Classic Album Reviews, Pt. 10
Examining Desire and PJ Harvey
1998’s Is This Desire? Fills Me
“I hate myself for loving you.”
I know: that’s Joan Jett, but the line came to me as I was beginning here, because sometimes I do hate myself for not saving articles that say what I think, or that motivate me to consider what I previously hadn’t.
So somewhere, someplace, a music critic described Polly Jean Harvey’s work as “not for every taste” or some words to that effect. Not profound, I know, and weirdly understated even. Who to compare her to? I would have said Patti Smith, but Harvey herself, who apparently loves Smith, called such comparisons “lazy journalism” ( Ellie Bothwell (14 October 2011). “10 Things You Never Knew About PJ Harvey | Clash Music Exclusive General”. Clash.).
I suppose such a comparison occurs because of eccentricities associated with both artists — music that grates against convention or pleasantry. You know, I know, that not all sounds are or should be “pleasant.” And comparisons can make us lazy and stupid. People want to lump Nirvana and Pearl Jam, Sonic Youth and The Pixies, Paul Revere and the Raiders and the Monkees.
Maybe even Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw; Brahms, Bach, and Beethoven.
