153. PJ Harvey, "Rid of Me"

 


Oh dear, I'm afraid we have another Sonic Youth situation on our hands by which I mean I'm absolutely sure this is a great album but I just do not like it that much.  I have been trying to like both sushi and PJ Harvey since the 90s and have finally just resigned myself to the fact that it's never going to happen for either one.

Believe it or not, this is the second record we've had that was produced by Steve Albini at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota (the other one being In Utero).  Albini was, and is, famous for a few things, one of them being wide shifts in sound dynamics - or, if I wasn't a pretentious twat, going quiet LOUD quiet - and his resolute opposition to compressing records to sound louder, both of which are on display here.  The album starts with a quiet strumming, and then you can kind of tell there's a song building, and then there's some very quiet vocals, and then around 2:10 it comes BLASTING at you and then gets quiet again.  It's a big surprise if you're wearing earbuds, let me tell you!

That song, "Rid of Me," nicely sets the tone for the album.  The music is aggressive, angry, uncompromising, and the lyrics seem somehow sexual and disturbing and maybe uncomfortably frank.  From "Rub 'Til It Bleeds":

Speak, I'm listening
Baby, I'm your sweet thing
Believe what I'm saying
God's truth, I'm not lying
I lie steady
Rest your head on me
I'll smooth it nicely
Rub it better 'till it bleeds

Another song, "Missed," is popularly believed to be about Mary, Queen of Scots:

Mary lost her head
And let it bleed
Came crying back to me
"My son where's he hid?
Don't deny it
And don't you hide him"
No I've missed him

So here's the thing.  I appreciate what went into these songs and their power and energy, but, on the whole, I just don't particularly enjoy listening to them.  Two exceptions: "50ft Queenie" and "Yuri-G," back to back tracks mid-album and, not surprisingly, two of the more "conventionally" structured songs.  "Queenie" is a blast of post-punk energy, and "Yuri-G" is a straight-up rocker.  See?  I'm not a total philistine.

One thing I really noticed this time through was how big an influence this obviously was on Sleater-Kinney.  Was this really obvious all along?  

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? I'm sure it does.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

103. De La Soul, "Three Feet High And Rising"

Image
  Sorry for the service interruption!  Monday I had, like, work stuff to do and yesterday I was picking my wife up at the airport and they lost her bag and we had to file a claim about that and by the time I got home it was well into my Work Hours and you know, I'm just sorry.  (This was tail end of quite a journey for my wife that found her taking off in Ireland and landing in Newark, New Jersey, and then sitting in a plane for almost three hours and then the flight just getting cancelled and then staying in the Courtyard by Marriott in downtown Newark, NJ [not recommended, she says] and then getting on a flight to SFO at 6:30 am and finally getting back here a solid 14 hours later than expected.) Speaking of the greater New York City metropolitan area, a group of kids from Amityville, Long Island, got together in 1988 and started making songs and released this album, one of the best in hip hop or any other genre, in 1989.  De La have been called the "Beatles of hip hop"
Read more

3. Joni Mitchell, "Blue"

Image
  Do you want the good news or the meh news first?  The good news is that this album is better than the other Joni Mitchell albums we've seen , or at least better for me.  I hated one of them and barely tolerated the other, so I was not expecting to like this, and after three listens yesterday, it was not as bad as I'd feared it would be.  The meh news?  I still don't love Joni Mitchell and I don't particularly like this album. Obviously, since it's the number 3 out of the Top 500 albums ever made, a lot of people feel differently.  Pitchfork called it "possibly the most gutting break-up album ever made," which may be true, who knows, but if it is it's about breaking up with a whole series of dudes, from Graham Nash to James Taylor to some guy named Carey.  (In Pitchfork's estimation, this is the 86th best album of the 1970s, so not exactly in number 3 overall territory). One thing that bugs me is Joni Mitchell's voice, which I find kind of g
Read more

1. Marvin Gaye, "What’s Going On"

Image
  500 albums later and we're out of albums.  This album was number 6 on the last iteration of the Rolling Stone list and has now moved up to number 1 (displacing Sgt. Pepper , which was the last album to hold that spot).  I think it's a lovely album with maybe three absolutely incredible songs, a fair amount of average-to-good, and some not great songs.  I'm not a voter and will never be a voter but I just don't think this is the best album of all time. In fact, I would be perfectly fine with this list if they just sawed off the top 3 and left the rest as is: 1. Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life 2. Beatles, Abbey Road 3. Nirvana, Nevermind 4. Fleetwood Mac, Rumours And so forth.  But let's take this album on its own merits. The first of the three absolute bangers is the title track, "What's Going On," the scene-setter for the rest of the album, a loose concept album that's told from the point of view of a Vietnam vet returning to a country th
Read more