4.52am Issue: 029 13th April 2017 The PJ Harvey Issue

‘Too Pure’ sign them for their debut
album which followed in the Spring of
1992. Needless to say, ‘Dry’ received
massive critical acclaim, not just in the UK
but across the world, and the band were
catapulted onto the main stages of
festivals and the wish lists of promoters.
Rolling Stone magazine heralded Harvey
as their songwriter of the year, and
everything moved upwards.
The band were never going to stay with
‘Too Pure’ and despite misgivings over
artistic control they signed for Island
Records and set about recording what
would become ‘Rid of Me’ with Steve
Albini.
This instantly lost any remnants of folk
that were left from ‘Dry’ and was a
chilling mixture of the rawest swamp
blues, scouring Grunge and a breathtaking
control and poise that verged on
performance art.
From the opening bars of ‘Rid of Me’ itself
through to the bleak sexuality of ‘Legs’
the album grew into a chaotic blur within
which the almost baroque genius of ‘Man
Size’ gave way to an explosion with the
seminal ’50 Foot Queenie’ at its epicentre.
This was a quite extraordinary album by
any standards and created a whole level
of subtlety beyond what Grunge, if that
was what it was, had become.
The band were off and touring again,
but this time the cracks were showing
and after a final tour supporting U2,
and with one of the greatest Rock
albums ever still hot, it ended with a
sudden finality.
As Polly said afterwards,
"It makes me sad. I wouldn't have got
here without them. I needed them back
then – badly. But I don't need them
anymore. We all changed as people."
With the success of ‘Rid of Me’ Harvey
was signed on a Management deal by
U2’s manager, Paul McGuinness and
the strength of her songwriting away
from a band setting demonstrated with
the release of the demos she had
recorded for ‘Rid of Me’, in ‘4-Track
Demos’.
Of course, this was only the beginning
of one of the most inspiring, artistically
stunning and at times perversely
awkward careers in British music, but
in terms of raw talent and the simplicity
of one artist’s genius, it is hard to think
of two albums that capture the real
source of what makes an artist
blossom.