Is This Desire?

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And essentially, this is why I rank this album higher than any of her preceding or subsequent ones; there are just too many emotional stories and secrets waiting to be unraveled, all of which incredibly significant in their individual compelling ways, and in some ways, even entwined.

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) RPM Top 100 CDs – November 16, 1998" (PDF). RPM. Library and Archives Canada . Retrieved 23 June 2012. British album certifications – PJ Harvey – Is This Desire?". British Phonographic Industry . Retrieved 13 August 2018. 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)RPM Alternative 30 – November 2, 1998" (PDF). RPM. Library and Archives Canada . Retrieved 23 June 2012.

Is This Desire? was a thorny, troubled album, made at a time when worrying rumours circulated about Harvey’s mental health. Angelene doesn’t sound like the work of someone in a good place, but there’s a hint of optimism – “I’ve heard there’s joy untold” – mirrored by a chorus delightfully at odds with the mood of brooding weariness. 7. The Desperate Kingdom of Love (2004) Woodhouse, Alan (12 September 2005). "PJ Harvey: London Shepherd's Bush Empire". NME . Retrieved 22 December 2015. She went into therapy and, at some point, also moved into the basement flat of a house owned by her bandmate and collaborator John Parish, and video and art director Maria Mochnacz. The gesture represented more than just goodwill: “They basically saved me,” Harvey admitted to The Observer. “I needed to be rescued, and I was.” She recalled writing songs for Is This Desire? in this subterranean space, which was dark and cloistered, and focused on the demos her flatmates liked the most. Christgau, Robert (15 December 1998). "Consumer Guide". The Village Voice . Retrieved 15 November 2011. Harvey spoke about the making of the album in an interview with Filter magazine in 2004, indicating it was the project of which, to date, she was proudest. "Again working with Flood, again trying to find new ground, but a particularly difficult time in my life. So, it was a very, very difficult, difficult record to make and still one I find very difficult to listen to, but probably my favorite record that I've made because it had a lot of guts. I mean, I was making extremely difficult music, experimenting with techniques I hadn't used before and not really caring what other people thought about it. I'm quite proud of that one." She also told The Telegraph, "I do think Is This Desire? is the best record I ever made—maybe ever will make—and I feel that that was probably the highlight of my career. I gave 100 per cent of myself to that record. Maybe that was detrimental to my health at the same time."This Mess We’re In is a fabulous song – beautifully muted, the music evokes dusk settling on a city – but even if it wasn’t, it would make it on to this list by dint of requiring guest vocalist Thom Yorke to sing the line “Night and day I dream of makin’ love to you now, baby”. 41 Send His Love to Me (1995) Never big on lyrical explication, Harvey has always complained that people tend to project her personal life on to songs that she approaches like a short story writer, something evident from Send His Love to Me’s saga of an abandoned wife going slowly nuts in her remote desert home. 40. The Wind (1998) 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.

Oldham, James (22 September 1998). "PJ Harvey – Is This Desire?". NME. Archived from the original on 2 October 2000 . Retrieved 7 May 2016. Vowell, Sarah (November 1998). "PJ Harvey: Is This Desire?". Spin. 14 (11): 138 . Retrieved 21 October 2011. The main character in Working For the Man could, theoretically be a travelling salesman with religious leanings, but it seems considerably more likely he’s a serial killer: certainly, the murmured, close-mic’d vocal and skulking spookiness of the music – not to mention its abrupt ending – suggest something very unpleasant indeed. 29. Oh My Lover (1992)

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) dawn is nervous about her relations with joe (again, the romantic idea that women wish to civilize men and their feelings.). as lord pembroke said, dawn becomes nervous when they go to the forest. she's not as willing to embrace her carnal desire for joe, but she was willing enough to go to the forest in the first place. dawn tries to distract joe by building a fire with him. perhaps the building of a fire represents that she wants her feelings for joe to build up to the point where they're flaming with passion. her fire had been cooled once they arrived in the woods, meaning that she was passionate and willing until she was actually in the situation. she needs things to be heated up again before she goes all out. i assume that dawn is a virgin, because she's young and nervous about the concept of sex. Perhaps because she didn’t shy away from anger or sexuality — and was a young woman expressing anger, at that — her persona was scrutinized more closely. “On the first couple of albums, I was finding a voice for the first time to say an awful lot of stuff that was stored up inside me,” Harvey told The Times in 1999. “I was very young and confused, so yes, those early albums are very angry. I was exploring that and finding a way to express it, and thought there is joy and a vibrant energy there, too. But you get categorized and it becomes rigid, and it doesn’t allow you space to develop and grow.”