PJ Harvey - Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea [2000]

Big Exit

This Is Love

I was so disappointed with this album when it was released, I've grown to like it a lot, maybe more than I ever thought I would.

It is different cause her image for the first time is very sexy rocker, as the songs are too.............i love this album every track is a banger....my favourite right now A place called home, but also check the whole album, not a single filler

It's a lot worse than the previous ones, is my opinion. Maybe I should listen to it again but life's too short.

Not worse really, just more generic and not as inspired.

I loved her in Carrie, Halloween and private Benjamin

After Rid Of Me & Dry, it's one of her albums I listen to most often. I think it's her easiest album on the ear, and her most enjoyable album esp for driving. Right now though I'n rediscovering Uh Huh Her, Shame is brilliant and of course The Desperate Kingdom Of Love, I forgot how staggering that song is.

The Desperate Kingdom Of Love .

I like this duet she did with Nick Cave.

It sounds like something Edgar Allan Poe would've written if he's been a composer.

A Place Called Home

I love her.

I love this album. (Honestly though, I love all of her albums.)

"Beautiful Feeling" is a gorgeous song. And it's lyrics read like poetry.

This was made when she lived in NYC temporarily. She has admitted it’s her most “pop” album, though I’m not sure how intentional that was (this era was really the death of indie music for a while). From this album onwards she’s made it a point to make each album very different from the next.

The mid 90s was my favorite era of hers. She’s not a musician I listen to every day (I’m more of a Nick Cave girl), but I was lucky enough to see her front row on her last tour and she was incredible.

Kamikaze

PJ Harvey 2001-09-8 Beautiful Feeling

This is my favorite PJ album. Every track is perfect.

Horses In My Dreams

Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea is still an excellent album. Period.

Bump.

Does she have a gay following? Say like Tori Amos or even Bjork to a certain extent. I'm sure she does, To Bring You My Love period was dark cabaret camp.

She wanted to make some money, and why not. It's not her finest hour. I adore her.

Classic performance here. Dressed as Emily Dickinson, singing a lullaby to the child she could have had with Nick Cave, but aborted.

[quote]This was made when she lived in NYC temporarily.

She was living with Vincent Gallo then.

Cave besotted with her

[R24], allow me to introduce you to [R9]!

Agh I'm sure we would be the best of friends R25

[R26] We both have good taste in PJ music.

Beautiful album, her most polished, but I prefer the much more raw “Rid Of Me” still my favorite PJ album to date. My favorite tracks off this album are “Horses in My Dreams, We Float, Big Exit, A Place Called Home, Beautiful Feeling and the song with Thom Yorke , The mess we’re in. I think this is my second favorite PJ album, third favorite would be Is this Desire? Forth would be Dry and fifth would be to bring you my Love, although I own and love all of her albums including B sides and her two with John Parish. Uh Huh Her took me the longest to get into.

I'm looking at my IPOD playlist. I guess these 7 are my favorites:

A Perfect Day, Elise

Down By The Water

Dress

Harder

Henry Lee

Kamikaze

Urn With Dead Flowers

Are there any fans of the "Urn" song? I've never met any other PJ fans who even heard of it.

Love A place called home

My favorite song on there is called "One Line."

Nick Cave's West County Girl is about Polly.

Jean Louis Murat' Polly Jean is also about her.

PJ Harvey live at the Gurtenfestival [July 15, 2001]

Rob Ellis interview [The Trap Set}

Bump this thread.

It's not my favourite either, although I like how much it reflects the time period. Some great tracks, certainly her easiest on the ear, but something a bit too polished and jangly about it. Certainly a lot more 'fun' than her other albums though (with the possible exception of the more mischievous tracks on To Bring You My Love). And her voice was in fine form. Very anthemic.

I agree with you, r37.

You Said Something [live on the David Letterman show]

i love this album, i prefer this "pop-rock" version of hers, her other work gets too dark and moody for me after a while.

Thank you, r39. That’s my favorite song on the album and I’d never seen that clip before. She sounded fantastic.

I love that PJ appears to be a, quote, "DL favorite" -- lots of threads for her on here. OP, sometimes, the first cut is the deepest. This was the first PJ album I owned as a teenager. I was a huge Radiohead fan and so, This Mess We're In, was my "in" too the world of PJ. It probably remains my favorite album of hers. I think her most consistent album -- as others have said, not a shred of filler.

I think, inevitably, 9/11 gave the album some additional weight. She won the Mercury Prize for the album on September 11, 2001, while she was in Washington DC from where she could witness the attack on the Pentagon.

It's hard not to hear that album and think of NYC immediately before and after 9/11. And, before 9/11 became politically weaponized by the right.

This isn't the All About Eve play, right?

We Float

What sets it apart? It's pretty obvious. The fact that it's polished and happy. And that's about it. Maybe she was in a good relationship at the time. I would say it's her second best album, next to Rid of Me.

At least PJ Harvey did not repeat herself with another "Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea' type of album when she put out "Uh Huh Her" in 2004.

I remember the day it came out, waiting outside of Tower for it to open, I was to eager to get it. I think I was the first person to buy it.

PJ definitely looked like a rocker chick at that time period of 2000-2001. She was so badass that you could not believe it. PJ had evolved as an artist by then. I do have to say that most of her fans thought she went off the deep end when she put out White Chalk, Let England Shake and The Hope Six Demolition Project.

You're now speaking for most of her fans, R48? Okay, I'll admit White Chalk isn't a favorite, but Let England Shake was brilliant, critically acclaimed, seemed to sell decently for a female singer-songwriter in the 2010s and earned her her second Mercury Prize.

Ugh I love her

Her music is so sad and boring. At least Kylie makes me want to dance!

I like Stories but it doesn't have anywhere near the power of her earlier albums, like Dry and Rid Of Me. I remember she opened her Uh Huh Her tour with Dress (my favorite PJ song) and I could have died happy right then.

I love her earlier stuff as well, r52.

Stories was probably one of her most accessible albums. It definitely did have that sort of Patti Smith feel to it.

It's one of my favorites, but I also loved some of her earlier stuff, too. And I love the two albums she did with John Parish.

I feel bad, but I haven't been able to get into much of her stuff after Stories. White Chalk was the only album I got into after Stories. Not a fan of Uh Huh Her (rehash) or the last two, which feel dry and lecture-y.

LICK MAH LEGS!

There was a slight Chrissie Hynde influence in PJ Harvey's rhythm guitar playing.

I think PJ's issue became her dislike for the actual recording process, around the time of UH HUH HER she expressed her problems with it and never wanting to make a traditional studio album again, so I think that's why her music around this point changed.

It's sorta similar to Tori Amos, who has spent the last twenty years locked in her home recording studio working exclusively with her husband, which has resulted in a stagnation of her sound.

I agree with you all the way, r57,

With Polly Jean it felt at a point like her work stopped being more rooted in personal experience and was more her commentary on things.

Which is always a dangerous road to go down......it can work well if you're witty, but it can also come across as limousine liberal BS. As much of Hope Six did.

I agree with you, r59.

Due to the fact there was a controversy behind one of the songs from Hope Six called 'The Community Of Hope.' A lot of folks were mad at Polly Jean for that.

R60 Yeah, she was commenting on a place she'd been for all of a few days.

It's also hard when you get to this stage of any career to find new things to write about, talk about.

PJ, Joni Mitchell, Annie Lennox all went into the political/activist realm.

Bjork wrote about her breakup and has gone in an increasingly non-linear direction, mixing with art and visuals.

We can't expect our heroes and heroines to make the same album over and over, but we do. Liz Phair has been shellacked for 25 years, basically for the sin of not making Exile in Guyville II or III.

Exactly, r61.

I think though there comes a pointy when going back to the studio traditional record works really well, for instance the great Kristin Hersh has spent the last few years mixing music with books, but for her last album, Possible Dust Clouds, released in October she went back to the traditional album structure which resulted in one of her best albums in years.

So I think Amos would benefit greatly from record outside her home studio, with a producer and working with a new set of people, And Pj's last song, An Acre of Land for the film Dark River a trad folk song abandoning the political was beautiful. Her voice seemed reinvigorated and the purest I've heard it for a long time.

Great point, r63.

PJ Harvey said something about songwriting. For her it is getting a lot harder as time goes on. I believe she is in another writers' block.

I think Hope 6 could have worked better if Polly worked with a journalist on the lyrics, as they are they are very one dimensional and almost amateurish. Had she worked with someone who could have drawn out the deep level complexities of worn torn countries collaborating with her on the lyrics, it could have been a very special album, but it's almost too basic, songs like Near the Memorials to Vietnam and Lincoln, The Community of Hope and he Orange Monkey are just say what you see, only on Dollar Dollar, where she direct communication and personally falls into the situation of these communities, that we get a glimpse of the possibilities that could have been.

The Falling [One of PJ Harvey's B Side songs]

I was kind of surprised on her last tour that she did not play guitar onstage at all except for the saxophone.

PJ HARVEY - Big Exit [False Start] (Werchter Festival 2001)

Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea EPK, Part 1

Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea EPK, Part 2

Enraged PJ Harvey Fans Complain Show Was Too Popular, Demand Refunds

PJ Harvey must be closing her touring company.

she bores me. I prefer Patti Smith or Patty Smyth.

In what way, r74?

Bump this page.

I love PJ but I have to say Scout Niblett is the most intense live performer I've ever witnessed. I've never understood why she isn't more well know in her native England.

She also has a very cool sense of humor.

This Is Love [Live on Jay Leno Show - 2001]

PJ Harvey - This Is Love (Mercury Prize 2001) + INTERVIEW

What did Patti Smith thought of PJ Harvey?

DID? Patti's still with us... I hope?

PJ Harvey - Yahoo Music Exclusive 2001

I'm always going to love her. She was my girl during the 90s. I think that SFTC, SFTS is a gorgeous album and I do love it. Just listening to her voice on We Float is enough to make is a classic. Perhaps not as gritty as some of her previous works, but its still soulful in its own way. I don't think there's one track on there I don't adore. Rid Of Me is probably up there as her best but I really loved 4-Track Demos which never gets mentioned. Hardly Wait sends me into the stratosphere. Love the spare choices on some of her Rid Of Me songs. Her work with Albini is just crunchier. Ecstasy is also absolutely gorgeous on here.

She is one of those artists that in the future she'll be regarded in the same way Dylan and Mitchell are now.

I don't know about that, R85. Maybe in the UK. And I say that as someone who LOVES her. I think much of her work IS as good as the work of Dylan and Mitchell, but I'm not sure if anyone of it has or will have the INFLUENCE of either of theirs.

Which, I don't really care about when I'm listening to the music, but when it comes to the historical record, I think she'll primarily remembered just by her fans, not the general and broader culture.

Great points, r85 & r86.

You Said Something

Fuck.... you’re back again? I can’t wait until you die so I don’t have to read you’re shitty 90’s shit singer threads. Tori sucks too.

Bugger off, r89

Rock on, PJ Harvey

We've all said our piece, you don't have to keep bumping your own thread....

Thank you, r92.

This is a review of SFTC SFTS from Rolling Stone magazine in 2000.

I do hope PJ Harvey makes another rock record before she retires from the industry.

Sadly I think it'll be a long time before she even makes another record. 5/6 year gaps seem to be the norm, maybe the duration between albums will become longer as she gets older.

I agree with you, r96.

PJ Harvey - This Mess We're In (Solo Vocals Version) This is the version of 'This Mess We're In' that Harvey had created before the addition of Thom Yorke's lead vocals. A fan of his voice, she wrote this song with the Radiohead frontman in mind, feeling very strongly that it "had to be sung by a man". *Yorke also contributed backing vocals and keyboards to two other tracks from the album.

Pj is a badass, y'all

Bump.

PJ Harvey - Good Fortune [live]

PJ Harvey - A Place Called Home

PJ Harvey - Gurtenfestival 2001

PJ Harvey on River Music Hall - 2001 (Audio)

Review: PJ Harvey, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea

OP, have you even listened to the album? It's her first and perhaps ONLY cd that is HAPPY. I think this album and Rid of Me are (ironically) her two best albums. The others are good or very good.

Yes, r106.

Just to let you know. It still holds up. Next?