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

And if you're looking to crack the surface of what turns this girl named Polly Jean into the songs, sounds and ever-morphing images of PJ Harvey -- the things that may prove to be powerfully influential over her -- you won't find too many people she considers contemporaries.

“I do try and listen to what's happening in contemporary music, but there is very little that I get excited about,” she admits, without a hint of regret or an apologetic sigh -- it's just the way it is, as far as she's concerned. “I do tend to listen to older music rather than newer music. Having said that, a band that I always follow is a band called The Fall, from England. I do find that he's one of my favorite contemporary songwriters -- Mark E. Smith -- and their albums, the last run of them, the last three or four, have really been incredible. And they put out a couple of records a year, so it's always exciting to me that they're releasing new stuff. Other than them, there's very little I've been listening too lately.”

I'm the crank stuck outside the Tate railings protesting

That would make you stuck!

I'm fit and working again-ah!

Is that why all his teeth fell out?

"There won't be any future without rock" sounds equally ridiculuos as apodictic statement but is probably closer to the truth. People will always connect to the primal feelings expressed in rock. Rock has been there for 50 years or so (not counting the blues past)and has been declared dead hundreds of times. Whereas something newish like laptop music may well cease to exist tomorrow as other recent trends like techno already have more or less. They simply don't have the power and the urgency of rock. Playing identity games is so 1960s. On the long run people get bored with it and want the real thing. Andy Warhol was the future in the 60s but he is dead now.

EITHER

[b]Same Shit Different Arsehole[/b]

this is the pop music business model obviously. you give 'em the same catchy pap fronted by an ever-changing conveyor belt of young faces. witness cover version recyling, the stock in trade of breaking a new pop 'artiste'.

[b]Same Arsehole Different Shit[/b]

this is a more radiohead/U2 type of schtick. you've got to deliver the goods that your core fanbase want, at the same time as only [i]cosmetically[/i] altering what you really do. witness Achtung Baby, Joshua Tree with a few knobs on, sold to joe P as the new ironic post-modern U2 with artwork to match. actually that's unfair to radiohead, they have made actual musical changes over their lifespan.

so back to Peej. i must out myself right now as a HUGE fan, but i feel she's kinda treading water on this one. i can't listen to ITD front to back, but on some of those tracks the phasers are clearly set to 'Mindblowing' (Sky Lit Up, No Girl So Sweet etc). UHH sounds like a retread of old stuff but done in a slightly more palatable fashion. i dunno, i'm not feeling it. i expect a certain amount of [i]risk[/i] out of her - hell, Stories was so unexpectedly caution-to-the-wind melodic and poppy that it knocked me clean off my feet. no, it isn't her 'best' work, but you could still feel the decisions and the price it exacted from her. my bitching is testament to how high she's set the bar on previous outings.

on the plus side, the seagulls send me off into a deep and blissful sleep.

sorry for being a dreary pedant.

And we all know who this is, don't we Momusmatix?

Bobby Gillespie once said, in a rockist justification of his relevance despite being over 40, 'The young can't get it up like us and Iggy can'. So I'd paraphrase that and say 'The living can't get it up like Andy Warhol and Guy Debord can'.

by the way the blonde redhead album was a major disappointment imo. almost mainstream sounding. like a bland pop album.

This thread is bonkers. But anyway, I've listened to this a few times over the weekend and it's very, very god, isn't it?

very god? Begotten not created?

haha, yes and yes!

Hmmm. Damn my cold fingers.

i love this album.

"I have no time for anal love" still cracks me up