A full listen, some 25 years after release, at first sounds flat--too smooth. I think I anticipated a grungier, nostalgic sound from the 90s. Something as jarring and haunting as Harvey's older song 'To Bring You My Love' (soundtrack to Peaky Blinders). But this is limiting to an artist who has spent her career defying easy categorization.
In isolation, re-listens of select songs reveal more. 'This is Love' is affirms the visceral now: "I can't believe life is so complex / when I just want to sit here and watch you undress." 'This Mess We're In' interleaves a chaotic relationship with a NYC cityscape in flux. Thom Yorke joins to croon on opening verse, "Can you hear them? The helicopters?" while Harvey drives the memorable refrain: "The city sun-set over me." 'Horses In My Dreams' is a kind of sound painting, taken at a hypnotic, pounding tempo--"like waves, like the sea" indeed. In a 2023 New Yorker interview, Harvey says that Scottish poet laureate Robert Burns was "one of the few [artists] that could write brilliant songs and brilliant poems." 'Horses in My Dreams' starts to achieve something Burns-like. In that mesmeric repeated line, "I have pulled myself clear," there are horses, the ocean, struggle, and transcendence.
A moment for framing. What's happening when one critiques an album? At the age of 41, I find I'm listening now with curiosity but also an increasingly provincial guardedness and gatekeeping. I'm less generous than when trying, say, new cuisine--though in so many ways music is as universal and as sustaining as food. I'm asking, how does Harvey fit into her time and place? How does she contribute something new? Do her geographies, the oceanscape of Dorset, the cityscapes of London and NYC show up authentically in some way?
In critique (as in art and film and literature), we subject others to our taste, our interrogation, our own history. But while I notice my tendencies to circumscription and snobbery here, PJ Harvey reminds me of the refreshing opposite: the ever-searching, expansive soul. I give this album 4 stars.
What more is there to say about this album that hasn't already been reviewed? An astounding who's who of pop hits; MJ at his most iconic; Quincy Jones's formidable producing power on full display. It's not much for poetry nor philosophical depth, but it's unapologetically not trying to be. (And how about that Scorcese-directed, West-Side-Story-inspired 18-min music video with Wesley Snipes? A whole decade of pop culture distilled.)
For a moment, before the sadness of MJ's downward trajectory--abuse and a stunted adulthood begetting more abuse--it feels wholesome to imagine a time when one could admire this young pop king/genius at his peak.
4 stars.
A nice continuing foray back in time to the 70s. While listening, I was surprised to read that I'm quite near the birthplace of CCR: El Cerrito, just north of Berkeley. (Cosmo's Factory was a warehouse space they practiced in.) How did a couple of Bay Area kids arrive at this Southern 'swamp rock' style--their spiritual home not the Bay but the Bayou?
Growing up in a mostly immigrant community, I knew few folks who listened to music like this (my white friends were mostly listening to grunge). My first associations of CCR are in where I first heard them, pitch-perfect: Forrest Gump. The subsequent associations with Vietnam and the antiwar movement are perhaps what tie things back to their Bay origins.
Here today in rainy Berkeley, on one street, we had coffee at an Arabic cafe, then lunch at a Chez-Panisse-alum's spot whose storefront reads, "No Musk No Bezos No Billionaire Nazis." Then lox, bagel, and pastrami at the packed Jewish delicatessen. CCR playing as the soundtrack of the day didn't quite fit the vibe, but nonetheless evoked many intertwining histories.
On to the 90s. The title track here was apparently written with the Rodney King riots in mind, which generates a web of places and faces. The tensions of 'connected'-ness and disconnect, awareness and ignorance, are obviously no less relevant today: "Get yourself connected... / But if you're minds neglected / Stumble, you might fall."
However, this album feels less about heavy-handed social commentary than fun, funk, and dance. Most songs proceed at a similar rollicking tempo, with the formulaic dance beat dunh-dunh chi, duh-dunh-dunh chi--punctuated by those fantastic bari sax licks. Overall, it's a pleasantly receding vibe; you're at a early 90s dance night at the club or at the roller-skating rink. I enjoyed 'Pressure.'
3 stars.
The first listen-through felt surprising: is this really from the 60s? And what is that relentlessly grinding bass sound? I'm reading it's possibly a contrabass trombone. LOVE it! Then... flamenco guitar, flutes? So strange, so wonderfully experimental.
Then, during another listen to 'Track B,' two-and-a-half minutes in, I'm unexpectedly swept up into that build-up. I'm suddenly getting Rachmaninov, circus elephants, a sultry night out in the city, a crazed chase in circles, a closing in, still more fury, frenzy, before being gently guided back down from those heights.
Knocked the socks off!
10 years after 'Kind of Blue,' you feel Davis still breezing past the borders and expectations of his art, nonchalantly as ever. Non-standard instruments are at center and wonderfully warm: electric guitar, electric piano (I especially loved this), and electric organ. Splashes of dissonant chords unsettle the listening experience from becoming too 'easy.' There's much here that still feels fresher than today's ambient electronica.
The title track was more poignant for me--both the slower bookend themes and when the bassist (I think?) finds that groove in the late middle theme. However, the transitions were too abrupt for me: did I read correctly that this was just a copy and paste?
This album does prod me to search for more jazz fusion (Spotify intriguingly suggests 'Japanese Jazz Fusion'--likely influenced very much by Miles) and enjoy in the same way that I did today: winding down the evening, drink in hand, rain outside--and staring blankly at emails before looking up Davis's life on my phone. Solid day.
Couldn't stand the lead's voice, though they clearly had a distinct style. Grating, unpleasant, and it was terrible putting this on after a long day. Maybe you just need to be in a very specific listening mood.
I notice that in this listening, I have a tougher time getting past my lack of patience for a certain style--small rock bands that aren't immediately precise or poetic (in a way that isn't too grandiose). Listening is such a personal preference, even while it has many levels. I've never gone straight through this famous album and, though there were no unpleasant songs, there were no standouts I wanted to listen to again either (maybe except 'Sunday Morning'?). If we're being moralistic, 'Heroin' is a perfect personification, but do I care to have that personified?
In my first listens to The Boss, I couldn't believe this was called singing. Then I did buy into the Americana and everyman that Springsteen ever strives to represent, as well as New Yorker editor David Remnick's deep fandom and profiles of Springsteen. Springsteen's father would come home drunk from the rug factory, and, if not the voice, the lyrics of 'Born to Run' captured all of that Kerouac-restless energy to hit the road. I respect the man's continuing evolution, liberal sentiments (he reflects on his success like a Tolstoy, still mindful of the working class and victims like Trayvon Martin, to whom he dedicated a song). He is the self-aware entertainer, going for 120% in his live performances to please his audiences, and still going in his 70s.
All of that said, in this album, Springsteen seems to be in an early-middle stage--with those gospel elements coming in. The lyrics are less evocative than his other work. No standouts for me.
Tight Eagles sound, with some excellent guitar solos. I've a soft spot for that sound, as 'Hotel California' was the perfect soundtrack to many a late night drive on a road trip in the middle of the deserts, gold mining ghost towns, mountainsides, and farmland here in California--waiting for that mysterious no-place where one can never leave to emerge along the road.
That said, couldn't find any songs that hit as deeply.
It continues be a lovely journey to go back in time and try to connect the dots for who is a precursor to whom. In this album is the best of the grunge I remember and enjoyed ('Spanish Castle Magic'); the wonderful balance of instruments all doing their part (drum solos that elevate); and above all: what a guitar sound! Some ear worms here to return to.
The sampling is still banging (a 'sampling' for me: the piano in 'What Comes Around'; the bass-line syncopation in 'Dropping Names'; random bluegrass, Johnny Cash) and if the voices take some getting used to, the seasoned interplay between them is obvious--with those loud and proud NYC accents.
It feels like they threw everything and anything that came to mind at their tracks and lyrics, and found many surprising combinations that worked (and, of course, some that didn't.)
One more appreciation: this kind of style and musical approach was adopted by at least one more group of pioneering artists very far away: Kpop 1.0.
Quoting the movie 'Parasite': "RESPECT!"
Do I want to return to these songs? Not really. Do I recognize their breakthroughs and pioneering influence. Absolutely.
I don't wish to knock anyone's joy, as I can see how folks could really enjoy this campy album--but it's just one of those styles that would be on the last of a list to return to. A lot of songs felt tired and a lot of sameness, though I did like 'Fever.'
I also just don't enjoy campy horror movies.
Fantastic. And what a talent!
If I imagine myself rating this album as it first appeared, it would be 5 stars. For much more personal tastes, 4 stars, and also because it seems that her albums become even better over time!
Loved the instrumentals--only, I wish they were separate from the vocals.
