| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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<< NOCTURAMA is so good i actually had to shit while listening to it. i highly recommend it...esp 'dead man in my bed'... >> ... Okay! Just thought y'all'd like to know. ;) |
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This is, like, a painful blow to me because somehow "I love PJ Harvey" has become woven into my self-concept. It's like Spider *female *American *Northeastern American *Italian-American ... *Brunette ... *Lover of music *Lover of Tom Waits *Lover of PJ Harvey ... *Future post-apocalyptic librarian ... *Liberal feminist ... *Lover of fine cheese Or something. You know what I'm trying to say? It's up there, my love for PJ Harvey. Discovering her music in my teens was a life-changing experience for me. She was so ferocious and unafraid of sounding ugly, and would often wail and woop like a dying loon in her songs, and dress up in full-on movie-glam-gear to make fun of rigid definitions of femininity, and she was just what I needed to hear and be inspired by as I was transitioning into adulthood. What has happened to her? Not one song on "Uh Huh Her" does not make me cringe. The lyrics are uniformly terrible. Her last album was oookayyy -- I mean, I could see what she was trying to do, and I listened to an interview with her talking about how she wrote these songs in a totally new way, and how she wants to reinvent herself so her music never stagnates, and so on, and I respect that. But I can think of maybe two songs she's written in the past ten years that made me think, ooh, better listen to that again. And here's a big confession I have to make. This has been weighing on my musical conscience. I don't really like Nick Cave. I'm glad he exists and makes music, I think the world needs him and his contribution to the global musical tapestry is invaluable, and I love that this Australian dude is trying to carry out the American Southern Gothic literary movement through his music (and writing). But he's written probably hundreds of songs by now, and of them, maybe five have made me think, "Wow, goddamn, lemme hear that again!" (One of those is his band Grinderman's "Love Bomb" -- that song is awesome.) It's true. I wish Dave were here to counsel me through this. |
you know what? Ultimately, everything you said it okay. You're going to be just fine. People's tastes change. |
I think in my youth I was more tolerant of bands with singers who don't sing, like Mark E. Smith or Girls Against Boys' Scott McCloud. Nowadays, I need a melody. And since I'm baring my chest, here's another confession: It has grown to bother me that Tom Waits does not respect meter when he sings. He doesn't follow the beat, he just meanders through the melody. I know this is just his style, but seriously, Tom. Even on a very rhythmic song like "Singapore" he's "tempo rubato"-ing all over the place. It just bugs me, okay? BECAUSE. It doesn't sound deliberate or done for effect. It sounds like he has no sense of rhythm. Now, this obviously is untrue because of how he plays his instruments, but that is the impression his singing gives. And I don't like it. |
Spider, when you talk about PJ Harvey's last album, are you referring to "Let England Shake"? |
But every time I try to listen to it, I get maybe a minute into a song and get bored and skip to the next one. Also, I prefer it when she sings in her lower register, which you don't hear much of on this album. I know I clearly have attention deficit problems these days, so maybe this is a problem that lies with me and not her. One non-melodic song I adore is Tom Waits' "Watch Her Disappear". It's magically both sexy and sad. Last night I dreamed that I was dreaming of you and from a window across the lawn I watched you undress wearing a sunset of purple tightly woven around your hair that rose in strangled ebony curls moving in a yellow bedroom light the air is wet with sound the faraway yelping of a wounded dog the ground is drinking a slow faucet leak your house is so soft and fading as it soaks the black summer heat a light goes on and a door opens and a yellow cat runs out on the stream of hall-light and into the yard a wooden cherry scent is faintly breathing the air I hear your champagne laugh You wear two lavender orchids one in your hair and one on your hip a string of yellow carnival lights comes on with the dusk circling the lake in a slowly dipping halo and I hear a banjo tango and you dance into the shadow of black poplar tree And I watched you as you disappeared I watched you as you disappeared I watched you as you disappeared I watched you as you disappeared I watched you as you disappeared |
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it does. |
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that song is kinda creepy. |
It's kind of like reading Lolita. |