Quotes taken from interview in latest edition of NME.

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http://www.musicrooms.net/alternative/3 ... -dull.html

PJ Harvey: Most music is dull

By MusicRooms on 31/07/2011

PJ Harvey has a general disregard for today’s popular music.

The 41-year-old is a music veteran with a total of eight studio albums in her catalogue. The singer, who is famed for her eclectic tastes and varied looks, is uninterested by today’s chart and contemporary music.

“Not for a lack of knowing it exists, but because I find nothing that interests me,” she said when asked why she doesn’t keep up with recent records.

“I listen to older artists, The Doors and things that excite me, and I find very little that excites me that’s happening today.”

PJ says the music today is bland and lacks any deep undertones.

The songstress insists that her view may completely differ to everybody else’s, but she just doesn’t feel a connection to the music in the charts today.

“[It’s] largely unoriginal. I think mostly that’s the reason, because I’ve already heard it a hundred times better before, and it doesn’t speak to my soul,” she said in an interview with NME magazine.

“Everybody is different in that way. I’m not saying there isn’t great work existing now – for many people there is – but for my own personal taste there’s nothing that grabs me and makes me want to go out and do more investigation into this music.”

http://www.musicrooms.net/alternative/3 ... -dull.html

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Wiggins is so superbly unassuming, he looks like he's about to say 'Pop the gold medal in the post, I'm nipping out for some biscuits'

Mark Steel

Thanks. That's no surprise really, you need to dig very deeply to find good contemporary music.

That's a bit funny because in another interview from one of the latest festivals, she was asked to comment on Björk's statement that "pop is superficial" (go figure), and said that she couldn't say that because pop can be very important to those who listen to it, but she personally doesn't like it. and now this. I think what she says is a lot harsher than Björk's statement at the end of the day, even if it's "just her personal taste".

I've been thinking this is the best year for new/newish music since about '95 just recently, it's all personal taste as she says though

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http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Polar1One

I feel very much the same. Most albums I am still listening to are from the before the end-90s. I guess there are less than 10 albums from the last 10 years that I still like listening to regularly and from 2005 I more or less stopped buying new music at all except for two or three albums in a year (which some of them I only listened to once or twice).

I wouldn't even say that there is a lack of creativity (the usual top 10 hits about investigating human body parts exluded of course) . There is more a lack of technical knowledge about how to capture the emotions on the record. You can hardly find anything interesting on a sonic level in nowaday's music. It is just one sterile and continuously loud mess of sound. No locatability of individual instruments, no definition, no emotion. Maybe a certain intellectual or lifestyle value, but nothing that touches one on a musical level. It is all about producing the loudest music on the market, but not about quality.

Music will only have a chance to be interesting again once the loudness war is over and the work of good mixing and mastering or other sound engineers is demanded again.

Kueken

I'm interested in knowing what new things she's actually heard. This really could be said of all periods of music... Every decade has had more schlock than quality. And what is "this music" that she speaks of and has no desire to investigate? NME flavor of the week bands?

i kinda agree with you, i would say the problem is lack of creative discipline and excess of technique, what an excess actually. everybody can create, release some independent album and credit itself as artist, just succeding on creating some melodies and some harmony. our times have excess of production of all kinds, but dosnt mean theres not plenty good things, this is just not the majority, but still exist. Her affirmation is generalizing and is ignorant. Some 5 years ago the woman was saying she didnt have a computer, coz she didnt need it. Back in 2011, PJ contradicts herself, now she uses a computer and her usage of it has an important role on the crafting of LES. Polly is for some things, resistent, and stubborn, simply ignorant. I think if she knew how to access the right medias on internet she would discover many new good bands and artists of our time. She just liked a lot Fleet Foxes coz she had the casual oportunity to see them live. She would never turn on the tv and see them easily on MTV, VH1 or plain media as it used to be in her youth times. Better her try to adapt and discover better her world today before open the mouth to say things like that, is so much not like her, so not impartial and fair... but well, i am indulgent with the woman, most of times shes fair and reasonable lol

I believe she has a very busy life and finding very good bands which send chills down your spine is quite rare.
I agree that she's been quite ignorant in what she says, but we can't blame her for this, she just had to give an answer and maybe she didn't even express herself the way she wanted to.
Though, "she just doesn’t feel a connection to the music in the charts today", and God knows there is mostly only commercial music in the charts.
I can understand this music doesn't make her want to explore the rest, in view of her busy life and everything, she just stays on her old stuff.

What she said was quite ignorant, indeed, 'cause she's very fateful, as if she could never find good contemporary music.

It's just the normal thing that happens when you're growing older, isn't it? Being in my teenage years and my early twenties I bought loads of records, because I was discovering the world of music for myself. There was a lot of average stuff among bands I'm listening to up until today.

Growing older I'm more demanding in chosing music I'm listening to and with a family and a job I don't have as much time left to discover new bands and artists as I had before.

This weekend I saw an interview with her on MTV2's "120 Minutes" and she mentioned liking Lady Gaga (barf) when she heard a few of her songs on the radio.

PJ Harvey Likes Lady Gaga: http://www.mtvhive.com/video/677797/

LOL, I almost don't believe it. Where has she said she likes Fleet Foxes? They're such a snooze. I'm sure they'll be in the Dollar Bin in ten years.

Do people really still care about Matt Pinfield?

Wow! People are making a big deal about this. Haha. Pretty much every artist slams the current music scene, nothing new. And she's right.....there's absolute garbage out there at the moment, and has been for years. Just look at the current mercury nominee list(albums released this year). Having said that, there probably are a few abums that are more worthy than fricken Adele(Winehouse tribute act as far as I'm concerned) or Elbow, but still really are not much better. Gaga was good at what she did a few years ago, her method's just become tired now. I've never really liked her, I just thought she at least used to be a good pop star.

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I absolutely agree with this, as well as with most of PJ's comments. I find that I have been slowly culling my record collection and paring down to what I find to be worthwhile. I find myself raising an eyebrow at some of my teenaged selections now (of course there are also some pats on the back at others).

Now I only want things around me that really speak to me. There is no time for anything else. I have not found anything in the last few years that really strikes my interest. It has become somewhat daunting to try and sift through all the noise that I hear now. I've had much better luck going back and rediscovering older artists whose music always keeps my interest and never seems to lose freshness.

I've not heard anything about her liking them. Her taste isn't always so great....she also likes Coldplay and u2! Oh, and Madonna and Kylie Minogue's album =/ that was released around the time of ITD!

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fer fleet foxes thing she said after a gig she did in festival, and they were there
she saw them and liked them, it was some years ago i dont remember exactly when, but i was very ^^' coz i dont like them either lol but.............. lets stop and reflect a bit about this crap that just was revealed now: SHE LIKES GAGA???? really???
she says theres nothing good enough around, but when she turn the radio gaga hooks her?

i think we should do a campaign for this woman to get some informatic lessons, windows, office, web 2.0, and introduce her to last.fm. musical blogs, soulseek, then her world will be upside down and fantastically changed in the same way she probably got speechless finding all the material about war she has found while doing LES.....
i feel a bit of pity now for her, coz shes really not aware of what's around, and i feel sad for her thinking lady gaga is something "very good". now that u said that she liked of madonna's "ray of light", i think she does like madonna and is confusing gaga for it, coz.... the last one is not the bggest hoax and copy-paste of madonna ever?

DIGITAL INCLUSION FOR POLLY JEAN, NOW (y)