Is This Desire?

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British album certifications – PJ Harvey – Is This Desire?". British Phonographic Industry . Retrieved 13 August 2018. 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.” Is This Desire? (CD). PJ Harvey. Island Records. 1998. LC 0407. {{ cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) ( link)

Is This Desire? is pure beauty in every sense of the word. It gives me the goosebumps because we've all asked ourselves the same question or felt the same way, at some point in time. There's something seriously haunting about PJ's voice here too (the high and low notes, the way she grinds down on some verses) and the melodramatic undertoned music that harmonizes the song in such a magnificent and scenic way. The way it builds up, the whole story unraveling, the climax, giving into desire and lust...it's a piece of brilliance that a lot of people will just disregard as another song, but if they took the time to appreciate every word and guitar chord, I've no doubt it will shake them too.

She eventually got help from bandmate John Parish and video/art director Maria Mochnacz, who moved her into their basement. 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. Harvey was at pains to suggest that Stories From the City … was not her “New York album”. For all its geographical references to Manhattan, You Said Something sounds weirdly British – there is a distinctly folky lilt to the guitars – making it the perfect summation of the album’s Englishwoman-abroad theme. 22. A Perfect Day Elise (1998)

i think that the sylvan imagery/natural setting is a metaphor. the characters desire each other in a primative way; the fact that they're building a fire, that they're in trees, walking on sunsets, barefoot, etc, helps to show the carnical nature of their desire for each other. 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) Harvey seldom records cover versions. Her fierce, Rid of Me-era take on Willie Dixon’s Wang Dang Doodle is pretty spectacular, but the best of them may be this agonisingly slow, utterly disconsolate version of the Peggy Lee standard: breaking out the booze and having a ball never sounded such a miserable prospect. 44. Taut (1996) French compilation certifications – PJ Harvey – Is This Desire" (in French). Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique. However, recording Is This Desire? was another fraught process. Harvey and her production collaborators, Flood and Head, did the first recording sessions in 1997, and then walked away from the music. “I chose to just leave it for a while,” she said in an interview disc accompanying the album. “I was doing a lot of emotional work at that time, and I just needed a break from everything. I just wanted to stop and start looking at my life as Polly, rather than my life as a songwriter-performer.”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.”

With the release of Is This Desire?, Harvey too could count herself among those women. The album didn’t just open her up to new musical vistas — it helped her figure out how to live and be comfortable in her own skin. “You know, I’m 28; it won’t be long til I’m 30,” she said on the Is This Desire? interview disc. “And then you start thinking, ‘What is life all about?’ And so then you start doing a bit of digging around.” If I was introducing someone to PJ Harvey, I would send them straight to Is This Desire? The main reason for this is the range of styles on the album; the quiet ASMR side on The Wind, and more intense distorted industrial songs such as Joy. It spans both the harsh and soft sides of Harvey’s music making it one of my personal favourites. Coincidently, Polly Jean has reflected that this is the release she is very proud of, explaining that it was also very draining to make due to all the new techniques and experimentations. I would argue that it pays off, it really does sound like she is putting herself out there musically and testing her limits, especially on Electric Light and The River. That's why it's my favourite, it's far from playing it safe. I lived a month straight where I basically listened to this album solely. To me, it is just perfect.Fowler, Shan. "PJ Harvey: Is This Desire?". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on 14 October 2000 . Retrieved 27 June 2016.