Classic Albums: Rid Of Me by PJ Harvey

I picked up this mag about PJ yesterday at the shops and started reading it last night, it’s pretty good too. Magazines seem a bit pointless now but this one is just all about her, yeah the whole thing is just all about Harvey, old interviews and then new reviews about each of her albums. So today I’m just going to have to thrown in my favourite album of hers into my Classic Albums pile. It’s the second and final album by the PJ Harvey Trio, still her best in my opinion. She never came close to top this one, I guess maybe that’s why the trio break-up after it and because she knew it was time to move on and do other stuff. The pure power of this album is so powerful, my words don’t do it justices.

It’s unfair on her later work and albums to even compare them but I’m going to quickly do it now. It’s a pity that those first two albums didn’t have or wasn’t just called The PJ Harvey Trio on the cover or something. Just to put something in-between them, then again I’m a little disappointed by her later work. I’m not a fan of those last two albums, White Chalk was pretty cool for doing something different but I don’t know how popular it really was. Then Uh Huh Her and the Stories albums was her coming back to kind-of Rock again but never was as great as the earlier ones. Got to see her live a couple of times around this time, it did take along time for her to get to tour Australia but now an Aussie is in her band she does seem to tour here way more. I might just have to go next time even if I don’t like the album.

This is a totally brutal break-up album, that’s not just the trio of drummer Rob Ellis and bassist Steve Vaughan soon after the recording Rid Of Me album but PJ’s first major relationship and then a London city break-down too but what an epic album to exodus all your demons onto. Harvey picking Steve Albini as producer, reading this magazine a lot of people was thinking she was wrong to do it at the time with him but it couldn’t be more right. He was the one who seem to get PJ to also release the 4-Track Demo album as well at the time in the same year.

I’ve talked about the TV show Rage before here on this blog that I watch when I lived/grew-up in the small country town. PJ Harvey would have been one of the first if not the very first night I watch or was it that the music on that night was the first that hit me in the face really hard. It was 50ft Queenie promo video clip with the earlier Dress and Sheela-Na-Gig so it must have been at least 1993 or could have been 94, I guess. It then taken a while to track down the albums because I only had those three songs on videotape, you know VHS? Remember them? No google, YouTube, Spotify etc. back then too.

The 33 1/3 book on this album is one of my favs from the book series too. It’s written as a fiction story based around the albums songs. It’s very different almost all those other books and the most creative ways to write about and clever way to do it, I would recommend it to any fans of her. It’s been awhile since doing any English artists too here in Classic Albums tag. So Peej comes after Kate Bush, Adam Ant, Pink Floyd and David Bowie which does seem about right for me, I guess.

So got to ask, who else loves PJ here?

Rid Of Me track listing and times:

1. Rid Of Me – 4:29
2. Missed – 4:26
3. Legs- 3:40
4. Rub ‘Til It Bleeds- 5:04
5. Hook – 3:57
6. Man-Size Sextet – 2:19
7. Highway ’61 Revisited – 2:57
8. 50ft Queenie – 2:24
9. Yuri-G – 3:28
10. Man-Size – 3:16
11. Dry – 3:24
12. Me-Jane -2:43
13. Snake – 1:37
14. Ecstasy – 4:28

Here’s all my Classic Albums tagged in one spot or each post/album is linked in red below:

• Tales From The Australian Underground – Volume 1 & 2 by Various Artists
• Station To Station by David Bowie
• Unplugged In New York by Nirvana
• Rust In Peace by Megadeth
• Gunfighter Ballads And Trail Songs by Marty Robbins
• Henry’s Dream by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
• Whatever You Love, You Are by Dirty Three
• Gala Mill by The Drones
• Black Monk Time by The Monks
• Ex Tropical by Lost Animal
• Work (Work, Work) by HTRK
• In The Wee Small Hours by Frank Sinatra
• The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn by Pink Floyd
• Songs Of Love And Hate by Leonard Cohen
• Warm Leatherette by Grace Jones
• The White House by The Dead C
• Silence Is Sexy by Einstürzende Neubauten
• Lulu by Lou Reed & Metallica
• Kaira by Toumani Diabaté
• Kings Of The Wild Frontier by Adam And The Ants
• Drowning In The Fountain Of Youth by Dan Kelly And The Alpha Males
• Aerial by Kate Bush
• The Future by Leonard Cohen
• Rock For Light by Bad Brains
• Last Splash by The Breeders
• Sex by The Necks
• Emergency Ward by Nina Simone
• Paradise by My Disco
• Batman by Prince
• Sings Christmas Carols by Mark Kozelek
• What Are Rock Stars Doing Today by Magic Dirt
• Love Of Life by Swans
• Big Name, No Blankets by Warumpi Band
• Blue Valentine by Tom Waits
• In The Pines by The Triffids
• Where Joy Kills Sorrow by Various Artists
• TV Sky by The Young Gods
• King For A Day, Fool For A Lifetime by Faith No More
• Jean Lee And The Yellow Dog by Ed Kuepper
• Law Of Nature by Laughing Clowns
• (I’m) Stranded by The Saints
• Super Ape by Lee “Scratch” Perry & The Upsetters
• The Soft ‘N’ Sexy Sound by Dave Graney ‘N’ The Coral Snakes
• Mutiny/The Bad Seed by The Birthday Party
• Bahdeni Nami by Omar Souleyman
• Ascension by John Coltrane
• The Definitive by Blind Willie McTell

So this was the reason I started this blog. The idea is simply to write post about one of my favourite album each that I consider a classic album. Please leave a reply below about this album or any others because I would love to hear what you think about each album too? Cheers!

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