when i was first discovering music, i would have said that was too low. now, with an extra five years worth of listening to music behind me, i'm thinking the complete opposite. to me, her music sounds dated. i don't think it's aged well at all. i'm predicting that a few of her albums will dron in rank over the next few updates. i don't see "to bring you my love" as a top 150 album and of her three albums in the 300's, only stories makes a decent claim to that high a rank.
Dry - 3.5
Rid of Me - 3.5
To Bring You My Love - 4
Is This Desire? - 4
Stories... - 4.5
Uh Huh Her - 4
White Chalk - 3.5
A Woman a Man Walked By - 3.5
in other words, everything she's put out has been good, but only one great album, imo.
in the last artist poll i had her at #97, but i think she might drop out of my top 100 next time around (stories is really the only one i listen to anymore). i wouldn't say any of her work sounds dated, though, and i wouldn't be surprised if she manages to put out one more great one.
i saw her on the white chalk tour and she was stunning live, even though i didn't think much of the album (sonofsam will disagree with this)
I find it's her first three albums I like the most. As much as I want to I just can't get into Stories.
I think her first three albums are great, possibly top 200 worthy, then Stories and White Chalk are good but nothing special. I haven't heard the others except for her new one which is very unique but not 'special'.
bleh, PJ Harvey's good, but she's one of the few artists in the AM top 100, that I could never really get into (Missy Elliot, Nick Drake, Nick Cave, Steely Dan, Buddy Holly, Leonard Cohen, and Little Richard are just a few more I'll never "get")
IMO she's a top 200- 300 artist. But no way does she belong at #59
I'll stand up for her. I don't find anything she's done as sounding dated, just the opposite, especially when you take each album in context of when it was released. There aren't many similarities between her and previous artists, and nobody has sounded like PJ Harvey since.
Ratings for albums:
Dry - 4
Rid of Me - 4
To Bring You My Love - 5
Is This Desire? - 3.5
Stories... - 5
Uh Huh Her - 4
White Chalk - 2.5
I'll stand up for PJ too. The girl has serious chops as a musician and singer, and she has never once held back. She could have easily stayed with the raw, angry sounds of Dry and Rid of Me, but she ventured off into many different territories, from the tropical, bewitching To Bring You My Love to the poignant, elegant and stately Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea to the stark, bleak and haunted White Chalk. She has great range and scope, and if anything, I think she's undervalued.
Isn't she the most acclaimed female artist of all time? I'd gladly take her music over 99% of any male songwriter out there since most of them are ridiculously overrrated.
I remember when I first discovered this site To Bring You My Love was nearly in the top 5 the 90s but now all her records seem to be fading and falling lower and lower each year. That album certainly deserves to be higher than Bjork's Debut, Liz Phair's Exile and Joanna Newsom's Ys.
