Making it up to Polly Jean Harvey

Making it up to Polly Jean Harvey

What’s that Noise?

Michael Tatum

In 1967, Richard Goldstein, at that time the pop music critic
for the New York Times, ran what very well may have been the most
famous, and most notorious, record review of all time.

In it, he said some not too kind words about the Beatles’
then-new record Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, which he
disdained, among other things, for being "busy, hip, and
cluttered."

Unfortunately for Goldstein, the record just happened to be the
hottest in the country in that moment, the summer of 1967, the
so-called Summer Of Love. The record not only qualified as a
runaway commercial success ­ holding onto the top of the
Billboard album charts for several months – but it was an immense
critical success as well.

Sgt. Pepper garnered hosannas not just from the young and
faithful, which was to be expected, but also from old fogeys who
had long-harbored doubts about that jungle music, rock ‘n’ roll.
With just one forty-five minute set of songs, rock music was
suddenly legitimized. Come to think of it, I suppose anyone who
might read this column doesn’t need to be briefed on the merits of
this record.

Needless to say, irate music fans swamped The Times with letters
that demanded everything short of calling for Goldstein’s
execution. Not only had he insulted the World’s Greatest Rock Band
­ which would have been bad enough in itself ­ but he had
dismissed what the rest of western civilization had exalted as not
just a landmark record, but a cultural totem.

Goldstein, however, admirably stuck to his guns, and refused to
recant despite the fact that his review had inspired more hate mail
than any other pop music review in The Times’ history.

In 1987 (as in "It was 20 years ago today …"), on the
anniversary of Sgt Pepper’s release, the Los Angeles Times ran a
piece that re-examined and re-evaluated the record that in a few
months, the writers of Rolling Stone would pick as the best album
of the last 20 years.

Included in the article is a question posed to Richard
Goldstein, who by this time had given up rock criticism (he still
writes, mostly issue pieces, for the Village Voice). The question:
Do you still feel the same way about Sgt. Pepper?

The answer? "I was wrong."

* * *

Funny thing is, the exact same thing happened to me.

Yes folks, that’s right. I was wrong.

I hate to admit it, but it happens often. Much as I try to hide
in sarcasm, wit and what one of my detractors describes as an
overfamiliarity with The Rolling Stone Record Guide (own it, never
read it), every now and then I underrate good records, overrate
average ones or make quick judgments based on ill-informed
opinions.

Sometimes it stems from an honest lack of time commitment ­
after all, as of this point, I’m incapable of being a rock critic
24 hours a day as do careerists like the Village Voice’s Robert
Christgau.

Mostly, though, my occasional sycophancy and slowness to the
punch springs from sheer laziness.

Given the right record, the results can be lamentable. Records
that require a great deal of concentration (or necessitate
overcoming my many prejudices) I sometimes dismiss too soon, and
conversely, records whose pleasures are immediate but shallow, I
sometimes embrace too quickly. This explains why eight months ago I
enshrined Liz Phair’s uneven Whip-Smart and balked at Victoria
Williams’ wonderful Loose. Guess which record still sits on my
shelf.

Now before this disintegrates into an overwrought confessional a
la Tori Amos, I’d better get to the point: P.J. Harvey’s To Bring
You My Love.

Last March, I gave this record a lukewarm review in Soundbites,
The Bruin’s record review column. My problems with the record were
based largely on my bias against co-producer Flood, whose work with
Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails and U2 I’ve found heavy-handed and
pretentious at best and empty and pompous at worst.

I missed Steve Albini, who turned Harvey’s last record, the
bone-breaking Rid Of Me, into literally the rawest slab of guitar
anarchy ever commercially issued. I was disappointed that Harvey
put that guitar in the closet and replaced it with an arsenal of
keyboards. I winced at the religious imagery of the lyrics, which I
found overwrought and melodramatic. In short, I was positive that
Polly Jean Harvey had decided to transform herself into Diamanda
Galas.

That’s what I’m taking this space to say, OK Polly ­ I’m
sorry, I was wrong. What can I say? Your new album is a
masterpiece.

Let me make it up to you:

At first listening, the songs on the new record with immediate
appeal are the undeniable piledrivers: "Meet Ze Monsta," with its
riveting vocal hook, "Big … black … mon … soon!" and "Long
Snake Moan," in which Harvey works the "voodoo" (as she puts it)
that she does well.

What’s slippery though are the slow burners, the ones that rely
less on full frontal attacks than on subtle, minimalistic
instrumental touches that become hypnotic only after repeated
listenings. I mistook the "open space" of these songs for
meandering, and I wished Harvey had filled those holes with some
guitar blasts, or at least picked up the tempo.

But what carries these songs ­ every last one of them
­ to glory is Harvey’s voice, absolutely riveting in its
intensity, from the ungodly howl of the title track, to the
orgasmic, swooping cries of "The Dancer," to the creepy way she
delivers the line "Let me ride on his grace for a while" on
"Teclo." And though I still have doubts about the overreaching
nature of some of the lyrics ­ "Big fish, little fish swimming
in the water?" ­ if Harvey is so compelling that I’m willing
to cut her considerable slack.

But I also have to mention Flood’s production touches, which
while not as geared to my unrefined tastes as Albini’s
abrasiveness, work miracles, particularly the fuzzed-up keyboard
bass. He uses this device to great effect on the instrumental break
on "Meet Ze Monsta," where a tinny drum machine and random keyboard
murk suddenly explode into a machine-gun guitar riff that mows down
everything in its path.

I originally thought this record was Harvey’s worst, and feared
it to be the beginning of the end, or at least evidence she should
rehire the bassist and drummer of her now defunct power trio.

Well, I was dumb. This record may very well be her best: an
unassailable work of genius from a gifted artist whose probably
only begun to show her promise.

The only way you can get from point A to point B, however, is to
have the patience to listen. An artist as difficult and as complex
as Harvey demands a commitment on the part of the listener to
hearing the music before anything sinks in, something I probably
should have learned after struggling through the first few
listenings of Rid Of Me. Nowadays, I don’t have to be coerced to
put either in my CD changer.

I’ve talked to various people who have bought this album and
have come away disappointed that the album doesn’t provide instant
gratification. I can only respond that if there’s anything I’ve
learned from being a music fan, it’s that the best music is that
which unfolds slowly, that reveals a little more of itself with
every listen: Sly Stone’s There’s A Riot Goin’ On, Beck’s Mellow
Gold, and especially The Rolling Stones murky Exile On Main Street,
the apotheosis of the Difficult Record.

So for those who find P.J. Harvey creepy, weird, bizzare. My
sincere advice: attend to it’s details. This album is a
masterpiece.

In the meantime, may I never get fooled again.

Tatum promises never to take a vacation again. His column
appears every Wednesday.