|
Formats and Editions
Reviews:
''Uh Huh Her'' is a 2004 album by British singer-songwriter PJ Harvey. The album was written, recorded and produced over a two-year period by the singer/songwriter herself. She also played every instrument in the album – a first from Harvey since ''4-Track Demos'' back in 1993 – with the exception of the final drum tracks, added by long-time collaborator Rob Ellis. It was released in May 2004.
To support the release, Harvey toured for seven months. She performed in various European summer festivals such as Glastonbury and opened for Morrissey in a few dates. During the same tour she also performed the album's unreleased title-track. ''Uh Huh Her'' debuted and peaked at number 12 in the UK Albums Chart and has been certified Silver by the BPI. It became Harvey's highest charting album to date in the U.S., peaking at number 29 in the ''Billboard'' 200, and had sold more than 135,000 copies there as of 2005, according to AskBillboard. Although it charted higher than ''Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea'' in many territories, ''Uh Huh Her'' failed to achieve its predecessor chart longevity and crossover interest.
The album received largely positive reviews upon its release, although there was some criticism towards its production. It currently holds a 79 out of 100 metascore at ''Metacritic'' based upon 28 reviews, indicating "Generally Favorable Reviews". ''Uh Huh Her'' also earned PJ Harvey nominations to awards such as the Grammy Awards and the Brit Awards. - Wikipedia
"
There's an old Spencer Holst tale about an attractive woman of modest intellect who decides to seek her fortune writing for True Confessions-type magazines. She cultivates a relationship with a man until she has enough material for a story, then dumps him and writes about the experience. The woman becomes wildly successful by repeating the exercise again and again. None of the magazines she writes for has any idea that she's working from life. None of her lovers can figure out why they've been jettisoned. And the woman never suspects that her working methods are the least bit out of the ordinary.
So it would seem to be with Polly Jean Harvey. Not that she's anyone's dummy-like any capable sorceress, she's simply addicted to tempting the fates on a regular basis. Harvey finds inspiration in driving through hurricanes with the top down, hacking off little pieces of flesh and tossing them behind the car to keep her hellhounds oriented. Sure, her 1998 breakdown served as proof of her vulnerability, just as 2000's uncharacteristically cheery Stories From the City, Stories from the Sea demonstrated her resilience. But both are mere sidebars in the saga of a formidable entity whose stuff is stern enough to sustain a relationship with Vincent Gallo, reputedly one of the crabbiest men in show business.
Harvey dedicates ""The Letter,"" the most erotically charged song on Uh Huh Her, to Gallo. Accompanied only by long-time drum buddy Rob Ellis' sparse, skittering beat and her own guitar-sounding more gloriously uncooked than it has since Rid of Me-Harvey constructs an elegant sexual metaphor out of the stuff that bill-paying is made of. When she invites Mr. Grouchybritches to see ""The curve of my g?/ The longing?"" in the first verse, she's tense, hoarse. Only after exhorting him to ""Take the cap/ Off your pen/ Wet the envelope/ Lick and lick it"" does Harvey find release, with a succession of low, full-throated moans that modulate into a sweet, fluid keening repeated until plea turns into incantation.
The rest of the album, co-produced by Harvey and Head, is just as rough on the surface. Still, at its core, Uh Huh Her is far more refined than the glossy Stories. Harvey, who contributes everything but drums, pares arrangements to skeleton and sinew-often just guitar and drums, sometimes, as on the folky ""No Child of Mine,"" less-relying on intensity of execution. It might be tempting to saddle Uh Huh Her with the ""return to rock"" tag, were it not, like Dry and Rid of Me, a blues album first and foremost.
"
