PJ Harvey is back! I love this lady like no other. I really get so excited every time she has a new album. She never stops impressing me and all her albums are so different but they are all uniquely PJ and they are all uniquely brilliant. This new album again switches things up and you might not like it at first but you can never go into a new PJ Harvey album expecting it to sound like any of her older albums. Dry and Rid Of Me remain two of my two favorite albums of all time and I would love to have those albums come out all over again but she has already done that. She doesn't need to go back and recreate the same style or energy she was working with back then. If you want those albums again then just go back and listen to them again! Her new album is called Let England Shake. It deals with some dark stuff, but remember, this is still PJ Harvey. The album deals mostly with war and fighting but not just in England, and it is a beautiful album at the same time. The album is what you make it. I am so happy she continues to impress me and make one great album one after the other.
PJ Harvey got her start way back in 1992 with her brilliant debut Dry. It came out in the beginning of summer, just weeks after I graduated from high school. As soon as one of my best friends played me the cassette in her car...I was in love. I think we all needed this album in our lives. It came at the perfect time for me. "Oh My Lover," "Dress," Sheela-Na-Gig," "Plants & Rags," "O Stella," & "Hair" are all on this album. I actually love every single song. It is one of those records that stands up almost 20 years later! I can't really even believe it has been that long. The album was dark and weird, powerful and full of this crazy energy. She seemed to just come out of nowhere. Other than Siouxsie, I really didn't love a whole lot of female musicians at the time. I
needed some more in my life for sure. Little Earthquakes by Tori Amos had come out earlier that year. Debut by Bjork was right around the corner. Rid of Me came out the following year, in May of 1993. I was so excited to check out her second album -- I really had probably listened to Dry hundreds of times already at that point. Rid Of Me was perfect. It was even louder and more aggressive than Dry. I am sure it was not exactly the album that her label wanted her to make but it was another brilliant album and I couldn't get enough. The album featured "50ft Queenie," "Man Size," "Rid of Me," "Legs," & "Yuri-G." I actually didn't get around to seeing her live until her third album. I regret to this day that I didn't see those first two tours!
why The Faint was his backing band during his Coachella performance in 2005!"
he Faint for a couple of years. I had heard about them and knew some of my friends were fans but just had not gotten around to listening to them yet. I was going through a big R & B phase in my life at the time, so indie rock was not as much of a priority. I was intrigued as soon as I found out that The Faint were using keyboards and sort of adopting a more synthy sound. My first Faint album was actually their third album, Danse Macabre. A friend of mine gave me the record for my birthday. It was actually just a couple of months before I made the first big move back to Los Angeles. He told me that he knew I would love it, and I fell in love with the album, as did many of us. Sort of like with the Teaches of Peaches album by Peaches, I became obsessed. The album just seemed to take over many peoples lives. I couldn't stop listening to it, it was so good. It was one of those albums that I was so glad to have discovered. I was just so glad that it existed.
