Word: harvey
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Harvey...
Whither PJ Harvey? Three years ago, while on tour to promote her unforgettable To Bring You My Love album, the reclusive English songstress revamped herself in an almost literal way. Suddenly she became a sort of hybrid of Tammy Fae Baker and Siouxsie Sioux, her eyes swathed in colors more appropriate to tropical fish, her red gash of a mouth hissing out the stories of weary paramours and suffering Magdalenes, then growling out feverish invocations that "Yeah I'm ready to meet ze monsta tonight...
...wasn't talking about the bogeyman, either--or maybe she was. The signal, recurring lesson of PJ Harvey's music, is that desire leads us dangerously, thirstily, curiously into places where we would otherwise fear to tread. Harvey's lyrics were too lacerating to be mere come-ons, but the potency and drama of her music worked like a snake charm. The album and the woman combined the terror and the wonder of a hydra...
...which of those fierce, rearing heads was the real Polly Jean Harvey? Was there a woman behind the trademark moans and Frida Kahlo brows, or was it all the sound and fury of a woman who signified nothing in the theater of her own performances...
...Harvey didn't stick around to clear things up. Besides a few side projects with interesting talents like Tricky and John Parish, she attests to having grown nervous with her growing fame and unconfident in the kabuki-ish performance art she was creating in concert...