FEATURE:
Send Her Love to Us
PJ Harvey’s To Bring You My Love Vinyl Reissues
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FORGIVE the slightly…
roundabout nature of this feature, but I do love a good vinyl reissue! Whilst some reissues are not tied to anniversaries, it is good when we get to mark a great album celebrating a big birthday with a reissue and, if we are lucky, some extras and demos! Not to skip over two great vinyl reissues but, not only are we getting a reissue and vinyl of demos from PJ Harvey’s To Bring You My Love (in September), but there will be reissues of Dry, Rid of Me, and 4-Track Demos. Next week, you can get your hand on Dry, and Dry Demos, and for August there is the Rid of Me, and 4-track Demos bundles. It is brilliant that Harvey is getting behind the reissues, and it gives new fans and existing ones alike a chance to experience these wonderful albums on vinyl! The fact that there are demos coming out is fascinating. One of my big things is wondering what it would be like if we got reissues of classic albums with demos included, it gives us a chance to see how these established songs started life and what changes they went through. Some might see putting demos out as cashing-in or putting out stuff that is incomplete, but I think demos are an essential glimpse into the creative process, and some real treats can come along!
I do wonder, during this COVID-19 crisis, whether we will see a lot of other reissues and re-releases come about. As it is 2020, classic albums from 1990 and 1995 will definitely be in line for some fresh attention – not to mention albums turning twenty this year! I wanted to promote all of the albums PJ Harvey is reissuing but, as the phenomenal To Bring You My Love turned twenty-five in February, I wanted to give it extra acclaim and space. 1992’s Rid of Me must stand as one of the best debut albums ever, and there are staggering songs right throughout the album – my favourite, Dress, is one of Harvey’s best songs. 1993’s Rid of Me contains songs like 50ft Queenie, and Rid of Me. Harvey followed that later in the year with 4-Track Demos: it consists of eight demos of songs from her previous album, Rid of Me, along with six demos of some unreleased tracks which never made it to release with the three-piece PJ Harvey line-up. Hardly dropping a step since her debut album – it would be a while until Harvey got any bad or average reviews for her music - , To Bring You My Love was Harvey’s breakthrough album, and it differed in tone from her previous two studio albums; less aggressive and, perhaps, more accessible, whilst still tackling lost love and deeper themes – Harvey is not an artist who was going to go mainstream and lose her edge!
I am looking forward to the To Bring You My Love reissues, as there will be a demos edition that will, perhaps, give us a chance to see a bit of Rid of Me, and Dry in the songs, if you see; a rawer and more lo-fi tone to how they appeared on To Bring You My Love. I love all of PJ Harvey’s albums, but C’mon Billy, and Down by the Water are two of her masterpieces, and I think the album as a whole is one of her most satisfying and magnificent. Before moving on, I want to bring in a review and an article, as To Bring You My Love turned twenty-five in February. Hopefully, this will give people more ammunition and persuasion to buy the new vinyl editions – as if you needed that push at all! I would urge people to go and buy the other studio albums that are coming out on new vinyl, but I think To Bring You My Love is especially important. In their review, this is what AllMusic reported:
“Following the tour for Rid of Me, Polly Harvey parted ways with Robert Ellis and Stephen Vaughn, leaving her free to expand her music from the bluesy punk that dominated PJ Harvey's first two albums. It also left her free to experiment with her style of songwriting. Where Dry and Rid of Me seemed brutally honest, To Bring You My Love feels theatrical, with each song representing a grand gesture. Relying heavily on religious metaphors and imagery borrowed from the blues, Harvey has written a set of songs that are lyrically reminiscent of Nick Cave's and Tom Waits' literary excursions into the gothic American heartland.
Since she was a product of post-punk, she's nowhere near as literally bluesy as Cave or Waits, preferring to embellish her songs with shards of avant guitar, eerie keyboards, and a dense, detailed production. It's a far cry from the primitive guitars of her first two albums, but Harvey pulls it off with style, since her songwriting is tighter and more melodic than before; the menacing "Down by the Water" has genuine hooks, as does the psycho stomp of "Meet Ze Monsta," the wailing "Long Snake Moan," and the stately "C'Mon Billy." The clear production by Harvey, Flood, and John Parish makes these growths evident, which in turn makes To Bring You My Love her most accessible album, even if the album lacks the indelible force of its predecessors”.
Not only are vinyl reissues from PJ Harvey a great way for new fans to discover her work; I also think we get to see this evolution and jump between albums. To Bring You My Love was another big step forward, and it helped bring her work to people who, before 1995, were perhaps a little unsure and intimidated by the image Harvey projected in her music – or, perhaps, the fact that many people were a bit easily shocked in terms of an artist being open, raw and challenging! In an article from earlier in the year, The Quietus celebrated To Bring You My Love’s twenty-fifth, and they discussed the significance of the album and where PJ Harvey was in 1995:
“People were often easily shocked by images of Harvey – it had only been three years since NME’s cover featuring her naked back caused much clutching of pearls – but this transition would make anyone double-take. Yet it made sense, too: she’d rung the changes for her third LP, and they went far beyond her lurid makeover. She disbanded the PJ Harvey Trio, her group since 1991, to go solo, and brought in new foils including Bad Seed Mick Harvey and old friend John Parish. Steve Albini, whose raw production contributed to Rid Of Me’s flayed-alive style, was replaced by the more melodically inclined Flood. And while Harvey’s work had always betrayed her love for the blues, it had never had been so dramatically devilish: the sound of some gothic, godforsaken Deep South full of blood and bibles, sinners and victims, love and despair.
You could never deny To Bring You My Love was a huge stylistic shift; not when Harvey’s songs had mutated into something from her hero Howlin’ Wolf’s worst nightmares, and she debuted her famous hot-pink catsuit at that year’s Glastonbury. But 25 years on, the idea that it marked an artistic watershed isn’t quite right, either. Yes, she’d changed how she sounded and looked, but not how she worked. In fact, its stormy sensuality and torrid theatrics only put up in lights what Harvey had always said, even if people seldom listened: she was a storyteller, not a diarist, and an actor as much as a singer.
By 1995, Harvey had spent a depressing amount of time debunking the assumption that her music was autobiographical. Many had figured that the brutal imagery of her 1992 debut, Dry, must have stemmed solely from real-life experience; the truth was that if you’d cut her open, she’d have probably bled greasepaint. It could be violent and disturbing, but she also played for murky laughs by deliberately sending up tired virgin-whore tropes, pivoting from a licentious other woman’s leer on ‘Oh My Lover’ to an ingenue’s clumsy breathlessness on ‘Dress’.
IN THIS PHOTO: PJ Harvey in 1995/PHOTO CREDIT: Kevin Cummins
And while her nervous breakdown gave Rid Of Me a bleak backstory, that album wasn’t a confessional outpouring either. As Judy Berman’s terrific reappraisal explains, its songs were about performances – the parts people were forced to play, or tried to challenge – as well as being stellar performances themselves. Sometimes Harvey became other characters, like Tarzan’s fed-up other half, or Eve venting her spleen at the serpent. Sometimes she adopted a terrifying alter-ego: her delivery on ‘50 Ft Queenie’ was, she said, inspired by th braggadocio of hip hop, a literally monstrous way of bigging herself up”.
Do make sure you pre-order your copy(ies) of To Bring You My Love, as it is going to be an album you’ll want to (re)own. I think there are plans for the rest of PJ Harvey’s catalogue to come out, but I am really excited to see one of 1995’s best albums arrive with an accompanying set of demos. These are essential releases from one of Britain’s…
GREATEST songwriting treasures.