PJ Harvey

PJ Harvey - Early Music Career

Polly began her career as a musician in a three-piece band in 1991 with the release of debut single ‘Dress’ on independent record label Too Pure. By her second single ‘Sheela-Na-Gig’ in February 1992, she was attracting a lot of media attention. He first album Dry was released the subsequent month, and was a huge success. She even penetrated the American press, with Rolling Stone magazine awarding her title of Best New Female Singer and Best Songwriter. After touring the album, and an appearance at the Carling Weekend Reading Festival, she suffered a nervous breakdown due to pressure surrounding the release of her next LP. However, undeterred, in 1993 her second album Rid Of Me was released on Island records, and the world tour that followed gained her yet more public interest. Harvey was subsequently nominated for her first Mercury Music Prize. LP 4-Track Demos was released in the autumn of 1993, containing an assortment of unreleased material and Harvey’s early demos for Rid Of Me.

1995 saw the release of album number four To Bring You My Love, which includes hit singles ‘C’mon Billy’ and ‘Down By The Water’. On this album Harvey began to experiment more with other musicians and began to incorporate a more theatrical element to her live performances. It was in this year she received her second nomination for the Mercury Music Prize, as well has receiving nominations for two Grammy awards. She also received Spin and Rolling Stone’s ‘1995 Artist of the Year’ award. Harvey’s fifth album Is This Desire? followed in September 1998 and achieved more nominations for the British Music Awards and the Grammies.

PJ Harvey - Music after 2000

Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea was released in October 2000, featuring a collaboration with Thom Yorke of Radiohead fame. The album was received emphatically in Europe and the US. It was nominated for yet another Brit award in 2001, and Harvey began a promotional European tour supporting U2. In 2003 Josh Homme from Queens Of The Stone Age instigated the Desert Sessions: collaborations with various artists of which Harvey was one. Harvey has collaborated with a number of artists, including Tricky, Sparklehorse, Tiffany Anders and Nick Cave, to name but a few. Polly has also recorded music for film soundtracks.

In May 2004 Polly released her seventh album Uh Huh Her, and once again was received with high praise. Another worldwide tour followed. In December 2005 Polly announced at a gig in Paris that it would be the last show she ever performed, though this may have been a pastiche of a similar comment David Bowie made in 1973 at London Hammersmith Odeon. It later transpired he simply meant he was retiring from his alter ego Ziggy Stardust, so Harvey may become an octo-champ and release her eighth album yet. Watch this space.

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