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Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea | 
 enlarge | Artist: Pj Harvey
Label: Island
Category: Music
List Price: $13.98
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Rating:  203 reviews
Sales Rank: 15077
Format: Explicit Lyrics
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.7 x 0.4
MPN: 548144
UPC: 731454814423
EAN: 0731454814423
ASIN: B00004YW6I
Publication Date: 2000
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| Tracks:
| • | Big Exit | | • | Good Fortune | | • | A Place Called Home | | • | One Line | | • | Beautiful Feeling | | • | The Whores Hustle and The Hustlers Whore | | • | This Mess We're In | | • | You Said Something | | • | Kamikaze | | • | This Is Love | | • | Horses In My Dreams | | • | We Float |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com's Best of 2000
She may not break new ground with Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, but Polly Jean Harvey proves one thing: she sure knows how to tend to her plot. Hard-rocking, guitar-driven numbers, mesmerizing vocal wordplay, and plenty of noisy atmospherics prove that Harvey is still the queen of rock-noir. --Jason Verlinde
Amazon.com
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea--the sixth album from the most incendiary female British performer to emerge in the 1990s--is as powerful a record as any Polly Jean Harvey has made. Masterfully striking a balance between her blues-folk roots, avant-leanings, and soaring pop sensibility, it serves as a summary of Harvey's prior achievements. The abrasive, jagged guitars hark back to her fiery 1992 debut album, Dry, on the ballistic yet anthemic opener, "Big Exit," while the dreamy, opulent closer, "We Float," demonstrates her maturity as a songwriter. The clamor and emotional rush of a heady relationship--particularly on her duet with Thom Yorke, "This Mess We're In"--gives the album a ferocious clarity. The production skills of Mick Harvey (Nick Cave's Bad Seeds) lends depth and assurance. And, though PJ quotes from many influences--the Who, Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, and even West Side Story--her indomitable presence shines throughout. Stories from the City is the work of a singular talent at the peak of her powers. --Gavin Martin
Album Description
UK standard edition of the eagerly anticipated fifth album for the critically acclaimed, alternative singer/songwriter. Includes one bonus track, 'This Wicked Tongue'. 2000 release. Standard jewel case.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 198 more reviews...
 CD April 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
PJ has always been very avant guard. This cd is probably the least strange of all her stuff. Still, although I like it, it's not something I can listen to all the time.
 Avid Listener March 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was hesitant at first but after I listened to this CD I came to realize that every song is catchy and interesting. I listen to this CD every day.
P. J. Harvey's Finest Hour. February 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
P. J. Harvey is an English songwriter who has performed as a solo artist since her 1993 release Rid of Me. Although many critics have frequently compared her to Patti Smith (a comparison which she dismisses as "lazy journalism"), Harvey says she was influenced mostly by Soft Cell, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, the Pixies, Television and Slint. Personally, I can hear the Patti Smith influences as well. (For instance, on Harvey's song "Horses In My Dreams," I can hear Smith's album Horses.) In concert she is known for her "Joan Crawford on acid" look: ballgowns, pink catsuits, wigs and garish, vampish make-up. With songs written in Dorset, Paris, and New York, Harvey's Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea is her best album to date for several reasons. First, it features a duet with Thom Yorke (of Radiohead) on the track "This Mess We're In," as well as his backing vocals and keyboards fon the songs "One Line" and "Beautiful Feeling." Second, the album is more accessible than most of Harvey's other albums. The material here is uncharacteristically melodic, with pop-rock sounds fused with the gritty, thrashing, guitar-driven punk energy she is also known for on her other albums. Complete album setlist includes:
1. Big Exit (3:51)
2. Good Fortune (3:20)
3. A Place Called Home (3:42)
4. One Line (3:14)
5. Beautiful Feeling (4:00)
6. The Whores Hustle And The Hustlers Whore (4:00)
7. The Mess We're In (3:57)
8. You Said Something (3:19)
9. Kamikaze (2:24)
10. This Is Love (3:48)
11. Horses In My Dreams (5:37)
12. We Float (6:09)
G. Merritt
Her Masterpiece October 29, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Polly Jean Harvey is a rare thing in modern music. She is an incredibly uncomprimising, risk-taking artist, and definetly the most inspired, consistently inventive female singer-songwriter to come out of the 90's, even more so than Bjork or Tori Amos. She is also constantly reinventing her musical persona. From the crackling garage rock of "Dry", to the roaring, heartbroken blues-punk of "Rid of Me", to the creeping, swampy avant-blues menace of "To Bring You My Love", to the muted, ethereal soundscapes of "Is This Desire?", PJ Harvey is a true musical chameleon. With "Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea", she modifies her musical powers yet again, this time to focus on slightly more polished, urban-inspired pop/rock. This may come as a shock to some who have listened to Harvey's other work, as nothing she's done has ever been called polished or, God forbid, pop-oriented. But, surprisingly, it works incredibly well for her, as she finally manages to find a balance between the gritty urban blues of her early work and the more experimental textures of her latter-day work. "Big Exit", the album's opener, is a big, intense bullroar of a song, with the guitars blaring like ambulence sirens and Harvey wailing and swooning with that diva-with-a-grudge voice she's always known for, enchanced with an expansive echo effect. "Good Fortune" is an unbelievably pretty song, with lyrics describing a rapturous New York love affair that stretches from Chinatown to Little Italy, and Harvey feeling "like some bird of paradise" while Pretenders-style guitars chime behind her. This is the first of many songs that are steeped in the magic and kinetic energy of New York City. "A Place Called Home" is an ethereal slice of folksy dream pop, with lots of gorgeous keyboard bits and even a honking harmonica. "One Line" and "Beautiful Feeling" are the first of songs featuring vocals by Thom Yorke, with the former being a sweetly urgent ballad and the former a darkly atmospheric folk-blues song. "The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore" is a thrilling, blistering rock song, with the enormous guitars conjuring up an active New York during the day and Harvey's call of "This city's ripped right to the core" an eerie forshadowing of 9/11. "This Mess We're In" is a heartwrenching duet with Yorke, who takes lead vocals, and "You Said Something" is a starry-eyed, Manhattan-set love song that almost approaches country music. The storming "Kamikaze" is yet another unintentional forshadowing of 9/11, with its lyrics about "pilots flying" and its title, and "This Is Love" is straight ahead punchy blues-rock. "Horses in My Dreams" is an almost ghostly song, with the bluesy guitars counterbalanced with piano and ethereal keyboards. The closer, "We Float", is absolutely amazing, set to a gentle, swaying beat and Harvey's soaring chorus. My top three tracks are "You Said Something", "The Whores Hustle" and "We Float", and this is PJ Harvey's best album by a mile
Stories From The City... October 10, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I'd heard PJ Harvey over the years, as her music has appeared on multiple soundtracks I own. And I'd never heard one of her songs I didn't like. But I never owned one of her albums. Then, on CNN.com they had Time's Top 100 Albums of all time, and lo and behold "Stories..." appeared. I thought, what a strange selection amongst Ray Charles, Led Zeppelin, Joni Mitchell, The Beatles, etc. So I bought the album.
There was no doubt in my mind after one listening, this is not only as good as any of the aforementioned artist's work, but sometimes better. And the modesty... she even let's Radiohead's Thom Yorke take the lead on one song, apparently conceding just for the better of the project. This sort of rare artistic integrity is so rarely seen and so very welcome. I played this CD at home, in my truck, at work for a month straight non-stop! And I even shy away from putting back in any player as it becomes all I want to listen to.
This is an incredible collection of songs. PJ is a genius.
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