Dry
PJ Harvey
1992
Album Summary
Dry is the debut studio album by the band PJ Harvey, fronted by English singer-songwriter and musician PJ Harvey, released on Too Pure Records on 30 March 1992. The album was recorded at The Icehouse, a local studio in Yeovil, United Kingdom. The first 5000 LPs and first 1000 CDs included demo versions of the album's tracks and Dry was subsequently released in the United States on Indigo Records in the US. Both versions were released in 1992. Dry was reissued on vinyl and cd in July 2020: an 11-track companion album collecting all of the demos titled Dry - Demos was also released on vinyl as a stand-alone record.
WikipediaI’m a big PJ Harvey fan but I don’t think I’d listened to this album for a few years years. Still sounds brilliant. There’s a rawness about her voice that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up on songs like Sheela-na-gig. It’s hard to judge it on its own, without taking into account the body of work that came after this (and several even better albums) but it’s got to be a solid four plus stars for me.
Angular, raucous, righteous, feminist, and fully-formed straight out of the gate. A great first listen, and one of many to come I think.
I really love this raw, Emotional exertion. High up there so far in the list.
This is really good. This album is apparently one of the handful of albums Kurt Cobain said one time he really liked and then music critics fell over themselves to say “I liked it before it was cool!” (see also: Butthole Surfers, Mudhoney, Meat Puppets, etc.) But I really like this sound. Favourite track: “Victory”
I know she’s apparently very “authenthic” indie rock and cool etc but musically doesn’t do much for me
PJ Harvey’s debut album does not sound like a typical debut album. She comes across as confident and in control of her artistic vision. The music is textured and utilizes changes in dynamic very well. The sound is mature and stands out amongst the mountain of alternative music that came out in the early 90s.
Oh man, I am so happy to see this album on the list. I would have expected To Bring You My Love, her breakthrough third album, to be on the list (and it may still be). But for me, her debut album Dry will always be the quintessential PJ Harvey album. It's raw and unpolished, emotional, weird, at times dark and dissonant. She has a unique, uncompromising vision as an artist, and this album showcases that vision in all its glory. 5 stars.
My first listen to PJ Harvey was a month or two ago - the 2000 album Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea. So now I get to jump back 8 years to her debut album. I loved that last album, but had to warm up to it. This time I had no such issue. I was immediately into it. The opening track "Oh My Lover" has that early 90s shamble to it and is followed up with the peppier "O Stella" that I really loved. "Dress" really hits hard. It's a great song that turns a dress into a weapon. 'You purdy thang, my man says, but I bought you beautiful dresses' and 'Filthy tight the dress is filthy'. Wow. Spectacular song. This album puts a spotlight on relationships between men and women and has a raw energy that makes the lyrics all the more compelling. The music is great, the observations pointed and complicated. I like this even more that Songs Of The City... and I loved that album! This stands up to the best of what was going on in music in the early 90s. It's almost a crime that PJ Harvey didn't enter my consciousness then (male-dominated radio management anyone?!), but I'm very very glad this oversight has been corrected. Favorite tracks: O Stell, Dress, Happy and Bleeding, Sheela-Na-Gig, Plants and Rags, Fountain
PJ Harvey, rock trio and PJ Harvey, rock goddess, barreled through the senses with reckless abandon on this epochal debut. Thirty years on and this is still a searing, full on showcase for who would become one of the more chameleonic and captivating musicians of her era. No wonder why she thought this would be her only album and dared to go all out. May I say that the gambit worked pretty damn well.
I really enjoyed that I don’t know if it was just me tho but that mixing sucked I listened to it on Apple Music and I could barely hear the songs, so weird but yeah, the songs themselves were pretty cool, and I LOVED the weird time signatures they used I couldn’t pick up all of them, but I’m pretty sure I Hair is 6/4? and Water is a 10/8? I probably got those wrong but I still appreciate the songs nonetheless favorite track was probably Plants and Rags, that whole Velvet-Underground-if-they-were-90’s type shit was just 🤌 yeah, definitely a 10/10, I just wished they made like a 2022 Remaster or something to fix how it sounds still, I enjoyed the hell out of that
Raw and full of nerve. PJ Harvey has the kind of voice to send prickles up the neck at its full power, defiant and aching.
Joe & a few others songs peeked my interest but overall PJ left me empty on her debut.
Just woke up from drinking way too much at a christmas dinner with work. This is exactly how I feel Could be a 1 but for the relation a 2 A boring record Whatever 1
Absolutely loved it. Moved from this particular album to some more of her recent stuff, though.
This was a delightful find! I really like her raw style. I had to go listen to another one of her albums right away.
Much like when we listened to Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, it took me a few tracks to find my footing with PJ Harvey's Dry, but once I did, I was a goner. I love this album, especially Dress, Victory, Hair, and Plants and Rags and especially-especially Sheela-Na-Gig and Happy and Bleeding. Swoon!
This album is exhilarating and beautiful. The songs drop like boulders from the sky. For a debut album it surely is acut above. At the time I remember thinking "Oh this sounds interesting". 30 years on this record is still startling and it would be easy to say if this was being released right now it would be still as fresh as the day it was pressed.
This was an easy assignment. Can't believe it's thirty years old already. Still a rocking hurricane wind tunnel, with no doubt or hesitation. How Polly came off the blocks this incandescent is still astonishing.
Great album. I really like PJ Harvey as a rock star, because her voice really suits it. I especially love the dress song, that one's badass
Even better than I remembered. Love the odd time signatures, love the live feel, love PJ's vocals. Everything.
Great PJH album, songs are as strong as ever -perhaps Rid of Me is even better, but this is obviously 5-stars.
Two PJs in one day! This one was great, grunge with a distinctly British and feminine twist. Absolute legend.
Packed with emotion, melancholic, but still interesting and melodic. I will definitely listen to it again.
Are there any award ceremonies that aren't an unloved farce? Will Smith slapping Chris Rock has been the only occasion when anyone has cared about the Oscars in at least 20 years. The most famous Nobel laureate for literature in recent times is Bob Dylan, and he couldn't be bothered to show up to collect it. And music awards are perhaps the most risible. Yes, we all cheered when Jarvis Cocker waved his arse in protest at Michael Jackson impersonating Christ at the Brits, but remember that the organisers thought Michael Jackson impersonating Christ was a good idea. The group that has won the most Grammies? U2, the most milquetoast, most conservative, least interesting, least deserving choice possible. And don't we all know these payola-provided ceremonies are solely to buttress the already eclipse-inducing egos of the tapeworms of the music industry, those who spend their working lives drafting contracts designed to leave the artists owing them money after they made the corporation enough dosh to buy Lithuania? I mention this because PJ Harvey has the apparent honour of being the only act to win the Mercury Prize twice. For those who don't know (nobody cares, as everyone knows), the Mercury Prize is an annual award to choose the best album from Britain and Ireland. In fairness, the Mercury Prize has managed some hits along with the misses: Screamadelica, Dummy, Different Class and the debuts of Suede, Franz Ferdinand and the Arctic Monkeys all seem solid in retrospect, but without looking up, can you name who won with the albums Elegant Slumming, A Little Deeper, Speech Therapy or An Awesome Wave? Indeed, the Mercury curse is the name given to the observed phenomenon that a Mercury Prize has sounded the death knell for plenty an act. Anyone remember the Klaxons? Anyone care? So we can't really infer the quality of PJ Harvey's work by way of her industry accolades. Mind, we can infer the quality of PJ Harvey's work by way of the exceptionally consistent quality of her albums. Yes, I have dithered for a bit, but just saying she's excellent doesn't really boost the word count, does it? Expanding the praise, PJ Harvey has real claim to be the best female singer-songwriter of the 90s. Dry, her debut album, has her kicking down the door, demanding with sheer talent that the world take notice. One can discern influences from blues, folk, punk and post-punk, but PJ Harvey clearly operates in her own genre, follows her own muse. This glorious independence rattles throughout the album, and it's an independence that she has never sacrificed. Anyway, note the year 1992. 1992 was also the year that grunge exploded. Sorry America, it was this album that properly sounded electrifying, punky, uncompromising, honest and raw. Bit more than Ugly Kid Joe, know what I mean?
Not your typical “rock” and I’m here for it. PJ put you on a roller coaster and you didn’t know what the next turn was. I’m actually obsessed with her voice, it’s so raspy and lays extremely well with the power chords that hit like boulders. The way she takes a strike at gender politics in 1992 is beautiful. There is so much I wanna say about this album but idrk how to put it into words and that’s almost how the entire album is. It makes you feel something but you don’t know what or why you’re feeling this. At the end of the day, it’s PJ Harvey, a legend. 9.2/10, I loved this!
My favorite part about this project is discovering artists and records like this. PJ Harvey has been a familiar name for a long time now, but I had no idea she sounded LIKE THIS? It's raw and gritty yet still polished, it's quintessentially angsty, and it's all around awesome. It reminded me that no matter how old I get or what I go through in life, I will always be that angsty, emo teenager who loves listening to angry music. It really never just was a phase mom, this is who I really am!!!!
Really liked this. Raw and full of emotion while being amazingly catchy. An interesting thing I read on PJ Harvey's Wikipedia page was about how Dry was Kurt Cobain's 16th favourite album of all time, I can totally hear some parallels between this and Nirvana. Definitely will revisit this album.
3rd time listening. This was already my 2nd favorite album, but I don’t have a lot to say about it. Almost every song works for me. The only songs I don’t care for are “Hair” and “Joe”. This is my favorite PJ Harvey album, and she’s my favorite musical artist. Favorite song: “Plants and Rags”.
PJ Harvey is one of my favourite artists, this isn’t my favourite album of hers but it’s still pretty much flawless. Fav tracks: Sheela-na-gig, Plants and Rags, Water, O Stella, Dress Least fav tracks: None, they’re all good.
Very good. Powerful lyrics, great punk aesthetics, love the basslines.
Excellent grunge inspired album that inspired many new female artists. The music matches the title of the album, dry yet heartfelt and well-executed with some great standout tracks like "Joe", the chaotic "Plants and Rags" and the in-your-face lyrics of "Dress". Definitely deserving to be on the 1001 list, mostly for the fact that it is one of the best female "grunge-raw" style albums out there.
it is, and sounds very much appropriate to, a debut studio album. raw energy, gorgeously creative.
I'm enjoying this more than I expected. I think I'd like to make music like this but very much different keys and more electronix
I came on PJ Harvey latish by way of Rid of Me and worked back to this, boy I listened to these a lot in the mid 90s. Vocals are a little inconsistent here but the fundamental structure is there.
Polly Jean is someone I need to spend a lot more time with. This is good!
Powerful, primal, in your face rock. Sheela-Na-Gig is just the most focal point of this amazing album. 4.5.
This one will need another listen. I like what I heard, but it seems Life it needs to attention to appreciate it fully.
Again, nice rocky style. Original, but a bit hard for me in this moment
неплохо так то, ее вокал на фоне тяжелой гитарки звучит норм, правда не там где вой начинается, первый трек самый лучший вроде
Первый трек задаёт балдёжный настрой. И ещё какие-то. На какие именно - хз. Ладно, Sheela-na-gig какая-нибудь. Просто разбирать по трекам не хочется, они душить начинают. От прослушивания тупо устаёшь. Я в начале подумал, что из-за некой комплексности без подготовки возникает подобная реакция. Но нет, прослушал раз 5-7, это действительно во многом душная музыка. Так что был бы рад поставить 4, ибо музла то хорошего завозят, если бы не уставал. Был бы балдёж-нормас - ещё лан, но балдёж-усталь - уже не.
Another artist that I've definitely heard of, but never really listened to. And, uh... if the rest of her stuff sounds like this? I probably never will. Her voice is just very abrasive to me. I do not enjoy it. It warbles between being barely tolerable to sounding like nails on chalkboard. Is it because I'm getting older? Am I becoming what I hated? The actual music is pretty decent though.
I normally try to give albums a second or third listen, but this was terrible.
So whose idea do you think it was to use the same vocal track on every single song? Seriously, how much effort can one woman put into not singing, and doing it on every track? Pretentious crap. One star for convincing somebody to actually record her.
I vacilate on whether Dry or Rid of Me is her best album. Great song after great song on both albums. This week Dry is my fave. Next week? Who knows 5 🌟
Wow, this was so much more enjoyable than let England shake and the other one she did.
Sequência muito poderosa e envolvente de rock vital. Valeu demais o "esforço" para escutar no YT, já que não está mais no deezer, nem spotify.
Je suis surpris de pas connaître ça !! Du rock des années 90. C’est très bon on dirait un mélange de L7 et sublime. Le violon est bien ajouté et n’a pas l’air wacky. La bass groove grave et vol le show selon moi. Les vocals sont pe le point faible je trouve, on dirait un cover band (mauvais chanteur) puis les textes... m’en criss hahahah
I like the raw, bluesy, punk-ish sound. I had “Dress” on high rotation back in the days of Napster, but the rest is new. A great debut album!