20 YEARS GONE: PJ HARVEY'S "TO BRING YOU MY LOVE"

When PJ Harvey released To Bring You My Love in 1995 -- 20 years ago this week, actually -- it blew minds. PJ's first two albums, 1992's Dry and 1993's Rid Of Me, were classics, but were really different from album #3.

 PJ never really seemed to care about what was "in" -- happily, she does not worry about the "zeitgeist" -- but her first two albums fit in with the low-fi indie punk sound that was really dominating college rock/"alternative" music in the early '90s. She produced Dry on her own, and Steve Albini "recorded" Rid Of Me, and both were very raw and brutal.

When it was first released, To Bring You My Love reminded me a bit of U2's Achtung Baby on a few levels. Like that album, it is completely different from what came before it. And like that album, you can sit and listen and try and figure out how the sounds you are hearing are being made. Are they from "live" instruments, or something else? Both albums are also a complete cycle of songs. And both were made the with help of the man named Flood. (I think that both artists were managed by Paul McGuinness at the time, so that may not be surprising.)

How different was To Bring You My Love from Rid of Me? Well, "50 Ft Queenie" was from Rid of Me.

To Bring You My Love introduced itself with "Down By The Water."

The sound is different, the look is different, everything has changed. PJ Harvey is a great guitar player, but she wasn't playing guitar here; that didn't fit in to the character she'd designed for herself, sort of a furious torch singer. Whereas she used to look like she shopped at thrift shops like many other underground rockers of the '90s, now she was wearing silk dresses and looking pretty glam.

I thought, and still think, it is that it was a classic blues record. I don't know who else felt that way. It was 1995, and blues was it's own niche. Blues in 1995 was Buddy Guy, Otis Rush, Clapton, et al. I'm sure that few of the people listening to blues music in '95 were checking out PJ Harvey. But I feel like this album captured the haunting essence of the blues, and brought it to a new place, in a way that few other artists have been able to do since the '60s.

And don't get me wrong, I am always happy for artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Gary Clark Jr. who have a real reverence for the original blues, and play it pretty straight (albeit with much more distortion on their guitars) make a big splash and turn younger fans onto the blues. I think it's important and awesome to preserve it in something resembling it's original form(s).

But the thing that excited me about PJ's album -- one of the things that excited me -- was that this sounded like a haunted blues album, something Muddy Waters may have done before Chess, maybe something Howlin' Wolf would have done once upon a time. More than that, it reminds me of Robert Johnson, far more than (with all due respect) the Eric Claptons of the world do. There's a lot of heartbreak, death and revenge on this album. The guitar solos aren't the point here. It's the creepy, intimidating vibe. It's not an R&B version of the blues, it's not joyous. It's about a sorrow that will never go away.

The album came out at the right time. Back then, everyone was trying to be on top of whatever the new, cool new artist was, and PJ was actually having her (cough) zeitgeist moment. Everyone knew who she was, there was a lot of anticipation for her album, and the first single, "Down By The  Water," ended up being a hit, relatively speaking, getting on MTV and I think even on the radio. For some reason, it shocked me that there was a PJ Harvey song that everyone seemed to know. I always thought she'd be like a secret, cult artist, and now everyone seemed to know who she was. That happened a lot during that time period, which I thought was a very cool thing. It was an era where the coolest music actually had a chance to be the most popular. Without pandering. Which is kind of the opposite of our current era, where "relevance" = a combination of social media following and impressions in the news cycle.

Every song is amazing. "To Bring You My Love" is one of the best opening tracks for an album, "The Dancer" is one of the best closers, and everything between works, and it works in the order it is in. "Down By The Water" is the seventh out of ten songs, I think it's rare for a single to come that late in the track list. But it works perfectly there. Every song is where it belongs.

These days, PJ has gone back to cult status, and seems happy with that. She may not be the artist the media is obsessed with, but she's the only artist to win England's Mercury Music Prize twice. She has kept making mostly amazing albums in the past two decades. And all these years later, I realize that the U2 comparison that I made earlier is maybe not as apt as comparing her to David Bowie. From here on in, every album not only had a specific sound, but even a specific look. I don't know that many artists who do that these days. But PJ Harvey has always stood out from the noise, and that's as true today as it was in 1995.

VH1 100 GREATEST: PJ HARVEY

One artist who Larry Flick and I never ever ever EVER agree on is PJ Harvey. She is one of my favorite artists ever, I was glad to see her in VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Music special tonight.  She'd be in my top 20 for sure.

Just watching the montage of images of her was pretty cool. She doesn't really remind me of any other artist, but if I had to pick one, it would be Bowie. Someone on the show said this, but every PJ Harvey album has a concept (and I always felt the same was true for Bowie).  As with Bowie, she has a look for each album. And not a look that a stylist is coming up with. I never feel like a "fashion expert" tells Bowie what to wear.  And I doubt any such "expert" would survive telling Polly what outfits she should be rockin'. Certain albums feature her playing certain instruments.  Some albums are guitar albums. One was a harp album. Sometimes, she's only singing. It's almost like she inhabits a different character every time, and each character has a different take on life, a different style, a different talent. She has a vision for every single thing that she does. You never get the sense that she's putting out an album because it's been two years since her last one.  When I think of artists who should get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the next few years, she's on the shortlist.

She's put out so many classic albums.  Her first two, 1992's Dry and 1993's Rid Of Me, are raw as hell, and they're as heavy as Slayer. Then she completely changed things up on her third LP, 1995's To Bring You My Love, produced by Flood. I've never heard anything like that album before or since.

In 2000, she put out Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea, which I love (although she's kind of said that she doesn't like that one). It's a cleaner, almost arena ready sound (and in fact, the songs sounded great when she performed them at Madison Square Garden opening for U2). But she never repeated that either. Then, last year's Let England Shake was one of her most challenging and rewarding LPs. It topped critics polls (in the U.K., not as much here in the U.S.) and was my ninth favorite album of 2011.

BEST OF 2011 - #9 - PJ HARVEY "LET ENGLAND SHAKE"

Most of the albums that I've been writing about as my favorite 10 albums of 2011 are pretty enjoyable.  That's not really the case with PJ Harvey's Let England Shake.  It's an album haunted by the ghosts of war, specifically those from England from World War I.

And yet somehow it seems very much of it's time, 2011.  I'm not British, but it seems to capture the uneasiness of our time, the angst people are feeling.

When I first heard the album, I wrote that I don't always like Ms. Harvey's albums. But it's always interesting to see what she'll do next. She never lets herself be a prisoner of her past, and she always challenges herself. I think that's one of the reasons why she gets so much respect:  Let England Shake won Britain's prestigious Mercury Music Prize (she's the first artist to win it twice, the first time being for Stories From City, Stories From The Sea). It was also named album of the year in UK magazines Mojo and Uncut (it came in towards the bottom of Rolling Stone's top 50).

When PJ Harvey first hit the scene with Dry in 1992, she reminded me a bit of Kurt Cobain.  To think that she has evolved so much since then is stunning, and I can't wait to hear what she'll do next.

TRUE BLOOD VOL. 3 (THE MUSIC)

First off, I'll say that as a big fan of the True Blood series, I thought this past season (season 4) was bad.  Really bad.  Embarrassingly bad. If you've been reading my blog for a while, you know I'm more likely to like things than to not like them.  And I'm much more likely to write about things that I like than things that I don't like.  But from the awful season premiere (when they went to fairy land, I thought that sleestaks were going to start running around) to the finale ("can you let us down, we're getting a bit crispy," Sookie breaking up with both vampire dudes in one of the cheesiest scenes I've ever sat through on any show), it was just bad. And taking Lafayette - one of the show's best characters, mainly because of his dislike/distrust of anything supernatural, and making him into a conduit for the ghost of an evil spirit... well, I guess it could have been a cool idea, but it came off corny as hell. 

Of course, this is not a TV blog, it's a music blog, and right now, as I'm giving out candy to trick or treaters, I'm listening to the latest installment of the True Blood compilation series. And as annoyed as I am at the show's producer Alan Ball, I have to give it up  -- again -- to music supervisor Gary Calamar. Last year, I wrote about the second CD in the series, and expressed serious admiration for True Blood's music team, and I still feel the same way. They come up with songs that fit the mood, regardless of era and genre (it's the same reason why I love the greatest radio station in the world, the Underground Garage).

The album has a number of new tracks, which I imagine were recorded specifically for the show. I don't know if you could say that being on True Blood is the adult equivalent of being on a Twilight soundtrack, but I guess it is comparable.  Regardless, there are some really great tracks here. The opener combines stuff I love with stuff I don't:  Karen Elson (whose debut, The Ghost Who Walks, was one of my favorite albums of 2010) covers Donovan (who I've never been a fan of) with "Season Of The Witch."  Karen's ex-, Jack White produces and Donovan himself sings on the track.

The late Gil Scott-Heron covered Robert Johnson's "Me and The Devil."  Obviously a classic, and Mr. Scott-Heron brought his own thing to it. I guess this is one of the last things he ever recorded. 

Hipsters must be melting over the union of Neko Case and Nick Cave covering The Zombies' "She's Not There." But they should, it's pretty great, and I remember thinking that as it aired over the credits of one of this season's episodes. 

PJ Harvey and Gordon Gano of The Violent Femmes' "Hittin' The Ground" is the title track from Gano's debut solo album from 2002. It's a really fun song, and PJ sounds like she's really getting her Patti Smith on. It's not a new song, but it's new to me, and probably is to a lot of other people.

And in a combo made in Americana heaven, Jakob Dylan and The Jayhawks' Gary Louris do "Gonna Be A Darkness," which they co-wrote.  There are so many good songs here!  A group called The Heavy cover Larua Nyro's "And When I Die," and there's a cool Blackroc song (Blackroc is The Black Keys in hip-hop mode) called "What You Do To Me."  Then, there's some older songs, like Slim Harpo's "Te Ni Nee Ni Nu," Massive Attack featuring Hope Sandoval "Paradise Circus," and Siouxie & The Banshees' "Spellbound."

Here's hoping that the next season of True Blood makes up for this one, but I know that the music will always be on point.

BEN WATERS' TRIBUTE TO IAN STEWART - BOOGIE 4 STU

You'll want to check this album out if you like pre-rock and roll boogie woogie. Or if you are a Rolling Stones fan. Or if you like PJ Harvey.

Rock and roll fans know Ian Stewart: he was the original piano player of The Rollling Stones. Their original manager, Andrew Loog Oldham (who currently is a host on Little Steven's Underground Garage) deemed him surplus to requirements to the Stones. He was demoted to road manager, and also studio and touring piano player. But yet, he stuck with the Stones for the rest of his life until he passed away in 1985.

Ben Waters' parents were friends with Stewart, and when young Ben saw him play piano at their house, he decided he wanted to be a piano player also. These days, he's a pretty popular musician on the roots music scene in the U.K., and he also plays in Charlie Watts' band, The ABCandD of Boogie Woogie.

Watts plays drums on most of the album, most of which was recorded in Jools Holland's studio (appropriately, as Stewart was likely an influence on Holland's style). But the album took on a life of it's own, with Keith Richards, Ron Wood and even ex-Stone Bill Wyman making multiple contributions. On one song - a cover of Bob Dylan's "Watching The River Flow" features Charlie, Keith, Ron, Bill and Mick Jagger. (Apparently, Stewart considered it the only good song Dylan ever wrote!) Although they all recorded their parts separately, and it isn't billed as a Stones tune per se, it's the first new recording by the band in six years, and the first recording with Wyman in 20 years.  There's also a Keith/Ronnie duet on "Worried Life Blues."

The other big guest is Waters' cousin, Polly Jean Harvey.  They recorded "Lonely Avenue" in her parents' living room, on a piano that Stewart once owned. It's an interesting contrast to her very British new album, Let England Shake.

The album is a great reminder of how much fun pre-rock and roll boogie woogie music is, and also has some great blues moments. If you're a Stones fan, you gotta have it, but it's worth checking out for anyone interested in the roots of rock and roll music. By his own admission, Stewart was a limited piano player: to progress with their music, they had to leave him behind (and he hated some of their more "progressive" material like "Sympathy For The Devil"), but this album offers an interesting glimpse of what the Stones would have sounded like if Loog hadn't canned him.

TOMORROW ON OUTQ: 120 MINUTES, REDUX

I recently posted about the return of the 120 Minutes franchise to MTV.  Tomorrow on The Morning Jolt with Larry Flick, I'll be talking about the return of the show, as well as some of the artists who used to appear on the show who have new music out. Radiohead's King Of Limbs, PJ Harvey's Let England Shake,  R.E.M.'s Collapse Into Now, former Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft's United Nations Of Sound and The Twilight Singers' Dynamite Steps (the band is led by former Afghan Whigs frontman Greg Dulli). I may also get to The Kills, the band featuring Alison Mosshart from The Dead Weather, who weren't around for the 120 Minutes era, but were recently featured on the newly launched 120 Seconds.

PJ HARVEY - LET ENGLAND SHAKE

I am always interested to check out whatever PJ Harvey is doing. Doesn't always mean I'll like it, but she's never boring.

A hallmark of her career is that she never repeats herself. So you never know what you'll get, or if you'll like it.

Let England Shake is really different from her past work. Musically, it's as far from her punk blues beginnings as she's ever gotten. On this album, it sounds like she's never left the U.K.  It's very British somehow, but I wouldn't compare it to any specific examples of British music. That's the thing about PJ Harvey, she always sounds like herself.  I want to say it's like British folk, but it doesn't sound like Bert Jansch or Richard Thompson.

Also, PJ usually writes about herself, and on this one she is writing, as the title insinuates, about England. Specifically war in England, World War I.  She's writing a lot about the horrors of war, which obviously resonates today.  She's not gonna do a Devils and Dust or a Rage Against The Machine album. But when she sings about dead bodies dropping, it doesn't matter what war she's talking about, does it?

I don't love every PJ Harvey album... her last one, John Parrish + PJ Harvey's AWoman A Man Walked By didn't really stick with me. This one does.  Maybe because of the times, it does.  I happened to be listening to this today while reading Rolling Stone's "The Kill Team" story which documents some true atrocities, but this one is really resonating with me.

PJ HARVEY & JOHN PARRISH'S NEW SONG

The first track from the upcoming PJ Harvey & John Parrish album, A Woman A Man Walked By is out on iTunes, it's called "Black Hearted Love" and it is great. I honestly wasn't a huge fan of their first album together, 1996's Dance Hall At Louse Point, but it grew on me. But this sounds a lot more rocking than that album.

PJ HARVEY SCORES!

PJ Harvey scored the new Broadway production of Hedda Gabler, starring Mary Louise Parker. Read all about it at the Daily News. More exciting: she has reunited with John Parish - they recorded the album Dance Hall At Louse Point in 1996.  This spring, they will release their second album together, A Woman A Man Walked By. They're supposed to tour also: hopefully they'll play some of PJ's solo music as well. 

SOMEWHAT LATE REVIEW OF PJ HARVEY'S AWESOME BEACON THEATER SHOW

Well, the PJ Harvey show at the Beacon Theater was a few weeks ago, but I've been behind on my writing, and this one took a while to digest. I wasn't sure I wanted to go to the show: tickets went on sale before the album came out, and I'd heard that the album was going to be piano-based and quiet, and I didn't know if I wanted to spend the money.

I am REALLY grateful my friend decided to get a pair of tickets and that she sold me one. It was an incredible show.

When I got PJ's new album, White Chalk, a few days before the show, I was a bit worried to be honest. It is very different for PJ: much quieter, although I wouldn't call it "mellow." It's like radical music from the Victorian era or something. I'm not a musicologist, so that may not be an inaccurate statement, and I may be influenced by her "look" on the album. But the image I keep getting in my mind when I listen to it - and I've been listening to it a lot - is walking in the English countryside (although I've never been to England), finding myself in an centuries-old abandoned house with a ghost. White Chalk is the music that the ghost is singing.

She was really smart about the show, which she performed without any other musicians. She mixed in a good amount of her older material, and switched between piano and guitar and even autoharp (on a very interesting version of "Down By The Water"). Plus, she used some pretty vintage synths and drum machines, which gave it a bizarre semi-modern twist. The crowd was, for the most part, pretty amazing. Very vocally supportive of her (although one moron kept yelling out at her). Much more enthusiasm than you'd expect from the hipster NYC crowd. And it actually had an effect on the show: she seemed genuinely moved by the support and the enthusiasm of the audience. I guess lots of artists dream of being able to do something really different and have their audience go for the ride with them. PJ Harvey seems to have the perfect audience for that. It was a great show (albeit with some slow parts, mainly "Nina" and "Grow, Grow, Grow.")

I'll write more about the album, White Chalk, another time: I'm still digesting it.