halfway through, at about "All & Everyone", & then it eased up & I enjoyed the second half a lot more.

I don't think I can vote in this but I'll be very interested in the results. I never really took much of an interest in PJH until White Chalk and Let England Shake, but they really really hit me. Love those albums a lot. I think there are cds of the 4 Track Demos and Is This Desire and Songs From The City around here somewhere. I'll have to check. The last two albums are fantastic.

dry: 3
rom: 4
4td (-rom): 1
tbyml: 3
dhalp: 1
itd?: 3
sftcsfts: 3
uhh: 0
wc: 0
awamwb: 0
les: 2
b-sides: 2

As usual we're as one, except I added an UHH track and nothing from Dry.

haha dry's my fave, i think i deliberately 'limited' it to three tracks, didn't realize i'd sorta given rom more votes until i did the breakdown (one of those votes i meant the 4td version). uhh's the only one that's done nothing for me, i'll give it another shot eventually. wc i liked, esp at the time when it came as a relief, but there was nothing there i loved enough to put on my ballot, until the other day i don't think i'd listened to it since within a month of its release. awamwb was a revelation hearing it for the first time the other day, not a 'major statement' like les but the kind of solid minor work i usually enjoy from past-peak major artists, i could imagine revisiting it more than les in the future.

I'm saving Dry, citing Miccio's Harvest Clause.

My pick:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHuk3ody8Jw

haha what is miccio's harvest clause?

awamwb just sounds like so much fun to make, esp. between the beautiful severity of both wc and les.

haha what is miccio's harvest clause?

he named a tendency to reserve a Classic Album from an artist's work. I don't own Ziggy Stardust on CD, for ex.

Dry is awesome.

I doubt I can vote in this. I cite vote fatigue.

haha that harvest clause seems crazy. at the same time the only movie anthony perkins (or for that matter vince vaughn) played norman bates in that i haven't seen the entirety of is the hitchcock one.

For many people Rebecca fulfills the Harvest Clause.

rebecca's almost as much a selznick flick as a hitchcock and better for it

Surprisingly Funky one from Uh Huh Her:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FeKq0Jir7o

(I may also be alone in thinking this, but the UHH-era haircut was one of her best)

I agree there!

Realizing that I like Stories/Uh Huh Her/White Chalk more than Rid of Me/To Bring You My Love. I still haven't heard all of Dry, although I know the 4-track demos.

Sent!

Breakdown:

Dry: 2
Rid: 5
4-Track: 0
To Bring: 3
Dance Hall: 1
Is This: 2
Stories: 2
Uh Huh: 2
White: 0
A Woman: 1
Let England: 4

Ballots coming in thick and fast now

^^Sounds like a Peej lyric.

from Man-Size, maybe. Not a fan of that string arrangement I must admit

This is very hard. Managed to reduce a 40-song shortlist to 26, but trying to squeeze out 4 more songs is maddening.

On my ballot SFTC contributed my favorite song, it turns out.

When the roll-out happens, I think NBS has earned the right to be self-aggrandizing and entitle the thread along the lines of "PJ Harvey: Nasty, Brutish and Short."

the ranking is impossible. reducing the list to 22 is hard enough. i guess i will rank by release date or something.

Done now. My choices were much more obvious than I expected in the end. Positions 23 to 40-something contained many more b-sides and tracks released 1996-2010 (though still nothing from Stories).

Dry: 2
Rid: 7
4-Track: 0 (though the demo of one of the b-sides I voted for is on here)
To Bring: 3
Dance Hall: 0
Is This: 1
Stories: 0
Uh Huh: 0
White: 1
A Woman: 0 (sad about this - I think it's her best album overall between Is This Desire? and Let England Shake)
Let England: 6
B-sides: 2

do most of you think that rid of me is superior to dry? dry is by far my fave album by her, the first hit the hardest. rid of me is not even in my top 5.

almost done, this was easy
speaking of, no ballot is complete with "easy"
you can call me devil's gateway AGH (also that ha! ha! ha! part at the end yesssssss)

dry was my first b/c i bought it when it came out and i was 17
formative shit, then when i got rid of me it confirmed my suspicions that she was the best best best

with? WITHOUT
agh

Rid of Me is way better in every way, but if I was hosting a dinner party and only had those two albums, I'd put on Dry

If you were well aware of the situation in advance of the guests arriving, you could ask one or more of them to bring along a more suitable CD.

I think Dry is much better than Rid of Me. I don't want to give anything away, so I won't say which way the poll is blowing on this issue.

but rid of me doesn't have the raw power of dry. it does not jump into your face like dry, it hasn't got the awesome riffs, it has something controlled about it. it's a little on the boring side. it sounds rather calculated. quite funny, the best song on rid of me is dry. as dinner party music rid of me seems more suitable than dry i think.

It's true, I am terrible at dinner parties. The one time we had one, the cd I had to hand was Scott Joplin's 'The Entertainer' on a loop. Which is classic tbf, but even I had tired of it after a point.

playing Blow Monkeys will take care fo it.

do most of you think that rid of me is superior to dry? dry is by far my fave album by her, the first hit the hardest. rid of me is not even in my top 5.

i'd put them neck and neck. dry is more "listenable", overall, but i only count a few of its tracks among my pjh favorites. i've got about twice as many rid of me selections in my tentative ballot. a bit baffled by alex's description. rid of me feels much rawer to my ears, less hemmed in and calculated.

I think my issue w/Dry (the album) is I came to it waaaay late, like 5-6 years after being seduced by Rid and TBYML. Still, it is home to two of her greatest singles.

dry was my itro to pjh (following too pure v closely due to stereo<3), but was rid that won me over

breakdown of tracks
dry 6
rid of me 1
to bring you my love 4
is this desire? 2
stories from the city... 2
uh uh her 2
white chalk 2
let england shake 2
b-sides 1

trying to think of a good word to describe the essence of rid of me and the closest i can get is brutal, which has a few appropriate shades of meaning. and it is that, brutal, whatever, more than any other album i can bring to mind. i consider it head and shoulders (and rope of wet hair) above her other stuff because of that achievement as much as the songs being great, which they are almost without exception. i don't have a hard time understanding why anyone might not be impressed by that themselves tho, or want to listen to that record. let england shake is i think the closest she has got to that impact otherwise, although it's less naked about it.

or not want to listen, obv

i think some (possibly many) people have a hard time with music that challenges their idea of femininity, but that's nothing new

OK, Dry is awesome.

Rid of Me was my #1 album easily, but my #1 song is from Dry.

rid of me might be brutal but it doesn't give me the impression that it is eruptive, impulsive and untamed like dry. the songs are often one-dimensional and repeat themselves towards the end in an annoying way, there is something missing in them, a personal touch, they kind of seem inhuman, relentless, without remorse.

This version is devastating ... nothing on "Dry" can compete with this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzwG3r9_L9o&list=RD02aYegEL80oM0

the ghosts fly their asses off tonight

as a song this is about a million times superior:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjAhnY-xKm4

ballot sent!

Dress is a more traditional song-type song, but Rid of Me is more creatively charged/daring, imo. (and I LOVE Dress!!)

Exhibit A: This dress is uncomfortable and makes me feel like a heavy loaded fruit tree
Exhibit B: Lick my legs, I'm on fire

"dress" is one of her very best songs, but nothing else on dry hits me with that kind of overwhelming and (to use your word) relentless physical force. the equivalent on rid of me, afaic, is "yuri g", and i like the two songs about equally well.

embedded?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjAhnY-xKm4

i think i prefer traditionally built songs, rid of me is kind of interesting and provocative etc. in the beginning but on the long run it does not convince me and i hardly ever listen to it.

Dress is an astonishing thing alright, but it's weird that the snare on the on-beat should be the thing that stands out the very most for me. It must be a device that's almost never used.

the most outstanding thing for me is the quite dissonant string instrument used here, i suppose it is a viola, isn't it?

The first four songs on ROM are harrowing, but you gotta want to be on that ride. "Rub 'Til It Bleeds" in particular -- to me it reduces much of In Utero to grotesqueries.

btw I hope y'all agree: "Highway 61 Revisited" is top five best Dylan covers EVER.

btw I hope y'all agree: "Highway 61 Revisited" is top five best Dylan covers EVER.

Ah man when I was struggling to cut down my list I thought I could just eliminate covers on a technicality, but there was no way I could lose Highway 61.

i meant cello, not viola, obv.

It's probably a viola; though it goes quite low on the slide at the end of the chorus and on the saw-y bits, so might be a cello? There's a violin too. I hadn't appreciated how much the strings are doing on there 'til you mentioned it.

The snare is playing triplets I think, it's not on the on-beat at all. I couldn't figure out what was so unusual about it 'til now - plenty of Motown uses a snare on the on-beat, but it doesn't sound like that.

breakdown:

D: 1
ROM: 0
4TD: 2
TBYML: 3
DHALP: 2
ITD: 7
SFTCSFTS: 1
UHH: 1
WC: 1
AWAMWB: 0
LES: 3
B-sides: 1

i actually deliberately tried to be less ITF-centric, too :/

I just love how "Rid of Me" slowly ramps up the tension and builds to a completely unexpected payoff. And the most intense bits are the quieter parts, not the loud ones.

I've got about 7 or 8 ballots in that I haven't processed yet, so don't worry if you haven't had a confirmation from me. One day left...

The snare in "Dress" is my favourite single thing about it, among many favourite things. Not much early nineties rock approaches it for lithe propulsion.

Also the first four tracks on Rid of Me are indeed harrowing and amazing, but in a weird way their power has always prevented me from fully absorbing the balance of the album ("Highway" and "50 Foot Queenie" and "Mansize" aside, I guess).

One of the first albums I ever bought, incidentally.

voted

ditto

sent. audited and agonized forever, but wound up slapping my ballot together in a few minutes. feels right.

Dry - 4
RoM - 5
4Tk - 2
TBY - 3
ITD - 2
Str
UHH - 0

dagnabbit

Dry - 4
RoM - 5
4Tk - 2
TBY - 3
ITD - 2
Str - 1
UHH - 0
Wht - 2
LES - 2

b-side - 1
other - 0

voted

Ugh, I didn't do much listening for this poll and don't really know my way around her catalog beyond the first 2 albums, so I may miss this one. But it sounds like enough votes are coming in for a comprehensive rollout!

Yeah, how many ballots are in?

What's the deadline?

I will not retract my ballot, but I spun TBYML earlier tonight at this video shoot I sat in on, and I think now I underrated it both album and track-wise in this poll.

Yeah, how many ballots are in?

There are 13 which I've already added up plus another 11 sitting in my inbox.

What's the deadline?

Today is the last day. In reality I'm going to need some time to finish adding everything up so I won't be rolling out any results tonight, so time zones don't really come into this - just get ballots in by tonight and it'll be OK.

My ballot is heavily biased toward my two favourite albums, but I really do think they're miles ahead of everything else she's done (and I really like all her albums, with the exception of UHH). It doesn't feel completely right to leave out "Dry" completely, and I probably should have found space for "Hair" or "Sheela Na Gig", but what can you do.

Dry: 0
ROM: 7
4tD: 1
TBYML: 4
ITD: 2
Stories: 2
UHH: 0
WC: 1
LES: 5

Dress!

it was actually weirdly hard to rank TRAX - PJH is such an albums artist, in that she seems to consciously work in that form: all her albums are perfectly balanced, in a way, all the songs complementing and enhancing each other in that context, whereas in isolation they lose something and can even seem a bit slight. and the better she gets the more this is emphasised - i think the first three albums are really great but i think of them in terms of my favourite trax-qua-trax plus a few songs that are totally inessential. whereas when i think of eg white chalk, i think of it in totality - only a few songs work as songs on it, but each one is necessary to building up an album that's superior to the first three.

Yeah, I found pulling tracks out really difficult.

Dry: 1
Rid of Me: 1
TBYML: 4
ITD: 5
SFTCSFTS: 1
UHH: 2
WC: 3
LES: 5

Agree with Lex about difficulty of pulling out tracks from White Chalk but I wanted to rep for it.

D: 2
RoM: 2
TBYML: 2
DALP: 2
ITD: 2
SFTCSFTS: 4
UHH: 1
WC: 1
AWAMWB: 2
LES: 4

This seems odd because I like RoM and D and TBYML way more than SFTCSFTS.

D: 1
RoM: 3
TBYML: 4
DHaLP: 2
ITD: 4
SFtCSFtS: 4
UHH: 1
WC: 2
AMaWWb: 0
LES: 0
B-sides: 1

Really interested to see what the #1 album pick is.

"Is This Desire" and "White Chalk" definitely work best as albums, only a couple of songs from each work well in isolation.

Ranking songs was crazy hard because how do you compare a song from LES with one from ROM? They're like two completely different artists.

D: 5
RoM: 6
TBYML: 0
ITD: 2
SFtCSFtS: 1
UHH: 1
WC: 2
LES: 4
B-sides: 1

I had forgotten how the Uh Huh Her thread became this epic clusterfuck via Momus complaining that PJ Harvey's entire schtick was stealing Americana tropes.

Seems like an (even more) amazingly off the mark complaint given her subsequent two albums.

Also, voted.

Dry - 3
Rid of Me - 3
4 Track Demos - 0 (still haven't heard this shamefully)
To Bring You My Love - 3
Dance Hall At Louse Point - 2
Is This Desire - 5
Stories From The City, Stories From The City - 1
Uh Huh Her - 0
White Chalk - 2
A Woman A Man Walked By - 1
Let England Shake - 2

Maybe Polly read the UHH thread and reacted against Momus.

I'm very glad that my ilm life doesn't overlap with momus'

Wading through the ballots as we speak. It's interesting - there isn't a consensus as such, but there is a large subset of people who like something in particular and that might well end up toppling the thing I thought there might be a consensus about. If you see what I mean. I'll say no more. 15 processed, 13 in my inbox...

but there is a large subset of people who like something in particular and that might well end up toppling the thing I thought there might be a consensus about

haha i have my guesses as to this and it's somewhat analogous to the role erotica played in the madonna discography poll...

I've got my own ballot down to a long list of 44 now. Hope I don't miss my own deadline.

it was actually weirdly hard to rank TRAX - PJH is such an albums artist, in that she seems to consciously work in that form: all her albums are perfectly balanced, in a way, all the songs complementing and enhancing each other in that context...

― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Monday, April 22, 2013 1:33 AM (6 hours ago)

interesting that so many people seem to see pj harvey that way. i relate to her primarily as a singles artist. i don't disagree with lex's analysis, though. her albums are each distinct and of a piece (with the exception of the clearly lesser uh huh her). each digs deeply into a sustained set of themes, moods and sounds, and many of her songs really only work in context. this is especially true, i think, of her last two albums. both are extremely successful as sustained works, but neither yields a great many takeaway "hits" afaic.

still, and this isn't really a criticism, i find that i seldom want to listen to a pj harvey record all the way through once i've done the pleasurable work of absorbing and processing it. i dig them out periodically for reassessment and rediscovery, but in the meantime, i happily content myself with the tracks i love best. these don't change much over time, even as their home albums rise and fall in my estimation.

in that light, as much as i respect white chalk and let england shake, they strike me as extended, refracted singles. each seems built around one "song", a song that echoes out in various interpretations and mixes to album length. in the case of white chalk the ur-song really is just one track, and the album is named for it. let england shake is indeterminate in comparison, with no single track emerging as the definitive embodiment ("the glorious land" and "the words that maketh murder" do it as a linked pair, imo).

Gah. Just got to cut one more track. This is getting brutal.

Just can't do it. Which one of these should get the chop? The Sky Lit Up / C'mon Billy / Meet Ze Mostra / This Mess We're In

Answer: the one with Thom Yuck.

"this mess we're in", easily

NOT "THE SKY LIT UP"

just get ballots in by tonight and it'll be OK.

Cool, was worried. Won't be able to finalize mine til this evening, but it will be sent before midnight EST.

I'm not sure I agree, but the people have spoken and I can't make a decision, so it's a sad goodbye to This Mess We're In.

Wise move. Cutting The Sky Lit Up would be crazy.

nasty, did you get my ballot? just asking as i didn't get a confirmation mail yet.

Yes - yours is the next one to add on. I'm going through the backlog in the order I received them.

Sent. Breakdown was pretty evenly split among the albums I know, the others are blind spots to me. Maybe the poll will fill me in.

Dry: 4
Rid of Me: 4
TBYML: 5
Desire: 5
LES: 4

Bear with me, folks. Still got 8 ballots to do. Alex - I have got yours (assuming yours is the one with 'Down By The Water' in 22nd place), but I was wrong about you being next in the queue, that was actually Lex.

hey, uh, did you get mine? some talk of confirmation notes upthread, but i don't think i've received one.

Yep - working on yours right now

Alex - I have got yours (assuming yours is the one with 'Down By The Water' in 22nd place
that wasn't me, i had "in the dark places" as #22.

Yeah, you're right, found you now. Something weird happened there - I accidentally leapfrogged over you. Don't worry, I'll add yours on. When I've finally finished adding everything I'll check everyone's had a confirmation e-mail.

not voting in this as my taste is basically Dry + some obvious shit from next few, but Alfred where the heck did you get this alleged Harvest clause of mine from?

I pulled the language from a blog post or something you wrote here in the mid 2000s but I consulted my lawyers and draped it in legalese.

man it must have been a long time ago if concerned Harvest

Whenever I haven't heard To Bring You My Love in a while I fall into the habit of assuming songs like "Working For The Man", "Teclo" and "I Think I'm A Mother" are just moody atmospheric breathers b/w the main events but then I listen to it again and it's like, woah, everything on here is flawless.

xpost if it concerned, rather. Anyhow, while I understand not getting around to an album or not being in a rush, I retract any alleged endorsement of willfully ignoring an album you know has to be good.

I think it's more the complacency of knowing you can check it out at any time, but I think it tends to apply more to entire artist catalogues than to single albums.

whatevs take my name off it or i'm suing

I retract any alleged endorsement of willfully ignoring an album you know has to be good.

haha wait: the Harvest Clause is holding back from purchasing an artist's classic album so that you can look forward to hearing it someday -- like denying yourself rocky road or something.

how catholic

a) i really don't recall ever doing that b) i definitely don't recall doing that with Harvest of all albums and c) even if I did in those hazy days of 2005 or something, I think it's stupid now

i have died of embarrassment and it is your harvest clause now, alfred

if I DID ever make that claim re: harvest, i'd say a corollary of the clause is that you probably aren't that excited about the album in the first place

http://thewritersguidetoepublishing.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/sign-dotted-line.jpg

I specifically remembered you citing Harvest because (a) it made sense (b) I still don't own it.

best songs are on Decade, don't sweat it

xps Jim Carrey and Matt LeBlanc had a lovechild?

where are the poll results? did i miss something?

p. sure he's still working on it dude

Still got six more ballots to go through - I was on top of things, but then got deluged with people voting in the final 24 hours. Should be able to start the results by tomorrow.

thanks, i am looking forward to the roll-out.

how many ballots total NBS? apols if you already said

I dig that the PJH poll will probably be started, finished and rolled out in The Fall's voting+tabulating window.

compiling my ballot for this poll took no more than an hour, i dig that

and i dillydallied for about 45 min of that hour tbh

how many ballots total NBS?

It'll be 30 once I've added my own as well.

Yeah I banged mine out in an hour too. Hadn't relistened as much as I wanted because, well, because it's been glorious weather for the past week and PJH, bless her, has never suited the sun. Spent sunday in the pub with the bf, got home tipsy, thought it had to be done by mon morn, there you go. These things are best when semi-instinctual anyway

Won't be around this time tomoz tho :(

cool good turn out, thx

Won't be around this time tomoz tho :(
Lex, these things get rolled out over several days - you're not going to miss the entirety of the results

i like slow roll-outs of polls. where you have time to listen and discuss and evaluate etc.

OK - all ballots added now (apart from my own, which I'm about to do). I've double-checked and I received 29 and 29 have been added. All 29 have been sent a confirmation e-mail. If there's anybody out there who thinks they've voted and didn't get a confirmation, let me know a.s.a.p.

got it, thanks for the nice words. i am intrigued about the results now.

I didn't get any nice words

To be fair, you did get a litany of grievances

I got a "thanks" -- will consider that neutral.

OK, let's go...
POLLy Jean Harvey - The PJ Harvey results thread

That was quick!