PJ Harvey
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Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, Summer 2004
RBP: Not to suggest that Uh Huh Her must be entirely autobiographical – or "confessional" – but you don’t sound terribly happy in these songs. ...
Audio interviews
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages audio, 14 April 2004
Peej on making Uh Huh Her, songwriting, minimalism, her rock'n'roll bohemian upbringing, working with Marianne Faithfull and meeting Kurt Cobain
File format: mp3; file size: 53.9mb, interview length: 58' 49" sound quality: ***
List of articles in the library
PJ Harvey: White Horse, Hampstead, London
Live Review by Ngaire Ruth, Melody Maker, 7 September 1991
THIS TIME next year you're going to wonder how you lived without PJ Harvey. It sounds clichéd, I know, but even the toughest Maker boys ...
Interview by Martin Aston, Puncture, 1992
WITHOUT DISCOUNTING Sinead O'Connor, we've become accustomed to looking toward North America to feel the cutting-edge of female singer-songwriters – the tense psychoanalysis of Throwing ...
Live Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 8 February 1992
LAST NIGHT A PJ SAVED MY LIFE ...
PJ Harvey: Sex and Bile and Rock and Roll
Interview by Jim Arundel, Melody Maker, 8 February 1992
IT'S SUNDAY AFTERNOON, grey and bitter and it looks like rain. Your flatmate, Lisa, and her gangly boyfriend, Ben, are in her room. They're burning ...
PJ Harvey: Scrumpy's Trusted Nut
Interview by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 15 February 1992
Way out West Country! Cut off from television, newspapers and all your favourite bands, PJ HARVEY is brewing up an intense, sexual storm that's set ...
Review by Jim Arundel, Melody Maker, 9 May 1992
PURE POP FOR NOW PEOPLE ...
Report and Interview by Betty Page, New Musical Express, 9 May 1992
HIPS, LIPS, TITS, POWER! Meet the new breed of enchantress, the spell-binding women who are taking the male bastille and giving it some earthily female ...
PJ Harvey: Town & Country, London
Live Review by David Sinclair, The Times, 3 June 1992
P J the pacesetter ...
Review by Deborah Frost, The Village Voice, 7 July 1992
"SHOW US YER TITS!" is still the rule of thumb for yobbos throughout the global village whenever a woman dares open her mouth a little ...
Live Review by Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, 1 October 1992
PJ HARVEY isn't like anybody else. The British power trio combines English folk cadences, the stark interplay of electric Chicago blues and vintage postpunk, suffused ...
PJ Harvey: Harvey's Frisco Dream
Interview by Max Bell, Vox, November 1992
PJ Harvey hit the states for a lightening tour and took it by storm. "It's like a film," says Polly. "I think they're a bit ...
PJ Harvey: Kicking Against The Pricks
Interview by Martin Aston, Spin, November 1992
Twenty-two-year-old Polly Harvey fronts this year's most raved-over new group, PJ Harvey. Martin Aston gets bewitched and bewildered. ...
PJ Harvey: Rid Of Me (Island CID8002/514 696-2)
Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 23 April 1993
Somerset psyche ...
Review by Betty Page, New Musical Express, 24 April 1993
THE FIRST time, it gave me third degree burns. I was driving when the title track's soft murmur exploded into a rocket-thrusted motorcycle roar and ...
Platter du Jour — PJ Harvey: Rid of Me (Island/PLG)
Review by Evelyn McDonnell, Spin, May 1993
POLLY JEAN Harvey knows that women in positions of power or prestige quickly get demonized. So on Rid of Me, the second album by her ...
PJ Harvey, Gallon Drunk: Bristol University
Live Review by Cathi Unsworth, Melody Maker, 22 May 1993
HARVEY'S BRISTOL SCREAM ...
PJ Harvey, Gallon Drunk: Rock City, Nottingham
Live Review by Keith Cameron, New Musical Express, 22 May 1993
LIKE IGGY said, all aboard for Fun Time. The pat preconceptions hanging around this inspired pairing suggest that chuckles will be thin on the ground. ...
Review by David Cavanagh, Select, June 1993
YOU'RE THE ONE FOR ME, PATTI... PJ Harvey's latest makes Dry (and Huggy Bear) seem like easy listening. Anguish, pain, fear, self-loathing, the horror... this'll ...
Review by David Sinclair, Q, June 1993
IT STARTS with the musical equivalent of an itch. A guitar plonks away softly, a light clattery drum sound brushes against the beat, and eventually ...
Profile and Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 25 June 1993
MOST BAND leaders dream of taking it to the top, of packing arenas worldwide. Not Polly Jean Harvey. At least not yet. ...
PJ Harvey: The Academy, New York NY
Live Review by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 10 July 1993
FROM GRUNGE'S "castration blues" to the glutinous gloom of Come/Red House Painters/Mazzy Star to tonight's support band Gallon Drunk (with their cliché-encrusted homage to Nick ...
Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 1993
And very nice too, thanks, apart from the sex, which in the warped world of PJ Harvey is an anguished, violent, even blood-spattered activity. Set ...
Interview by Deborah Frost, Rolling Stone, 19 August 1993
PJ Harvey beat the sophomore jinx and get their mojo workin' with an American tour and their powerful new album, Rid of Me. ...
PJ Harvey: Good golly, Ms Polly
Interview by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 1 October 1993
Screeching harridan? Feminist heroine? One thing's certain: Polly Jean Harvey's tortured song-tantrums are a far cry from Captain Beefheart. ...
PJ Harvey: 4 Track Demos (Island)
Review by Dele Fadele, New Musical Express, 16 October 1993
ROCK'N'ROLL EXISTS in a parallel universe to straight society. In this kaleidoscope of pleasures, people with suss, savvy and imagination are allowed to re-invent themselves, ...
PJ Harvey: What Makes Polly Scream?
Interview by Simon Reynolds, i-D, November 1993
PJ Harvey — the singer and the band — is the pop phenomenon of the year. Her emotional, bluesy primal screaming is the most challenging ...
Review by Evelyn McDonnell, Rolling Stone, 25 November 1993
THE POP INDUSTRY loves to simulate authenticity, a trick that, like the manufacturing of fake antiques, puts demands on the consumer. It's hard to tell ...
Profile and Interview by Simon Witter, Sky, Fall 1993
She’s been called the indie Madonna, but Polly Harvey is not famous for upbeat frivolous pop tunes. So raw and angst-ridden is her music she ...
PJ Harvey, Björk, and Tori Amos: Hips. Lips. Tits. Power.
Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Q, May 1994
Well, would you spill their pint? In the last 18 months, Polly Harvey, Björk, and Tori Amos have rogered the charts with their special brew ...
PJ Harvey — Nemesis In A Scarlet Dress
Profile and Interview by David Cavanagh, The Independent, 25 February 1995
WHEN NOT TENDING HER CHRYSANTHEMUMS and pining for her bantams, Polly Harvey straps on a guitar and becomes the screeching, black-hearted rock phenomenon that is ...
Yeovil! Bum Rush The Show: PJ Harvey: To Bring You My Love (Island)
Review by Andrew Mueller, Melody Maker, 25 February 1995
From Somerset with love? It came from the west. It sounds like the Deep South. Polly Harvey's third LP proper is one scary place to ...
Red-blooded Chameleon — PJ Harvey, Tricky: Town & Country Club, London
Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 8 March 1995
Enigmatic as ever, PJ Harvey returns in red satin and fine form, with Tricky in support ...
PJ Harvey, Tricky: Town & Country Club, Leeds
Live Review by Paul Moody, New Musical Express, 18 March 1995
THE REBIRTH OF GHOUL ...
PJ Harvey/Tricky: Barrowlands, Glasgow
Live Review by Everett True, Melody Maker, 18 March 1995
IT'S ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE to get a fix on these two artists. That this is one of THE tours of the year is indisputable. But the ...
PJ Harvey: To Bring You My Love
Review by Mark Cooper, MOJO, April 1995
THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT PJ HARVEY IN A dress that doesn't quite gel and that's the something that she's chafed and worried at in her bruising, ...
PJ Harvey: To Bring You My Love (Island)
Review by Max Bell, Vox, April 1995
POLLY JEAN HARVEY has never been afraid to let the masculine side of her personality underscore her feminine traits. The shock of the new most ...
Live Review by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 13 May 1995
SCARLET IT BLEED ...
Report and Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 26 May 1995
POLLY JEAN HARVEY has become, of late, a very public face. Last month's cover of Spin, a recent Tower Pulse, the current issue of Request. ...
Queen of the Night: P.J. Harvey
Profile by Lucy O'Brien, The Guardian, 12 June 1995
SHE’S TAKING America by storm. She’s very fashionable at the moment. She’s hipper than hip. That’s what Paul McGuinness says; he’s the manager of U2 ...
Pulp, PJ Harvey, the Cure et al: Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Somerset
Live Review by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 30 June 1995
City of 100,000 dancing lights: Caitlin Moran on a Glastonbury weekend that will be remembered chiefly for the coming of Pulp ...
Interview by Susan Corrigan, i-D, September 1995
POLLY JEAN HARVEY IS AN ICONOCLAST WHOSE MUSIC INSPIRES ADULATION WHILE HER IMAGE INSPIRES SPECULATION. LESSER SINGERS HAVE CRUMBLED UNDER SUCH SCRUTINY. BUT IS PJ ...
John Parish & Polly Jean Harvey: Dance Hall At Louse Point **
Review by Evelyn McDonnell, Rolling Stone, 17 October 1996
EVER SINCE laying herself bare on the first PJ Harvey album, Dry, Polly Jean Harvey has been struggling to find a pose within which to ...
John Parish and Polly Jean Harvey: The Fleece & Firkin, Bristol
Live Review by Ben Thompson, Spin, January 1997
POLLY JEAN Harvey first met John Parish ten years ago, when he was the neighborhood performance-art lecturer in her hometown of Yeovil. She went on ...
Homecoming Queenie: PJ Harvey: Arts Centre, Bridport
Live Review by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 15 August 1998
PERCHED ON A rocky coast in deepest Dorset, sleepy Bridport is Polly Harvey's home turf. Approaching this outpost of rural Britain on humid summer nights, ...
PJ Harvey: Is This Desire? (Island)
Review by Everett True, Melody Maker, 26 September 1998
IT NEVER rains, it pours. The release of Is This Desire?, PJ Harvey's fifth album, comes hot on the heels of releases by such former ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 3 October 1998
Welcome to Pollyworld, a world in which David Beckham, South Park and The Big Breakfast don't exist, but fun, relationships with Nick Cave and therapy ...
Review by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, November 1998
On her last proper album, 1995’s very fabulous To Bring You My Love, P.J. Harvey slipped on a slinky red dress and covered up the ...
PJ Harvey, Dirty 3: Shepherd's Bush Empire, London
Live Review by Stevie Chick, Melody Maker, 2 January 1999
RELIGHT MY DESIRE! ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 16 January 1999
Last week, Pete Waterman the Brian Clough of pop, stoutly defended his new teenpop cadets Steps and his revitalised label PWL. Here Doctor Waterman offers ...
PJ Harvey: Hammerstein Ballroom, New York, NY
Live Review by Eric Weisbard, Spin, February 1999
IT'S A TRIBUTE to Polly Jean Harvey's gift that this perfunctory hour-plus-encores concert, with most of the songs drawn from her disappointing last two albums, ...
PJ Harvey: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
Review by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 20 October 2000
HEARING P J Harvey's new album, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (Universal) is like coming home to find your studious little sister ...
U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind; PJ Harvey: Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea
Review by Eric Weisbard, The Village Voice, 25 October 2000
I'VE PLAYED the Radiohead album about a dozen times, pushed my way in to see them live, and yes, there is a certain pleasure to ...
Bjork: Selmasongs; PJ Harvey: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
Review by Djuna Parnes, Rock's Backpages, December 2000
OUTSIDE OF Kid A, Thom Yorke made two significant cameo appearances in A.D. 2000. Both were on albums by dark, "difficult" women who’ve spearheaded change ...
PJ Harvey: Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
Review by Ian Penman, Uncut, December 2000
Self-produced sixth album is curate's egg ...
Guide by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 18 December 2000
FOR A MUSIC whore like myself, even a good album can be a little like a one-night stand. There's that lovely moment of courting, checking ...
PJ Harvey: New Boots & Panties
Report and Interview by John Harris, Q, January 2001
Loud guitars, PVC, bit of leg — Polly puts the metal on… ...
Live Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, April 2001
THE LAST rock star, dripping with dark poetry, mystery and unforced glamour, stands alone onstage in spectacular red dress and electric guitar, crying, "Lick my ...
PJ Harvey: Hammerstein Ballroom, New York
Live Review by Devon Powers, PopMatters, 3 September 2001
APPARENTLY I'D HEARD correctly — and the critic was the gangling boy behind me, piping up shortly after lead singer Polly Jean Harvey joined her ...
Big Exit: P.J. Harvey's Last Night
Live Review by Djuna Parnes, Rock's Backpages, 6 October 2001
IT IS THE SECOND OF TWO SOLD-NIGHTS in Sarf London, and the last date of a very long tour – much of it spent supporting ...
Good golly Miss Polly: PJ Harvey/Elbow: Eden Project, Cornwall/Tate Modern, London
Live Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, November 2003
West country girl's long-awaited return sees renewed quest for left-field status ...
Profile and Interview by Ian Watson, Rolling Stone (Australia), May 2004
THE DAY PJ HARVEY turned thirty something clicked in her head. She spent her twenties fighting against herself, trying to quash the parts of her ...
Review by Everett True, Plan B, June 2004
POLLY HARVEY. This is her seventh album. It's better than her sixth, 2001 's set of NYC travel diaries, Stories From The City, Stories From ...
PJ Harvey: Primavera Sound Festival, Poble Espanyol, Barcelona
Report and Interview by Keith Cameron, Q, August 2004
As flamboyant and enigmatic as ever, now with added boozing. ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Harp, September 2004
JORDAN IS a model. To be more precise, Jordan is a 'glamour' model. A blonde with monolithic, man-made breasts that make as regular an appearance ...
Interview by Ritchie Yorke, Sunday Mail (Australia), 14 November 2004
IT WAS WITH her usual subtle-as-an-A-bomb aplomb, that British singer-songwriter PJ Harvey dropped this bombshell down the phone line from Canada: "I think I might ...
Love in All the Wrong Places: PJ Harvey
Profile and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Tracks, Summer 2004
POLLY HARVEY reclines in regal splendour at the end of the very long and pompous Promenade Room of London’s legendary Dorchester Hotel. Buffed Eurotrash couples ...
Comment by Andy Gill, The Independent, 14 June 2006
The shortlist for Britain's most prestigious music prize is announced next week. Avoid being on it, warns Andy Gill ...
PJ Harvey's White Chalk Is Genius With A Dark Heart
Review by Jude Rogers, Guardian Unlimited, 21 September 2007
As the tracks unfold, Jude Rogers finds herself acting as Polly Jean's agony aunt while listening to her wailing like a Kate Bush from hell ...
PJ Harvey steps into the light
Profile and Interview by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 23 September 2007
PJ Harvey's previous albums have embraced the dark side of life, but White Chalk's upbeat originality wipes the slate clean. ...
PJ Harvey: Songs of innocence and experience
Interview by John Harris, The Guardian, 28 September 2007
PJ Harvey sings like a child on her new, stripped-down album, but it's full of grim subject matter. John Harris hears how the elusive singer-songwriter ...
PJ Harvey: White Chalk (Island)
Review by Barney Hoskyns, Uncut, October 2007
IN THE AGE of Amy Winehouse it's worth remembering the shock that was Polly Jean Harvey when she blasted out of the West Country 15 ...
Interview by Keith Cameron, MOJO, January 2008
Keith Cameron speaks to Polly Jean about finding her voice, the muse and playing harmonica down the pub. ...
Different Voices: PJ Harvey and John Parish
Interview by John Doran, The Stool Pigeon, March 2009
Polly Jean Harvey has reunited with John Parish (who collaborated with her with on To Bring You My Love, Is This Desire? and White Chalk) ...
Inside the Hidden Heart of PJ Harvey (and John Parish)
Interview by Nick Hasted, The Independent, 27 March 2009
POLLY JEAN HARVEY and John Parish are sitting across from each other in a quiet hotel with the comfort of 20 years' acquaintance. Harvey, of ...
PJ Harvey & John Parish: A Woman A Man Walked By
Review by Rob Young, Uncut, April 2009
Grunge! Banjo! Dub! Swearing! Old friends play at musical double-dare, says Rob Young. ...
Empire of the Sun: Island at 50
Retrospective and Interview by Tom Doyle, Q, June 2009
The grand scheme of a gambler with a taste for chicken blood, Jamaican label Island Records introduced Bob Marley and U2 to the world. On ...
Review by John Doran, The Quietus, 11 February 2011
THE SPANISH PAINTER Francisco Goya was in an ideal position to comment on The Peninsula War of 1804-1808. ...
PJ Harvey: Let England Shake (Island)
Review by Andy Gill, The Independent, 11 February 2011
ON WHAT MAY be her best album, Polly Harvey offers a portrait of her homeland as a country built on bloodshed and battle, not so ...
Review by Andrew Mueller, Uncut, March 2011
THE FIRST OF Polly Harvey's eighth studio album was heard in April 2010, when she made a memorably peculiar appearance on The Andrew Marr Show. ...
Review by James Medd, The Word, March 2011
PJ Harvey is "a human being affected by politics" in an absorbing new record suffused with imagery from wars past and present. And they said ...
Live Review by Ben Thompson, Sunday Telegraph, 6 March 2011
ON THE LEFT of the Limehouse Troxy stage stands PJ Harvey – enrobed in one of her Belgian fashion confederate Ann Demeulemeester's trademark pristine, shroud-like ...
Polly Harvey reflects on a career marked by exploration and taking chances
Report and Interview by Gavin Martin, Daily Mirror, 15 April 2011
SAT IN THE ornate lounge room of a salubrious London hotel, Polly Jean Harvey apologises that she's finishing off a mouthful of nuts. With her ...
PJ Harvey: "I feel things deeply. I get angry, I shout at the TV, I feel sick."
Profile and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Observer, 24 April 2011
Polly Harvey opens up to Dorian Lynskey about 20 years in music and the emotions behind her latest dark masterpiece. ...
Interview by James Medd, The Word, June 2011
SHE'S SO ON-BRAND, it's like 20 years never passed: a black sleeveless vest top over a physique suggesting food is not an interest, the black ...
PJ Harvey & Seamus Murphy: Royal Festival Hall, London
Live Review by Andrew Mueller, Uncut, December 2015
TONIGHT'S WORLD PREMIERE of PJ Harvey's latest work, The Hollow Of The Hand, is an exciting, occasionally electrifying, 30-minute rock'n'roll show — which, unfortunately, is ...
PJ Harvey et al: Field Day, Victoria Park, London
Live Review by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 13 June 2016
A lineup including Skepta, Deerhunter, James Blake and PJ Harvey prove more than able to banish wet weather blues with warm and powerful performances. ...
PJ Harvey: O2 Academy Brixton, London
Live Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, 31 October 2016
The musician brings her Hope Six Demolition Project on tour to rail against social ills, and confirm her status as a forceful commentator. ...
PJ Harvey: Playhouse, Edinburgh
Live Review by Graeme Thomson, Mail On Sunday, 13 August 2017
THERE'S NO NEED to ask how PJ Harvey takes her coffee. From the all-black dress code and shadowy stage lighting to the dense, dusky music, ...
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