Rid of Me

This one takes a while to get going and that is time I just don’t have to give. I guess I disagree with the critics … again.

This is peak Polly Jean Harvey and it's so much noisier and more raw than I remember. I love it!

Rid Of Me was another really good entry in PJ Harvey's lineup. This one seems to take after Dry way more than any of the other PJ Harvey albums on the list as it has this very rough grunge sound that Dry also had. I really do like this sound mainly due to my love of grunge music in general with my only issues with this album being some parts of it's production and the fact that it did feel like it was dragging a little bit. Other than that though, i really can't think of anything else that this album does wrong, guitars have that rough sound i love, the vocals are great and the melodies are super enjoyable. This was a great album to say the least.
Best Song: Highway '61 Revisited
Worst Song: Man-Size
Side note: Last PJ Harvey album, meaning:
1. Dry
2. Rid Of Me
3. Let England Shake
4. Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea

3.75 fantastic, gritty, raw.

No sir, I will not lick your legs.

with each pj harvey album i get like i her more and more

A while back, I started my own ‘greatest albums if all time’ playlist and this is already on it. It’s frustrating that I was 30+ years late to the PJ Harvey bandwagon, but I’m glad I got here eventually.

I'm fortunate that this list gave me PJ Harvey's first album, Dry, first and let me start at the beginning. I've since also reviewed Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea, but I try not to compare albums to the artist's later works when possible. Compared to Dry, this record shows some remarkable growth and a much more focused sound. That's kind of a weird thing to say about an album that Steve Albini was brought in to produce, but it's true. Where Dry felt very DIY and raw, Rid Of Me has about as much polish as you would put on a grunge record in 1992/1993. The little bits of cowpunk twang have been omitted - or at least they're now running through a fuzz pedal so they don't twang like they used to (see "Ecstasy"). Dry was gritty because the recording equipment probably wasn't good but this feels gritty because they CHOSE to make it feel that way, it doesn't feel like you're hearing the recording equipment or the process at all (if that makes any sense), just a band playing themselves into grunge history. That all sounds like I'm giving reasons why this record is better than Dry, and I'm actually not sure I feel that way. Both albums are amazing in different ways and I don't know if I could pick one over the other. That said, Dry had some unrealized potential (mostly in the recording) and I gave it 4 stars for that. This album doesn't suffer thesame problem (at least by comparison) so I'm going to rate it higher. I think it's a case of two 4.5 star records being rounded differently.

required postscript: I love to talk about how this album was recorded by Steve Albini in the same remote Minnesota studio - in the same winter(!) - as Nirvana’s In Utero. This one was recorded first and, for my money, it's the better of the two albums. I don’t think anyone gets as excited as I do about this incredibly niche fun fact, but I also don’t think I know anyone who rates Polly Jean as highly as I do. Some day I'll make a pilgrimage up to Cannon Falls so I can see Pachyderm Studio for myself.

Honestly, putting on Rid of Me feels less like listening to music and more like bracing for an attack. Steve Albini’s production is so raw and abrasive that the sudden jumps from quiet to deafening actually hit you like a punch. Polly is an absolute force here, she sounds feral, snarling and whispering her way through songs about obsession and power with a post-punk blues energy that doesn't care if you're uncomfortable. Some of the production choices, like the screeching strings on "Man-Size Sextet", are definitely jarring, but it all feels intentional.

Beyond the killer title track and "50ft Queenie", her cover of "Highway 61 Revisited" is completely unhinged. She takes Dylan’s song and turns it into a frantic, nerve shredding sprint that she makes entirely her own. It’s an exhausting, uncompromising listen that isn't exactly built for casual background music, but for pure, raw intensity, it’s one of her most powerful records.

There’s no shortage of intensity here, but I find myself getting tired of it surprisingly quickly. Harvey’s vocals and the abrasive guitars keep hitting the same nerve until I struggle to distinguish one song from the next. The tracks change; my reaction doesn’t.

I don’t need the rough edges smoothed out, but I do need something beyond them to hold my attention. On 𝘙𝘪𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘔𝘦, they’re too often all I hear. By the end, I remember the album’s abrasive sound more clearly than any individual song.

A bit of a din but not totally unlistenable

Really liked this. Sounds familiar but not heard anything like it ironically.

Bon, je vais la faire simple mais un disque qui commence par un ordre chuchoté puis qui fini par nous sauter à la gorge comme un pitbull affamé mérite qu'on s'y attarde quelques minutes. En 1992, le monde découvrait une tornade nommée Polly Jean Harvey avec Dry. C’était aride, abrasif, tranchant, foutrement prometteur mais putain qu'est ce que c'était bon. Puis pour son deuxième album, la fille du Dorset qui ne voulait pas juste confirmer l’essai dans son coin de campagne anglaise, a pris un vol pour Chicago afin de s’enfermer avec l'ingénieur du son le plus intransigeant et puriste de la scène indépendante américaine : Steve Albini. Le résultat ? Rid Of Me. Quarante-huit minutes d'une violence psychologique, charnelle et sonore inouïe.

Autant le dire sans détour, je lui colle un gros 4 sur 5. Car c'est un disque immense, une baffe monumentale et même si sa radicalité brute et sans concession peut en effrayer plus d'un.

Pour bien piger le truc, il faut tout d'abord retourner en 1993. Le rock alternatif commence à puer le fric et la récupération des majors, le grunge devient un produit de supermarché et les chemises de bûcheron s'achètent en prêt-à-porter de luxe. Débarque alors cette Anglaise décharnée qui, sur une pochette en noir et blanc signée Maria Mochnacz, balance sa tignasse trempée dans un mouvement quasi animal, le regard noir, prête à t'égorger. Pas de maquillage baveux façon MTV, pas de pose calibrée, juste une femme, son corps, et une tension électrique prête à déborder.

Ce qu'on remarque dès la première seconde, c'est cette alchimie dévastatrice entre Polly Jean et la patte Albini. Le producteur de Shellac et des Pixies ne « produit » pas au sens où les maisons de disques l'entendent ; il documente une agression sonore. Les amplis crachent, la basse grogne et la batterie sonne comme si Robert Ellis cognait directement sur votre cage thoracique au milieu d'une pièce vide. Albini applique ici à la perfection sa marque de fabrique : des dynamiques poussées dans leurs derniers retranchements. On passe d’un murmure étouffé, presque inaudible, où Polly Jean rampe sous tes draps, à une déflagration sonore qui t'explose les tympans sans crier gare.

Sur le fond, Rid Of Me est une autopsie sauvage des rapports de force, de la domination masculine, de la luxure et de la vengeance où Polly Jean ne joue pas les victimes larmoyantes. Elle incarne des monstres, des furies, des obsessions toxiques.

Le morceau-titre qui ouvre les hostilités donne le ton : ça démarre dans une intimité toxique et malsaine pour finir en un hurlement terrifiant où elle réclame qu'on lui lèche les jambes en feu. Sur « 50ft Queenie », elle se transforme en géante vengeresse, beuglant qu'elle fait dix mètres de haut avec une rage jubilatoire et totalement démente. Tout l'album est traversé par ces éclairs carnassiers, à l'image de « Man-Size » qui taille en pièces la prétention virile avec un sarcasme mordant. Même sa relecture du « Highway 61 Revisited » de Bob Dylan est un coup de génie pervers : elle dépouille le classique folk-rock de son flegme d'origine pour en faire une cavalcade furieuse, hystérique et complètement possédée.

Alors, pourquoi ce n'est pas un 5 sur 5 absolu, me demanderez-vous ? Parce que Rid Of Me est un bloc de granit tellement abrupt et suffocant qu'il peut parfois être difficile à écouter d'une traite. L'austérité voulue par Albini, ce son presque trop sec et anti-commercial, frôle par instants l'exercice de style masochiste. C’est précisément cette intransigeance qui fait sa grandeur, mais c'est aussi ce qui le rend moins universel ou envoûtant que son successeur To Bring You My Love, où elle apprendra à marier cette fureur primitive avec une dramaturgie plus ample et théâtrale.

Il n'empêche que Rid Of Me est un album majeure dans le rock des années 90. Un manifeste viscéral où PJ Harvey a démontré qu'une femme avec une guitare électrique pouvait être dix fois plus menaçante, imprévisible et viscérale que n'importe quelle bande de gars à cheveux gras. Une œuvre brute de décoffrage, éprouvante mais indispensable.

Shocked this is my first listen. Female vocals on some heavy grunge? Sign me up. 4/5.

wanted to like this more than I was able to. cool vibe but honestly a bit of a slog.

I came across PJ Harvey at some point in the automatically generated stream from my music streaming service. I thought the songs of hers I heard there were great. Her voice is powerful, and the music is remarkable. This is now her second album in this project. I found parts of it pretty exhausting. I’ll definitely keep listening to PJ Harvey, but I don’t think I’ll go out of my way to listen to this album again. 3/5

Tuff

Raw, sounds like it was recorded in the manager’s office of a 7-11

Not really my jam. Way too cacophonous

I’ve got give this one another listen. Definitely intriguing and drew me in on first listen. But I was more so enamored with the production more than the music. But I’m sure that was just me

Rocking stuff. Loads of energy. Steve Albini's production is perfect for these songs. Raw and direct.