Customer Reviews

Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea

5 star:		(115)
4 star:		(44)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

This album simply has some of Polly's funnest songs. Big Exit, Hustling, and This is Love are simply fun, adrenaline-pumping (if not sexually arousing in the case of This is Love) songs that are better than most of the so called thrashing rock that is played on our radio stations. I think some of the dissent against this album comes from the fact that it's so "pop-rocky", well, maybe so, but if it's done well, so what? And yeah, This is Love is not T.S. Elliot when it comes to poetic lyrics, but it's just a FUN song no matter who wrote it. So many people are overly enamored w/ the depressing side of Polly Jean, and I loved Is This Desire? too, but you take the songs for what they are. The guitar work of "This is Love" also straddles the line between minor and dominant tonality, and that helps to give it a grindy, seductive sound. "We Float" has a beautiful vocal line, and is a good ender to the album, solemn yet resilient, a hope earned through suffering that is perfectly reflected by PJ's passion and melody. A good solid rocking album w/ enough maudlin pieces to satisfy that fix, I'd still rank "Is This Desire" ahead of it, but not by much, and I'd take this album over "Rid of Me" and "To Bring You My Love".

Following, in outstanding overall quality, many years on the heels of the superb "Rid Of Me," "Stories From The City" is, for all intents and purposes, a masterpiece......a homage to life, and the hope of love, previously only seen in Harvey's work intermittently. Of course, as there must be (for we love her for it, and it is her specialty) there is raw, defiant power there, too; particularly in the opening track "Big Exit." The closing number, "We Float," is arguably Harvey's best song of all time. Largely a love poem to New York, this album captures both the beginining and the ending stages of what it is to be in love, simultaneously, with another person and the geography of an era. Most distinctly, it explores the viability of a working relationship between tortured genius and simple human contentment.

This album is my introduction to PJ Harvey. I must say it's great work even though some people say it's more polished than her earlier albums. I'm sure my opinion about this album will change once I listen to her older albums (I may like them better, who knows) but for now I am content with this. Standouts include 'Big Exit' (which includes one of my favorite lines 'This world's crazy, give me the gun!') the optimistic 'Good Fortune', the unique 'The Whore's Hustle And The Hustlers Whore', the crazy 'Kamikaze', and my favorite 'This Is Love'. If you are looking for a female songwriter/singer/guitarist that is a cut above the mainstream then PJ is your choice. Enjoy.

The editorial review above misses the point - far from being more of the same, Stories from the City breaks into territory PJ Harvey never dared to venture before - peace and happiness. She rallies against her fears in "Big Exit," the blazing opening number, opting for defiance instead of death and then unleashes an album that defends her life at all costs, until, in the soft, languid penultimate number, "Horses in My Dreams," she quietly, defiantly declares "I have pulled myself clear." The album reflects a new, mature Harvey, enchanted by a new home in New York and appreciating every moment. The record masterfully closes on "We Float," a song that directly discusses feeling as though she had hit rock bottom and climbing her way out. She sings, "But now we'll float, take life as it comes." They're words we never expected out of PJ Harvey, and on this remarkable album, they're an absolute revelation to hear.

Stories was my introduction to PJ's work, and it's one of my favourite records. Some of the tracks don't grab you and may seem slow, but they eventually grow on you. Either way, the tracks that do stand out at first listen are enough to make this album more than worthwile. I wouldn't describe A Place Called Home as "catchy". I think this is one of the most beautiful songs to have been made in quite some time, and if you're reeled in right away, it has more to do with it's poignancy.
I also think the word "happy" doesn't quite describe the album. Stories is more about taking urban decadence and making the best of it. In a way, PJ's music, as "dark" as it has alway been, oftentimes carries an element of fun. Try singing This Is Love while you shower. Isn't it a blast?

My first real taste of PJ Harvey, recommended to me by a friend, and I thoroughly enjoyed all of it. I particularly love the slower, more ominous songs like 'a beautiful feeling' and 'you said something', but I'm not against the happier songs at all. From the little I've heard of 'Is this Desire' I'd say that PJ communicates anger and depression a lot more beautifully than the kind of blisfull happiness of some of these tracks, but we shouldn't hold that against her. An awesome album, by any standards.

Easily PJ's most accessible and immediately catchy album. Many of the songs have soaring anthemic chorus's and the arrangements aren't as dark and skeletal as her previous 2 albums. This may not sound appealing to some fans but the album is still a triumph. What ever sound PJ harvey goes for she never once sacrafices the amount of passion and soul she puts into it. Her vocals are gorgeous. Sometimes i forget what an amazing voice she has. Fav tracks are "The whores hustle and hustlers whore" and the sensational duet with Thom Yorke "This mess we're in".

I've been a big fan of PJ Harvey since her debut album Dry back in 1992, and I feel that Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea is her greatest album yet.

I simply cannot understand why any fan would want an artist to churn out the same emotions and musical style album after album. So she sounds unapologetically happy on this record, so she's having fun with a few lighter melodies and catchy choruses. Deal with it, grow up. Just because it's not as angry and abrasive as Rid of Me, that hardly means she has "sold out" or "gone soft" - this is the language of elitist underground snobs who take some sadistic, voyeuristic pleasure from the pain in her earlier records. It's a cheap, tired, lazy excuse for not trying to understand when a GREAT artist is coming from a different direction from that which you're comfortably familiar with. I can't see how some people feel there is less depth, range or emotional intensity on this amazing album. She still writes with staggering passion, she still sings with blistering energy, as if her life depended on it; she still rocks harder than anyone else around on tracks like Big Exit, The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore and Kamikaze. There is still plenty room for intense identification with all the heightened emotional extremes on this record. Personal joy and romantic love are emotions that are every bit as valid, true and important for an artist to express as the darker stuff they have established their name doing. The positive mood on songs like Good Fortune or This is Love is just as thrilling, dynamic and exhilarating to behold as the bitter rage of Rid of Me or the mournful melancholy of To Bring You My Love.

I also don't get the criticism that this record is less adventurous or experimental than her previous work like Is This Desire? After building up a solid cult fanbase with darker music, she's risking her well-established reputation and her audience's long-held perception of her by daring to try out a few lighter, happier sounds. Can't people understand, that this IS a brave and experimental move for her to make? And anyway, it's not like there's no tension, violence and hard, steely edges still left in the music - there's still enough references to genocide, suicide, syphilis and warfare to keep any self-respecting pain junkie satisfied!

Essentially though, it should all boil down to the music - and the music on this album is bloody brilliant from start to finish. Big Exit is one of the greatest opening tracks in recent memory, charging like a bull out of the gates and punching you between the eyes. Good Fortune is addictive, infectious fun and one of the most genuinely romantic love songs in ages. A Place Called Home, One Line, This Mess We're In and We Float are laced with heartbreakingly beautiful melodies and poetic images of love lost and found. Horses In My Dreams is one of her most tender, naked, vulnerable songs to date, and enormously moving for that reason.

Like all great rock artists, Polly Harvey changes, grows and evolves with each record she releases - whether or not her fanbase can keep up with her. I admire her courage in working without a safety net and exploring new territory with every release. Rock on Polly, and stay true to your heart.

I really like this CD as a CD: that is, it is very listenable as a whole and has some very good songs. That said, most of the songs don't have all the reach out an grab you power of the best of the songs from To Bring You My Love or Is This Desire? But if you want a PJ CD you can pop in and listen to straight through, then this is a great choice (that or burn the more listenable tracks from some of her other CDs onto a new one for when you are not quite in the mood for the roughest tracks -- or maybe that's sacrilege). Here, Big Exit, Good Fortune, and One Line stand out. What I really like about Good Fortune -- which also why this albumn has been criticized -- is that so much genuine hapiness shows through. And that's great. A new and fantastic facet to Ms. Harvey's music. I put this CD in rotation with the other four PJ Harvey CDs I own -- I wouldn't want the happy (if sometimes whistful) version of PJ over the sometime angsty sometime anxious sometimes frenetic PJ of other albumns every day. But this albumn doesn't suffer (much) for the comparison, just demonstrates a different aspect.

Great sounding record. Many of the live boots from her last tour contained great versions of her earlier work, i.e., previous albums. However, I prefer her 'Stories..' songs as they sound on this record instead (as opposed to live versions). What I think this means is that the best elements of these songs are the way they sound and are produced, the beauty and lushness of them, as represented on this studio record. In other words, they require studio perfection to sound their best. However, for me, this is her least interesting album lyrically. Her previous albums were a little more challenging, had more interesting subtext to them. In fact, I think much of her B-side material from this era is superior to at least a couple tracks on the 'Stories..' album.

With that being said, still there are many songs to admire here, particularly 'kamikaze', 'big exit', 'beautiful feeling' among others. Polly Jean Harvey at her worst is still better than most others at their best, so please don't take my critique too harshly.

Oh, and btw. Mick Harvey, who plays on and helped produce this album, is NOT PJs brother. Just good friends who happen to coincidently have the same last name. They've known each other due to Micks affiliation with Nick Cave, being in the Bad Seeds. He's perhaps the most important member of that band and the connection was made during the time that PJ and Nick were a couple. (A little off topic, I know, but worth mentioning).