Musicheads Essential Artist: PJ Harvey
February 19, 2021
PJ Harvey — a singer, a multi-instrumentalist, and a godmother of grunge — is a Musicheads Essential Artist.
Polly Jean Harvey was born in England in 1969. She first came to the world's attention with her debut, Dry, released in 1992. The follow up album, Rid of Me, was recorded at Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, by producer Steve Albini, who would later record Nirvana's In Utero there. Harvey's second album brought a classic blues feeling and a gothic elegance to her sound and helped her break through in both the U.K. and U.S.A.
The pinnacle of Harvey's early work, though, is the 1995 album To Bring You My Love, which sold over one million copies and spawned a hit single, "Down by the Water."
She's the only person to win two Mercury Music prizes in the U.K.: one for her 2000 release Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea and one for 2011's Let England Shake, a fiery critique of her country's bloody history. In addition, Harvey has accrued eight Brit Award nominations, seven Grammy Award nominations, two other Mercury Prize nominations, and immeasurable critical acclaim.
Her most ambitious project yet was released in 2016: The Hope Six Demolition Project. In that album she applied the political activism that grounded the sound of Let England Shake to the rest of the world, travelling extensively to Afghanistan and America. The album's title referred to housing projects in Washington D.C. and was recorded live in front of an invited public.
With her own unique and gripping vernacular approach to rock, PJ Harvey was helped start a musical riot in the early '90s and has paved the way for many artists since. Her influence, both lyrical and stylistic, continues to ripple outward.