"Uh Huh Her." Thoughts on the new PJ Harvey?

(Polly Harvey is actually astonishing-looking, like some kind of semi-malevolent nocturnal creature in human form, which makes her sort of compelling.)

WOW!
It looks like it could say Big Black, but are you sure???

Anyone else thinking of Karen O right now?

A few of the new songs, eg "The Life and..." strike me as YYYsesque too.

This really should be the other way around.

It might just be the MP3s I downloaded (which sounds like they might be the vinyl rip), but this is heavier and sludgier (ie the Desert Sessions/QOTSA dude has rubbed off).

Is Civil War Correspondent not one of the most poignant anti-war songs ever ? those lyrics, geez... Rope Bridge Crossing and Heela are amazing as well...intense, over-the-top, but with almost a camp-like sense of enthralling fun bubbling in the background to the drama (esp the part where john parish does back-up vocals on Heela) -->

"
{She ...}
{She was a girl, she got her hair done nice}
{She said "i've given all I got to my healer man}
{He put his hands on me, showed me what I am} "

I like it quite a bit as well, I know Ally made it her album of the year at the time. Actually, there's no PJ Harvey album I hate at all -- they're all pretty great!

Actually, my memory/impression of the reception received by Stories... at the time it was released was very favourable, wasn't it? On some level, it reminded me of the contemporaneous All that I Can't Leave Behind (they were not only released in the same year, but the same month) -- both in its critical reception (a return to guitar rock/form!) and in its large sound, even down to similarly awkward attempts to re-mythologise New York City.

(It's a whole 'nother thread, but has anyone else noticed how many bands/artists were writing explicitly, overtly about NYC in the months leading up to 9/11? I know they always have, but the numbers seem disproportionate, like the collective unconscious had an inkling or something.)

Yeah, how lucky was she to write "Kamikaze" for her New York album ...

Yes, I agree.

(And just to back up my weird assertion above, alongside U2 and PJ Harvey, there were songs by Doves, Richard Ashcroft and Interpol arpound that time all featuring NYC either heavily, thematically, or overtly in the titles.)

Many of the tracks on slsk etc were ripped from vinyl.

* British person using American idioms.
* Romantic conception of self as 'intense artist'.
* Literary humanist worldview influenced by American short story, poetry workshop lyrics such as: 'Can't you see my handwriting?/the curve of my g?/the longing?'
* 'Strong woman feminism'; 'girls can be violent too, you know!'
* Guitar orientation. (Connected to point above.)
* She makes the kind of records that make critics say things like 'Lust, anger, hurt and trust do their timeless dance once again.' (Kitty Empire)
* She makes the kind of records that make punters say 'Is this really about her break-up with Celebrity X / Y?' (Insert Nick Cave, Vincent Gallo, etc.) -- ie it's record-making as a sort of All-Celebrity LiveJournal.

"WARNING, this dopey bitch likes fox hunting and enjoys upper class people tearing a helpless, exhausted animal to shreds. She is a cunt and therefore in buying this album you are also a twat. And her basic "re-invention" is wearing ass high skirts. No more radical than Emma Bunton, then".