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

That's a good question, and I think the answer is 'It depends when, and according to whom.' Romanticism was a radical movement aligned with the French and American revolutions. Rock and roll was also a rebel movement in its day. I personally take the position that both are played and integrated -- which is not to say over, of course, just to say that their centrality should be battled against.

Matthew Collings made a TV series, Hello Culture, about exactly this question. Interesting interviews online with John Lydon etc.

How should their centrality be battled against?

(Haha, a whole new thread there, probably!)

(And, even funnier, amateur!st and I seem to be engaging two different Momuses here, and it's kind of cracking me up, but I do have to get some sleep now.)

sorry if i'm simplifying, but i think momus may have a point in regards to symbolic ideology, and what's so wrong to discuss it? a critic's interpretation of an artist's work is independent of any original intention, pomo rule #1 of course.

it is partially true that pj harvey has been so acclaimed at playing rock music, as a man would play it, and even the gender-bending of rid of me's most stringent tracks were not acclaimed for their fluidity with identity in the first place, but because they simulated uncompromising and "loud" punk / DIY ideals. (prepare for generalizattion)-> for most rock critics, mostly who are male, to acclaim a female artist's work, either they have to be turned on by them (reference kenan herbert's liz phair review), or else the woman has to masculinize her sound and aesthetic (polly, patti, even chrissie). yes, polly is very good at playing in the first place...but she underscores archetypal male characteristics such as directness, linearity, violence, and bravado..

...but what about such artists like tori amos, who refuse to use typically "masculine" instruments such as the guitar, and center their work around the piano, as well as refusing to compromise their work around any linear coherence? tori remains an abstract force, a feminine voice from a feminine perspective, and like the amazon/com review of boys for pele mentioned, everything about her work, from the music to the lyrics, is abjectly "feminine" - as a georgia o'keefe painting. she remains in her feminine, emotional world of abstraction; how many times has she made the pazz and jop top 20 ?

for that matter, when a woman does try to use rock instruments such as guitar, but refuses to curtail the sterotypically-feminine traits of verbosity of expressiveness - such as, yes alanis - she is slammed for being incoherent and self-indulgent, instead of perhaps expressing her own, individualized emotions which by other standards rockists value very much. there is a different standard here, and as much as i love polly, i think it's important to at least recognize this bias, and see how it leads to differing reactions to artists who steadfastly engage in the feminine (like tori) or those who successfully trangress all notions of gender with polymorphous sexuality, such as madonna - even though that's even less valued "dance-pop," and a whole different discussion altogether

(x-post -- aw, shit Vic, this is one of the most interesting discussions on ILM in a while, and I really have to go, but it's tough not engaging your own thoughful post here.)

i think this is a misunderstanding on your part, and in my viiew momus wasn't doing that at all - he was (i think?) talking about how women are championed as such when they are like men, without mentioning his own standards of gender behavior

or maybe she just does it badly? i'm not in favor of giving artists points for their good intentions.

you make some interesting points, vic, but i don't think polly harvey and patti smith "masculinized" their sounds in order to appeal to male rock critics, i think they did it cos they wanted to sound that way, because they happened to respond to blues and rock. what's wrong with that? for that matter, i differ with the implication that we ought to respect female artists more when they stick to the sound and style traditionally associated with their gender than when they try to co-opt "male-associated" elements of rock like the guitar. i've heard this argument made in regard to riot grrrl, and i find it limiting and ridiculous. (not saying that you argued that; i was responding to what i felt momus had implied)

(Great posts from Vic Iodine here!)

I think my attitude on the feminism question is influenced by Asian attitudes. To illustrate: while I've been on this thread, my Japanese flatmate has been on the phone to a fashion company in Osaka. They were offering her a job. She told them she's already been offered a job by a female western designer in London. The Japanese woman then said 'Ah, she may be hard to work for. She is an 'absolute' person, not a 'relative' person.' What they meant was that the London designer has a reputation as stubborn, dominant, fesity, not a team player. This is a common Asian perception of western women. It's not that Asian women are 'submissive', but that all Asians are team players and like integrated societies rather than atomised societies. It's a waste of energy to fight everybody all the time, and Courtney knows it. Maybe.

according to momus, pj harvey perpetuates what he calls "a perversion of feminism which proposes that women should become selfish, aggressive, egocentric assholes just like men." i'd say his standards of gender behavior (for both genders) are pretty apparent in that remark. he's certainly not referring to some objective universal standard of behavior, since i doubt everyone in the world considers PJH to be an arrogant asshole.

di, hi!!! miss you!!!! and haha i always had the impression of polly being man-ly and manlike from day one, not only because she actually *sounds* like a man during her first three records at time, but because her energy, power, anger is expressed in a thunderous force that resonates with me on some terrain of "the masculine" (as opposed to, for example "you oughta know," or "blood roses" or "professional widow" or even half of live through this, but courtney is like her own special category, since she seems to be one of the few who actually *does* self-consciously appropriate rock mythology for her own ends and critical acclaim..its like she's a moot point)....that along with all the artwork from the early period of an angry, hairy polly, gave me the impression of manliness. plus, all of her menstruation songs - it seemed to imply a resentfulness almost at the act of the feminine cycle itself, instead of an embrace of it.

massive xpost

-- The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylure...)
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it's time for me to get new-agey as you knew i would - but hey, it's me. i think the question here has to do with _archtypes._ in most world cultures previous to the20th century, i don't think it would be a stretch to say that masculinity was associated with autonomy and independence, and femininity with nurturing and if not dependence, at least interdepence. this i s proven with how the Sun, the archtypal male symbol, was also representative of independence and individuality, whereas the female Moon was reflective and inclined to relating to others.

okay, sorry.!! back to our regularly scheduled momus bashing/programming...

i guess it just goes to prove that men do not have the monopoly on loudness, thunderousness, etc - which are being characterised here as masculine. if women can relate to that too, then perhaps they are HUMAN traits? and i dunno if you've noticed, but most women grow hair on their legs and under their armpits and some other places. some of them shave it off. therefore men do not have the monopoly on body hair either.

xpost. momus stop you're giving me a dry-on.

and i'm neither trying to reinforce nor deconstruct these gender norms here (though you know i'd be with you at the first moment to dissect them where appropriate) - i'm just observing them, and how they comeinto play here.

and yes they are inescapable, but we must remember that we are a composite of both forces of course, as both the sun and the moon are necessary, as the breath of life moves in and out of us (cheesy new-agey clincher you knew was coming!! )

see this is where we have to stop for a second - cos i can, in one sense see where you are coming from, vic. but just because PJ in some people's eyes, endorses a kind of masculinity and therefore plays into the hands of patriarchy - does not mean that she's inherently endorsing patrirachy. we're talking interpretation, and how people make use of their intrepretations. in other, equally valid lights, she could easily be read as a threat to patriarchy. (in any case, masculinity shouldn't really be equated with patriarchy).

and yeah that wasn't really aimed at you, more aimed at what i perceived as your defense of momus, who is i think coming at this argument with a very different agenda to you n me.

'Masculinity without men'. At first glance, I have to say that this looks like a classic example of 'me too'-ism; we don't need men to be men, we can do it better! Might this be a part of the universalising of masculine values and the erasure of feminine values?

Masculinity + power = patriarchy

'I learned that the most interesting masculinities are not male'

and

'Halberstam would have been much better served if she had included a fem perspective in her unabashed celebration of butch subjectivity'

why should halberstam address fem identity when so many other feminists have?

i think it's interesting to see how, for example, someone like karen o is also living upto rockcrit "fantasies" of the "rock-goddess" ideal, which is what many want her to be, in the hopes of making her a success to pjh

Well, I'm trying. On my new album I sing in a falsetto voice, ask Jesus to 'come back as a girl' and 'save the world without too much tomato ketchup', and call for an instant ban on foxhunting.

'The first record's maximized use of a minimal and brutal sonic palate of drums, guitar and feminist catharsis shone a light on the dearth of female rock presence and more importantly on a prodigious and unabashed new talent that shook up the music industry - over and underground. [...] Uh Huh Her, as its title indicates, strips the music of any superfluities and leaves only the voice and the songs. Harvey plays everything but the drums on every track and this intimate return to minimalism makes for some incredibly compelling bedroom music... A suit of songs both slight and bold emerge out of this delicate construction to create some of Harvey's most introspective and memorable work, combining the best of her previous investigations, while simultaneously returning to the vital and unadorned strength of her beginnings. [MC]'

All the stuff about PJ being 'unadorned' reminds me that I forgot to mention 'the Protestant ethic' as another thing that annoys me about PJ. This thing about 'stripping the music down to its bare, pure strength'. (I have 'catholic' and 'baroque' tastes myself. Clutter away! Surprise me!)

And to say that Polly shone a light on the dearth of female rock presence worries me. What, suddenly we realise that 'most women can't rock', but should?

i ask myself how you listen to music. do you first inform yourself about the political and aesthetical views of the artist before opening your ears?

i think there is good guitar and good electronic music, there is exciting avantgarde and boring avantgarde, there is good music by masculine and feminine women. you are full of prejudices and preconceptions how good artists should be (like you?). you are running around with blinders. you don't let the music grip you. it's all so rationalised. the exciting thing about music in my book is that it trespasses ratio, that it has a direct emotional appeal.

catholic/baroque and protestant/pure is another interesting dichotomy for sure. i am more of the protestant side but what is really important is the mix. there are no pure dichotomies like that.

I've just had an interesting thought. Rock became central and normative. It went from being a way of losing control (ripping up cinema seats!) to a way of maintaining control (rock is played as your Virgin Airlines flight taxis towards the runway). We're all supposed to be rockers now. Capitalism became 'rockitalism'. Tony Blair was in a band that sounded like the Rolling Stones! etc etc.

Now, look at all these PJ Harvey songs that rock hard, and say to men 'fuck you, who do you think you are?' They're songs of jubilant rejection. It's very much a celebration of female control. Men want me, and the future of humanity lies between my thighs, but I'm the one who gets to say who goes in there. Now, in the past, in traditional societies, a woman celebrating her power in this way might have demanded that a man love her, marry her, provide for her, become a stable and responsible member of society, etc. (This is the message of songs like Gwen Guthrie's 'Ain't Nothin' Goin' On But The Rent': 'You've got to have a J.O.B if you want to stay with me') But PJ Harvey is saying something different. Women are still central, still controlling reproduction while men merely control production -- but in a time when rock and its irresponsibility is central, PJ's message is 'You've got to be a party animal and rock like a fucker to get between my thighs'. It is part of the culture of compulsory, joyless post-protestant hedonism, of dogmatic dissolution. If rock is Law, women will use rock as the main criterion in their Trials of Hercules. Woe betide the Man Who Does Not Rock. He will not reproduce.

i really don't like your way of slagging off males. there are no males. we all have male and female parts in ourselves. yin and yang. you know. and rock isn't a male dominion. rock is just letting yourself loose, forgetting about all that brain stuff. having fun.