Is This Desire?

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With PJ Harvey's tenth album on the horizon, Rough Trade East's Amelie Grice (a musician herself in Skin and Blister) examines her long-lasting fascination with Harvey's idiosyncratic discography and the impact she has made as one of Britain's most inspiring female artists. RPM Alternative 30 – November 2, 1998" (PDF). RPM. Library and Archives Canada . Retrieved 23 June 2012.

The song "The Wind" was inspired by Saint Catherine, and in particular St Catherine's Chapel, Abbotsbury. [6] [7]the name joe(seph) is mentioned in the album in previous songs; those songs being, "the garden," and "perfect day, elise." Is This Desire?, the fourth studio album by English singer/songwriter PJ Harvey, was originally released in 1998 to immense critical acclaim, ultimately landing Harvey a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Performance that same year. Her biggest asset, aside from intensely descriptive songwriting skills, has always been her sumptuous vocals. You would describe On Battleship Hill’s keening vocal and folk-inspired melody as pastoral, but it is hardly a hymn to bucolic serenity: a walk through a former battlefield, unable to shake its lingering sense of death, troubled by the thought that, this time, human nature has irrevocably ruined nature itself. 16. C’mon Billy (1995)

a b Sheffield, Rob (15 October 1998). "Is This Desire?". Rolling Stone. No.797. Archived from the original on 12 November 2007 . Retrieved 28 June 2004.

Contributions

Leah” proved a turning point. She began therapy while continuing to work on the record, and her growing understanding of herself crept onto Is This Desire?. She composed on a keyboard rather than her usual guitar, which affected her process: hunched over a small portable keyboard, she found herself writing “more thoughtfully.” There is a compelling argument that Let England Shake is Harvey’s masterpiece: its richness and breadth are clear here, an implausibly pretty, echo-drenched song about rioting cities and drowning in sewage, bolstered by a sample from Niney the Observer’s 1970 reggae hit Blood and Fire. 5. Sheela Na Gig (1992)

a b Weingarten, Marc (2 October 1998). "Is This Desire?". Entertainment Weekly. No.452. p.74. Archived from the original on 17 March 2015 . Retrieved 21 February 2009. The year was 1998 and the era of the angst-ridden artist was coming to a natural conclusion. Grunge was long dead, Radiohead had just changed the face of mainstream music in a way no band really had before and that left PJ Harvey in a strange position. She had made a name for herself in the early 90s as foolhardy lyricist on albums such as Rid Of Me (when “PJ Harvey” was a band) and it was clear that if she kept that image up she would end up becoming just another forgotten artist of the time. It could be argued that Polly began her transition on To Bring You My Love but Is This Desire is where her transformation truly began from a headstrong, no nonsense lover to meditative and contemplative songwriter. As ferocious screw-you statements of unbiddable artistic independence go, Harvey’s major label debut takes some beating. Which brings us to Rub Til It Bleeds: five crawling, anxiety-inducing minutes during which Harvey offers to – and let us not mince words here – wank someone off so violently she draws blood. See you on Top of the Pops! 19. Reeling (1993)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) 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. Thompson, Stephen (29 March 2002). "PJ Harvey: Is This Desire?". The A.V. Club . Retrieved 22 December 2015.

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.” 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)