PJ Harvey - Stories From the City Stories From the Sea
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CD Details
Artist: PJ HarveyEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Published: 2000
CD Release Date: 2000-10-31
Music Label: Island
Product features:
- HARVEY PJ STORIES FROM THE CITY, STORIES FROM...
- Big Exit
- Good Fortune
- A Place Called Home
- One Line
- Beautiful Feeling
- The Whores Hustle and The Hustlers Whore
- This Mess We're In
- You Said Something
- Kamikaze
- This Is Love
- Horses In My Dreams
- We Float
Music reviews of Stories From the City Stories From the Sea
Music Review: The Beauty Of Urban City Life
Rating: 5 Stars
The fascination I have with female artists seems to know no bounds. From Madonna and Britney, to Bjork and Tori Amos, to Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush, I definitely prefer female music over that of the male. PJ Harvey is someone who I was not very familiar with, and had always avoided her music as I thought it was too rocky for my taste. However, I'm all about experimentation and at Christmas I bought her Mercury Music Prize-winning fifth album "Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea." I knew about the album years before I bought it; albums that win that kind of award become notoriously famous despite how many copies they sell. Such was the case with Polly.
At first I didn't like the music on this album very much, it was 'just okay' pop rock. However, I'd only listened to the first few songs and always skipped back to something more familiar. It's been six months since I bought the album, and I've listened to it many times since, coming to love almost every single song. This is a very clichéd statement, but this really is one of the best female singer-songwriter albums out there. I am compelled to delve further into the music of this artist, as I am with so many others. I'm sure I will be surprised and pleased.
The album opens with "Big Exit," which is ironically, a big opener. The guitar is very loud and catches your ear straight away, building like an enormous wall of water. Polly's vocal delivery is stunning, very powerful, as she shouts, screams and wails, desperately trying to compete with the enormity of the sheer sound. The quiet break down in the middle only serves as a reminder of the power of the song as it fires back up and she sings, "I walk on concrete, I walk on sand! But I can't find a safe place to stand!" The next song is "Good Fortune," a catchy mid-tempo pop rock song that actually has substance and isn't bland like a lot of crap out there. The verses are what make this song memorable, with Polly drawing out her lines. The sound of this song is just purely beautiful. Her voice is indescribable, I get more drawn in the more I listen to it. "A Place Called Home" is another amazing song, quite similar to the previous song. The keyboard and piano work on this song is of particular interest to me, especially towards the end, sinking through the guitars like a sun setting on the horizon. "One Line" is a slower song, but picks up pace as the song progresses. It's actually quite difficult to describe the sound of this song; sometimes I think it's very slow, then I listen to the guitar and I think, No, it's quite fast actually. Thom Yorke provides backing vocals on this song, adding a very sparse atmosphere to the soundscapes.
"Beautiful Feeling" is an incredibly dark but beautiful song. It's precisely four minutes long and features Yorke on backing vocals yet again. He adds something to this song that makes it so special, which along with the understated guitar softly playing away and Polly's passionate vocal delivery is just perfection. "The Whores Hustle And The Hustlers Whore" is one of my favourite songs on the album. It opens with amazing guitar work that is, right from the start, just a massive, colossal wall of sound. Imagine a wall of water in slow-motion and that's how I see it. Polly's vocal delivery is snarling, nasty and very powerful, enhanced by her high-pitched yelp just before the first chorus. Her operatic outro to the song reveals her as this Goddess-like figure possessed, very compelling. "This Mess We're In" is a duet with Thom Yorke. The two voices work very well in this song about the disintegration of a relationship. The musicianship is also one of the strongest on the entire album. The spoken bits at the end are the highlight for me. "You Said Something" is one of my personal favourites that I find myself singing a lot when I'm not actually listening to the album. I love the opening line, "On a rooftop in Brooklyn, at one in the morning, watching the lights flash, in Manhattan." As the listener want to know what this something is that the person has told PJ, but of course we never find out. The imagery of this song is very urban and representative of PJ's music at this point in her career. I love the city-life feel of it, it's quite refreshing.
"Kamikaze" is the shortest song on the album at just over two minutes long, but it's probably the rockiest thing on the entire thing. PJ gets a lot of words out in this song. The chorus is very high-powered and energetic, with high-pitched screeching - almost a hardcore Kate Bush for the 21st Century! "This Is Love," one of the album's three singles is one of the catchiest tracks on the album. The bass is quite dirty and ultimately very catchy. The vocal delivery is exposed, standing on its own. Polly has no shame singing loud and proud in these songs, and this is no exception. "Horses In My Dreams" is quite different to anything we've heard up until this point. It's also one of my favourite songs here. Very slow opening, takes its time to get going, but the piano work here is just incredibly beautiful. Polly's voice seems emotionally damaged which I think adds something raw to the song. "We Float" is another amazing song. At over six minutes long, it's an epic track, reinforced by the chorus where Polly draws out the line "We float!" over and over. It reminds me to take life easy, and not to get too stressed, which is a very important thing for me because I get too worked up sometimes!
OVERALL GRADE: 10/10
The UK version of the album includes a bonus track, "This Wicked Tongue." Overall this album is one to keep. I can imagine listening to this years from now and reminding myself of my teenage youth! The album features three UK singles, none of which made the Top 40 unfortunately. The album itself peaked at No.23 in the UK, despite all the hype and attention it received from the Mercury Music Prize. In America, the album debuted at No.42. Polly won the Mercury Award Prize for this album of September 11th 2001, and recorded her acceptance speech from a hotel window in New York as she watched the events unfold behind her. This only makes some of the music on this album more poignant in my opinion, especially "A Place Called Home," "Horses In My Dreams" and "We Float." Since buying this album I also bought "Uh-Huh Her," yet that album has still to grow on me. I am confident it will, though as much as this one I am not sure.
Description of Stories From the City Stories From the Sea
UK standard edition of the eagerly anticipated fifth album for the critically acclaimed, alternative singer/songwriter. Includes one bonus track, 'This Wicked Tongue'. 2000 release. Standard jewel case.She may not break new ground with Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, but Polly Jean Harvey proves one thing: she sure knows how to tend to her plot. Hard-rocking, guitar-driven numbers, mesmerizing vocal wordplay, and plenty of noisy atmospherics prove that Harvey is still the queen of rock-noir. --Jason Verlinde
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea--the sixth album from the most incendiary female British performer to emerge in the 1990s--is as powerful a record as any Polly Jean Harvey has made. Masterfully striking a balance between her blues-folk roots, avant-leanings, and soaring pop sensibility, it serves as a summary of Harvey's prior achievements. The abrasive, jagged guitars hark back to her fiery 1992 debut album, Dry, on the ballistic yet anthemic opener, "Big Exit," while the dreamy, opulent closer, "We Float," demonstrates her maturity as a songwriter. The clamor and emotional rush of a heady relationship--particularly on her duet with Thom Yorke, "This Mess We're In"--gives the album a ferocious clarity. The production skills of Mick Harvey (Nick Cave's Bad Seeds) lends depth and assurance. And, though PJ quotes from many influences--the Who, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, and even West Side Story--her indomitable presence shines throughout. Stories from the City is the work of a singular talent at the peak of her powers. --Gavin Martin
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