PJ Harvey - The Hope Six Demolition Project (2016)

But anyway, I've not been put off by the discussion around the new album ad will be picking up the album later today. I thought it was pretty well accepted that Polly never sings as herself; she's said repeatedly in the past that all her songs are in character, and though she's obviously not giving interviews these days I've no reason to doubt that. So I'm looking forward to this, albeit with very minor reservations after loving LES dearly.

Uh Huh Her is worse than Stories, you'd be forgiven for forgetting that one even existed though. I'm not that keen on To Bring You My Love either but obviously that's canonical Polly for a lot of people.

uh huh her is a great album! and the perfect, perfect follow-up to stories, it was a great relief

I loved/love the first two so much that I was totally befuddled by how crazy people went over To Bring You My Love, though when she reinvented herself as this sort of crazy flamenco dancer confrontationist to tour behind it I thought it worked really well.

I can't remember a damn thing about Uh Huh Her and I've owned it for more than a decade. I can still remember pretty much all the songs on Stories.

just watched some clips of PH performing on the Uh huh her tour, and now I dimly remember that there were snide suggestions that she was trying look and act like Karen O, seeing as clearly the latter had been quite fond of the former…does anyone else remember that? now I see that in her band at the time she had the young man who's now in the RHCP and got into the suckass Rock Hall based on like 2 years in the band.

Say what you want about RHCP and the Rock Hall, but Josh Klinghoffer is pretty cool.

he's like a a pro dude! i would expect PJ Harvey would have pro dudes. what's wrong w.that?

i don't dislike stories but it really pales in comparison to the rest of her discography, i don't see how this is contrarianism

though it hasn't worn nearly as well as her early albums, i liked stories quite a bit at the time, and i always feel like i'm taking the contrarian position when i defend it

at the time, i thought stories just sounded kinda generic, which wasn't something you could accuse PJ of previously. but whenever i hear it, i like it a bit more than i expect.

If anything, if it sounds generic it may be because her lyrics are at the most straight-forward romantic/scared/honest/etc., at least to my ears. There's not a lot of obvious artifice/character playing. I find a lot of her albums to be almost intentionally alienating, a tendency of hers, off and on. "Stories" is the opposite of that. (For reference, I think something like To Bring You My Love is somewhere in the middle.)

From the Pitchfork review:

At Hope Six’s most thrilling points, Harvey delves back into the influence of her parents’ record collection to channel the swagger of Captain Beefheart, John Lee Hooker, and Howlin’ Wolf

Hoping this rings true to me when I listen to the album.

I find a lot of her albums to be almost intentionally alienating, a tendency of hers, off and on. "Stories" is the opposite of that.

this is why it's her worst!

I dunno. I found it honestly accessible (as opposed to a sell out move). I think a lot of her alienating stuff is bullshit. I rate her so highly as a singer, songwriter and musician that it bugs me when she works equally hard to undercut her strengths.

Hope Six’s most thrilling points, Harvey delves back into the influence of her parents’ record collection to channel the swagger of Captain Beefheart, John Lee Hooker, and Howlin’ Wolf

see I'm tired of these people and their influence.

stories has her least interesting singing, songwriting and arrangements though. literally all of her other albums take those qualities into more emotionally affecting and complex territory. and i don't think her "difficulty" comes at the expense of accessibility or listenability at any point - for all the "stories is her accessible move" i don't find its hooks or traditional songcraft at all superior to those on is this desire? or to bring you my love, or any of her other albums tbh.

Yeah, that makes sense, I guess. But I do think her difficulty is in some ways an affectation, and that it does come at the expense of her listeners. But then, I literally never listen to White Chalk, Uh Huh Her, Is This Desire? or either of her John Parish albums, which is a pretty huge chunk of work from one of my faves. In fact, I can't think of any other favorite act whose catalog I largely avoid. 10 albums, 5 of which I listen to lots, 5 of which I doubt I'll ever listen to again. And the new one.

i haven't listened to white chalk in a long time. that's a cool record. and i came late to it. didn't hear it when it came out. i don't know if i've ever heard uh huh her.

i also don't remember what is this desire? sounds like.

i think the only thing i remember not really liking was that duo album she did in the 90's.

and i'm still afraid that if i keep reading about the new one its somehow gonna magically take away from how much i loved LES. maybe i should stop reading about the new one...

white chalk is perfect listening when you're ill and feverish fyi

PJH fans who don't listen to is this desire? baffle me, it's her absolute pinnacle and she thinks so too

i should get a copy of is this desire? i don't have one. i should look for the old stuff i haven't heard for ages. would like to hear it again.

yeah, i think it's her best album too.

is this desire? is amazing. she played on pbs' sessions at w 54th around that time and just killed it.

i just looked in my stupid store and all i have is rid of me and i don't really need to hear that now. i've heard it so many times.

totally weird to me that anybody who rates her highly would not very much dig the two parish records. Dance hall's got her most magnificent singing…and Scott (I wanna come to your store; is it near great barrington? I'm going there this weekend), get thee to Is this desire with the quickness…contains my favorite thing she ever done…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XPkZwuUlKY

dance hall at louse point is also incredible yeah ("taut", holy shit), i always forget about the second parish collab though

i remember when Stories came out and i don't know if surprised is the right word but i was impressed that she was still making such solid records. and meanwhile 11 years later she puts out what is definitely one of my favorite records. that's hard to do! that's like 20 years of good stuff. until...

yeah it's funny that right now she's basically at the Empire Burlesque point in her career

i just haven't heard is this desire? since it came out. i remember liking it. maybe i should give the 90's collab album another try. i guess i just wanted more like the first three albums when i heard that back then.

it's frustrating to me that I've never been able to find a live version that approaches the dark majesty of that recording, but this is okay…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfFssEJfc7k

i named my dog after that song. here's a low quality rip of that sessions @ w 54th:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow3OS9pmYwg

oddly enough, I have never seen her speak until right now via some guardian video. Is she posh, Lex? I don't have much of a radar for UK class shit…

Perfect Day for Elise is the only song I can recall from that one. And maybe it was in a movie?

wouldn't ever call her posh but just solidly middle class west country farming stock i guess

tonight show appearance still one of the most awkward/uncomfortable moments i've ever witnessed on television. after she fired her band or whatever.

performance AND cringe interview with leno.

Listening with fresh (older) ears and yeah, still not feeling "Is This Desire?" Don't like the production/playing/songs that much, and I forgot about all the grungy trip-hop elements. But yeah, "Elise" is still great.

it's a good record with great highlights, but by no means the apex of her career

it's the sonic consistency and immersive quality of Stories that has worn really well for me. It wasn't my favorite PJH record when it came out (To Bring You My Love was) but it's the one I most enjoy returning to at this point

Yeah, going straight from "Is This Desire?" to "Stories" on the stereo just now is like going from black and white (and sepia and grey) to Technicolor.

I think her vocals on tracks like "Big Exit" (when she goes low and growly) and "Kamikaze" (when she goes high) are just so awesome and energized. The show behind this album here (when she was stuck in the US immediately post 9/11, iirc) was incredible, especially given the coincidental themes and overtones of the album.

I still adore about half of SFTC, but much of the contemporary criticism sounded relieved at her accessibility.

The first half of ITD? is the strongest of her career imo.

I don't recall reviews relieved at her accessibility, but maybe your memory is better than mine. I remember it being described as her "in love" album or whatever, which I suppose by default is accessible.

I always assumed a lot of the high praise for "Is This Desire?" came from it being the first new album of hers people heard after getting introduced to her by "To Bring You My Love."

Male critics love it when female (and male) artists Find Love.

I think everyone generally loves that. But when I first heard it, the very first listen (which I remember, on the train, with a CD walkman and an early advance of the album) I thought it was so, so dark. Like "Tunnel of Love" or something, an album about love and being in love but totally cloaked in shadow and doubt.

"Beautiful Feeling" nails that.

I haven't been paying attention to the lyrics on THSDP so I haven't had any cringe moments; I'm enjoying how these songs immensely.

"Male critics love it when female (and male) artists Find Love."

i did not know this! i thought they liked it when people were pissed off.

misery's cool until it actually makes you feel uncomfortable or alienated

Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea [Island, 2000]
If Nirvana and Robert Johnson are rock's essence for you, so's To Bring You My Love. But if you believe the Beatles and George Clinton had more to say in the end, this could be the first PJ album you adore as well as admire. It's a question of whether you use music to face your demons or to vault right over them. Either way the demons will be there, of course, and nobody's claiming they won't catch you by the ankle and bring you down sometime--or that facing them doesn't give you a shot at running them the fuck over. Maybe that's how Harvey got to where she could enjoy the fruits of her own genius and sexuality. Or maybe she just met the right guy. Tempos and pudendum juiced, she feels the world ending and feels immortal on the very first track. The other 11 songs she takes from there. A+

I know it's impolite to put it this way, but sometimes getting laid can really be good for a person. On the recorded evidence--with no claim to any lowdown on Polly Jean Harvey's actual private life, a mystery as closely guarded as the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein and the formula for Coke--that's the secret of PJ Harvey's Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea, which even she allows is the happiest-sounding album she's ever made. What she daren't suggest is that it may also be the best.
The shift is first apparent in the music, which is, not to beat around the bush, fast. Way more easeful than the tightly wound, dynamically extreme bluesism of the career-launching Dry and Rid of Me, it's also way livelier than 1995's critical triumph To Bring You My Love, where Harvey's desperate carnality took a sharply metaphysical turn, and 1998's rhetorical question Is This Desire?, the answer to which was maybe. While her austere sonic signature remains, the vocals are discernibly more relaxed, the tunes welcoming and even expansive. Listen for shadings on the guitar attack, too--piano, organ, marimba, is that bandoneon? The album's an up from the first strums of "Big Exit," unquestionably the most rousing opener of her career.

Granted, maybe you'll smell shtick even so--our Polly, getting archetypal with the elementals again. After all, "Big Exit" does meditate painfully on human suffering. But the song's aesthetic thrust is all in the two lines of euphoria her ruminations try to rationalize away: "I'm immortal/When I'm with you." That's why it's so rousing. As she reports in the redolently titled "This Is Love": "I can't believe that the axis turns/On suffering when you taste so good." Long blessed with uncommon talent and success, Harvey can finally accept her "bad fortune slipping away."

Harvey has always been sex-obsessed. But there are better things to do with sex than obsess about it--enjoy it, for instance. And though the love affair the album describes or invents may end badly--e.g., the furious "Kamikaze," or the lovely "The Mess We're In," sung mostly by Radiohead's Thom Yorke--at least it sounds like a true affair, rather more full-bodied than "Robert DeNiro, sit on my face." Harvey and her beau ideal dance and get drunk, walk through Little Italy and sit looking at the skyline from a Brooklyn rooftop. Maybe they'll fulfill the dream of the finale: "But one day/We'll float/Take life as it comes." Or maybe she'll attain that state of grace with someone else. Whatever happens, this album will be there to remind her how happiness feels.

Rolling Stone, Nov. 9, 2000

no trolling RS reviews! too late...