Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea

Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
Studio album by PJ Harvey
Released 23 October 2000
Recorded March–April 2000 at Great Linford Manor in Milton Keynes, United Kingdom
Genre Alternative rock[1]
Length 47:25
Label Island
Producer Rob Ellis, Mick Harvey, PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey chronology
Is This Desire?
(1998)		 Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
(2000)		 Uh Huh Her
(2004)
Singles from Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
  1. "Good Fortune"
    Released: 13 November 2000
  2. "A Place Called Home"
    Released: 26 February 2001
  3. "This Is Love"
    Released: 8 October 2001

Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea is the fifth studio album by English alternative rock musician PJ Harvey, released on 23 October 2000 by Island Records. Recorded during March to April 2000, it contains themes of love that are tied into Harvey's affection for New York City.[2]

The album became the second major commercial success of her recording career, following her successful breakthrough To Bring You My Love (1995). Upon its release, the album received acclaim from most music critics and earned Harvey several accolades, including the 2001 Mercury Prize. It spent 17 weeks on the UK Albums Chart, and was certified Platinum in the UK and Australia.[3][4] It is generally regarded as one of her best works.[5][6][7] In the updated version of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, it was ranked at #431.[8]

Background

In 1998, while shooting a film as actress for Hal Hartley in New York, she felt inspired by the city and wrote several songs. Some of them ended on the following album.[9] In 1999, she chose to live there for nine months.[10] However, she insisted in interviews it was not "my New York album". Songs were also written while she was in London or at home in Dorset.[10] Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea was then recorded at the Great Linford Manor in Milton Keynes in March–April 2000. The record was co-produced by Mick Harvey, Rob Ellis and Harvey, and mixed by Victor Van Vugt at the Fallout Shelter. The album featured a duet with Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke on the track "This Mess We're In", as well as backing vocals and keyboards from Yorke on the songs "One Line" and "Beautiful Feeling". She had met Yorke in 1992 and they had stayed in contact. She said: "I'd long been interested in the idea of somebody else singing a whole song on a record of mine, to have a very different dimension brought in by somebody else's voice. It adds so much dynamic within the record to have this other character coming in".[9]

She wanted the record to be more direct: "It's very different musically to the first couple of albums. It's very melodic, and it's much rounder and fuller. The earlier albums were very black and white in some sense, very extreme. Melodically, this is much more sophisticated than those records. It kind of feels like a combination of every album I've made so far rolled into one."[9] The songs were also a musical departure from her previous dark material. Harvey told Q in 2001, "I wanted everything to sound as beautiful as possible. Having experimented with some dreadful sounds on Is This Desire? and To Bring You My Love - where I was really looking for dark, unsettling, nauseous-making sounds - Stories From The City... was the reaction. I thought, No, I want absolute beauty. I want this album to sing and fly and be full of reverb and lush layers of melody. I want it to be my beautiful, sumptuous, lovely piece of work." She did, however, concede jokingly that it was only "pop according to PJ Harvey, which is probably as un-pop as you can get according to most people's standards."[11]

Reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic88/100[5]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[12]
Chicago Sun-Times[13]
Entertainment WeeklyA−[14]
Los Angeles Times[15]
NME9/10[16]
Pitchfork Media5.5/10[17]
Q[18]
Rolling Stone[19]
Spin8/10[20]
The Village VoiceA+[6]

Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea reached number 23 on the UK Albums Chart.[21] The album was certified Platinum in the UK, with sales over 300,000 copies. The album debuted at number 42 on the US Billboard 200 chart.[22] It has also been certified Gold in France, and has sold 1 million copies worldwide.

Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea received widespread acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 88, based on 25 reviews.[5] NME hailed it as "a magnificent, life-affirming opus" by Harvey.[16] Robert Christgau called it "the best album of her career" in his review for Rolling Stone,[19] while in his Consumer Guide column for The Village Voice, he wrote: "[I]f Nirvana and Robert Johnson are rock's essence for you, so's To Bring You My Love. But if you believe the Beatles and George Clinton had more to say in the end, this could be the first PJ album you adore as well as admire. It's a question of whether you use music to face your demons or to vault right over them."[6]

A minority of critics rated it as only average. Spencer Owen of Pitchfork Media viewed the album as lacking in distinction, saying "the sheen gets slicker and her music gets duller".[17] The publication later, however, ranked it at number 124 in their "The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s" list in 2009.[23]

Accolades

The album earned Harvey BRIT Award nominations as Best British Female Artist for two years running, as well as two Grammy Award nominations for Best Rock Album and Best Female Rock Performance for the single "This Is Love". For the album, Harvey was nominated for the 2001 Mercury Prize for the third time (her previous nominations were for Rid of Me and To Bring You My Love). The award ceremony was held on September 11, 2001. Harvey was in Washington, D.C. on that day and witnessed the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon from her hotel room window. She was announced as the winner and accepted her award by phone, saying "It has been a very surreal day. All I can say is thank you very much, I am absolutely stunned."[24] The win made Harvey the first female solo artist to receive the Mercury Prize in the award's history. The album was ranked number eight on Rolling Stone's list of The 50 Essential "Women In Rock" Albums.[25] In 2002, Q magazine named "Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea" the Greatest Album of All-Time by a Female Artist.[26] In 2006, the album was chosen by Time as one of the 100 best albums of all time.[27] In 2009, Pitchfork named the album the 124th Top Album of the 2000s.[28] In 2009, NME also placed the album inside their Top 100 Greatest Albums Of The Decade, at number 6 [29] The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[30] Rolling Stone named it the thirty-fifth best album of the decade.[31]

Track listing

All songs written by PJ Harvey.

  1. "Big Exit" - 3:51
  2. "Good Fortune" - 3:20
  3. "A Place Called Home" - 3:43
  4. "One Line" - 3:14
  5. "Beautiful Feeling" - 4:00
  6. "The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore" - 4:01
  7. "This Mess We're In" (featuring Thom Yorke) - 3:57
  8. "You Said Something" - 3:19
  9. "Kamikaze" - 2:24
  10. "This Is Love" - 3:48
  11. "Horses in My Dreams" - 5:38
  12. "We Float" - 6:07
  13. "This Wicked Tongue" - 3:42 (UK & Japan bonus track)

Singles and promo videos
"Good Fortune"
"Good Fortune" by PJ Harvey
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Personnel

All personnel credits adapted from the album's liner notes.[32]

Musicians
Guest musicians
Technical personnel
Design personnel

Charts

Album

Chart (2000) Peak
position
Australian ARIA Albums Chart[33] 20
Austrian Ö3 Top 40[34] 43
Belgian Albums Chart (Vl)[35] 35
Canadian Albums Chart[36] 37
Dutch Top 100[37] 42
Finnish Albums Chart[38] 31
French SNEP Albums Chart[39] 7
German Albums Chart[40] 54
Irish Albums Chart[41] 17
Norwegian Albums Chart[42] 8
Swedish Albums Chart[43] 10
Swiss Hitparade Albums Chart[44] 26
UK Albums Chart[45] 23
US Billboard 200[46] 42
Chart (2001) Peak
position
New Zealand RIANZ Top 40[47] 42

Singles

Year Single Peak chart positions
UK
[45]		 FRA
[39]
2000 "Good Fortune" 41 100
2001 "A Place Called Home" 43 —
"This is Love" 41 —

Certifications

Region Certification Certified units/Sales
Australia (ARIA)[48] Platinum 70,000^
France (SNEP)[49] Gold 100,000*
United Kingdom (BPI)[50] Platinum 289,874[51]
Summaries

^shipments figures based on certification alone

References

  1. ↑ Battaglia, Andy (September 23, 2000). "P.J. Harvey: New York Dull … Sun Ra: Cosmos Factory". The New York Observer. Retrieved June 25, 2015.
  2. ↑ Cinquemani, Sal (20 January 2001). "Review: PJ Harvey: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 21 March 2010.
  3. ↑ http://www.bpi.co.uk/certifiedawards/Search.aspx
  4. ↑ http://www.aria.com.au/pages/httpwww.aria.com.aupagesARIACharts-Accreditations-2007Albums.htm
  5. 1 2 3 "Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea - PJ Harvey". metacritic. Retrieved 29 September 2009.
  6. 1 2 3 Christgau, Robert (28 November 2000). "Getting Bizzy: Pick Hit: PJ Harvey Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea". The Village Voice. Retrieved 21 March 2010. Relevant portion also posted at "PJ Harvey: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea > Consumer Album Guide". robertchristgau.com. Retrieved 28 June 2004.
  7. ↑ Hoard, Christian (2004). "PJ Harvey". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian. The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. London: Fireside. pp. 368–369. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8. Retrieved 21 March 2010. Portions posted at "PJ Harvey > Album Guide". rollingstone.com. Retrieved 20 October 2011.
  8. ↑
  9. 1 2 3 Appleford, Steve (October 29, 2000). "Checking In With . . . PJ Harvey In a New York State of Mind". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 10 May 2016.
  10. 1 2 Segal, Victoria, I'm just a raunchy sex queen. Is that what you wanted to hear?" Yes, frankly. Re-introducing PJ Harvey (21 October 2000)
  11. ↑ Cavanagh, David. "Dark Star". Q (December 2001).
  12. ↑ Phares, Heather. "Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea – PJ Harvey". AllMusic. Retrieved 24 December 2009.
  13. ↑ DeRogatis, Jim (5 November 2000). "P.J. Harvey, 'Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea' (Island)". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 16 October 2016. (subscription required (help)).
  14. ↑ Browne, David (3 November 2000). "Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea". Entertainment Weekly (567): 82. Retrieved 24 December 2009.
  15. ↑ Nichols, Natalie (29 October 2000). "Harvey Fuses the Raw and the Lush". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 21 March 2010.
  16. 1 2 Mulvey, John (21 October 2000). "NME Reviews: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". NME. Retrieved 21 March 2010.
  17. 1 2 Owen, Spencer (31 October 2000). "PJ Harvey: Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea". Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 24 December 2009.
  18. ↑ Anon. (December 2000). "PJ Harvey: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". Q. London (171): 133.
  19. 1 2 Christgau, Robert (9 November 2000). "Hot Child in the City: PJ Harvey Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea > Album Review". Rolling Stone (853): 128. Archived from the original on 1 October 2007. Retrieved 28 June 2004. Posted 26 October 2000. Also archived at "PJ Harvey Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea". robertchristgau.com. Retrieved 1 August 2011. Note: When printed, this was a four stars. As written it was 4.5 stars.
  20. ↑ Clover, Joshua (December 2000). "PJ Harvey: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". Spin. 16 (12): 215, 218. Retrieved 23 December 2009.
  21. ↑ "Mercury Prize 2011: Every Mercury Prize winner, ever, including PJ Harvey". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. 7 September 2011. Retrieved 2012-01-10.
  22. ↑ Columnist. Jay-Z Extends Chart 'Dynasty'. Billboard. Retrieved on 21 March 2010.
  23. ↑ "Staff Lists: The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s: 150-101". Pitchfork. Pitchfork Media. 29 September 2009. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
  24. ↑ "BBC News - MUSIC - PJ Harvey wins Mercury prize".
  25. ↑ Berger, Arion; George-Warren, Holly; Sheffield, Rob; Udovitch, Mim (31 October 2002). "Women in Rock: The 50 Essential Albums". Rolling Stone (908). p. 135. The otherworldly lass hits the concrete hard, sweaty from sex, looking for weapons and heading toward hope. With Stories, Harvey moved from punk to celestial, and took you with her. List posted at "Rock On The Net: Rolling Stone: The 50 Essential 'Woman In Rock' Albums". rockonthenet.com. Retrieved 2 May 2007.
  26. ↑ "100 Women Who Rock The World". Q. January 2002. List posted at "Rocklist.net...Q Magazine Lists". rocklistmusic.co.uk. Retrieved 24 November 2008.
  27. ↑ Light, Alan (2 November 2006). "Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea All-TIME 100 Albums". Time. Retrieved 5 May 2007.
  28. ↑ Phillips, Amy (29 September 2009). "The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s: 124. PJ Harvey Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea". pitchfork.com. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved 29 September 2009.
  29. ↑ THE TOP 100 GREATEST ALBUMS OF THE DECADE NME 2000s
  30. ↑ Robert Dimery; Michael Lydon (23 March 2010). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: Revised and Updated Edition. Universe. ISBN 978-0-7893-2074-2.
  31. ↑ "100 Best Albums of the Decade". Rolling Stone. New York. 9 December 2009. Archived from the original on 6 January 2010. Retrieved 14 May 2013.
  32. ↑ Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (CD). PJ Harvey. Island Records. 2000. 548 144-2.
  33. ↑ "australian-charts.com – PJ Harvey – Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea". australian-charts.com. Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  34. ↑ "PJ Harvey – Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea – austriancharts.at". austriancharts.at. Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  35. ↑ "ultratop.be – PJ Harvey – Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea". Ultratop. Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  36. ↑ "RPM Top 100 CDs – November 6, 2000" (PDF). RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  37. ↑ "dutchcharts.nl – PJ Harvey – Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea". dutchcharts.nl. Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  38. ↑ "finnishcharts.com – PJ Harvey – Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea". finnishcharts.com. Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  39. 1 2 "lescharts.com – Discographie PJ Harvey". lescharts.com. Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  40. ↑ "charts.de – PJ Harvey, Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea". Media Control Charts. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  41. ↑ "irishcharts.com – Discography PJ Harvey". irish-charts.com. Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  42. ↑ "norwegiancharts.com – PJ Harvey – Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea". norwegiancharts.com. Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  43. ↑ "swedishcharts.com – PJ Harvey – Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea". swedishcharts.com. Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  44. ↑ "PJ Harvey – Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea – hitparade.ch". Hitparade. Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  45. 1 2 "PJ Harvey | Artist | Official Charts". The Official Charts Company. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  46. ↑ Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea – PJ Harvey: Awards at AllMusic. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  47. ↑ "charts.org.nz – PJ Harvey – Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea". charts.org.nz. Hung Medien. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  48. ↑ "ARIA Charts – Accreditations – 2007 Albums". Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  49. ↑ "French album certifications – PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea" (in French). Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  50. ↑ "British album certifications – PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved 4 July 2012. Enter Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea in the field Keywords. Select Title in the field Search by. Select album in the field By Format. Select Platinum in the field By Award. Click Search
  51. ↑ Jones, Alan (22 April 2016). "Official Charts Analysis: Drake's One Dance tops the chart for second consecutive week". Music Week. Intent Media. Retrieved 25 April 2016. (subscription required (help)).
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