Is This Desire?

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French compilation certifications – PJ Harvey – Is This Desire" (in French). Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique. Oldham, James (22 September 1998). "PJ Harvey – Is This Desire?". NME. Archived from the original on 2 October 2000 . Retrieved 7 May 2016. Is This Desire? is particularly moving when it articulates how complicated desire affects women. The protagonist of “A Perfect Day Elise” witnesses the suicide of a beloved; “Catherine” is from the point of view of someone spurned by (and deeply jealous of) the titular character; “Joy” is consumed by “her own innocence” and feels so hopeless she’d rather go blind than remain in her current state. Is This Desire? (CD). PJ Harvey. Island Records. 1998. LC 0407. {{ cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) ( link)

Leah” proved a turning point. She began therapy while continuing to work on the record, and her growing understanding of herself crept onto Is This Desire?. She composed on a keyboard rather than her usual guitar, which affected her process: hunched over a small portable keyboard, she found herself writing “more thoughtfully.”You would describe On Battleship Hill’s keening vocal and folk-inspired melody as pastoral, but it is hardly a hymn to bucolic serenity: a walk through a former battlefield, unable to shake its lingering sense of death, troubled by the thought that, this time, human nature has irrevocably ruined nature itself. 16. C’mon Billy (1995) Thompson, Stephen (29 March 2002). "PJ Harvey: Is This Desire?". The A.V. Club . Retrieved 22 December 2015. In retrospect, it seems faintly amazing that To Bring You My Love was a commercial breakthrough: admittedly less confrontational than Rid of Me, it was still deeply uneasy listening, as evidenced by The Dancer, a stunning exercise in trembling tension, filled with dark religious imagery and references to opera. A love song, no less. 23. You Said Something (2000)

Harvey seldom records cover versions. Her fierce, Rid of Me-era take on Willie Dixon’s Wang Dang Doodle is pretty spectacular, but the best of them may be this agonisingly slow, utterly disconsolate version of the Peggy Lee standard: breaking out the booze and having a ball never sounded such a miserable prospect. 44. Taut (1996) One of the most important elements of this personal growth was Harvey deciding to be kinder to herself. “You come to a point where you have to allow yourself to like yourself a bit more,” she told The Times. “I used to feel I didn’t deserve it. That was always seeing the negative again. Now I have learned to say it’s all right to like yourself.” As for how she was able to get to this point, she cited age (“One develops a much larger perspective on life”) but also life’s vicissitudes. “There has been a lot of death around me, people I know. But there have been quite a few births around, too — friends of mine having children. That broadens your horizons. It has allowed me to see what is worth worrying about and what isn’t.” British album certifications – PJ Harvey – Is This Desire?". British Phonographic Industry . Retrieved 13 August 2018.She eventually got help from bandmate John Parish and video/art director Maria Mochnacz, who moved her into their basement. Harris, John (27 September 2007). "Songs of innocence and experience". The Guardian. Film & Music p. 10 . Retrieved 19 March 2009. Posted on 28 September 2007. a b Sheffield, Rob (15 October 1998). "Is This Desire?". Rolling Stone. No.797. Archived from the original on 12 November 2007 . Retrieved 28 June 2004. Harvey was at pains to suggest that Stories From the City … was not her “New York album”. For all its geographical references to Manhattan, You Said Something sounds weirdly British – there is a distinctly folky lilt to the guitars – making it the perfect summation of the album’s Englishwoman-abroad theme. 22. A Perfect Day Elise (1998) The PJ Harvey song that even people who find PJ Harvey too much seem to love, Down By the Water is still remarkably strong stuff: a song about a mother murdering her daughter, apparently for some sexual transgression, set to abrasive distorted organ, ending with a whispered, spine-chilling nursery rhyme. 1. Rid of Me (1993)