What does PJ Harvey love to listen to?

[quartz]

Anyone know?

[Kuk91]

Old blues (like "Howlin' Wolf", Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley, Dr. John, Muddy Waters), Captain Beefheart, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, The Rolling Stones, Nina Simone, The Doors, Jeff Buckley (was a close friend of hers), Wilco, Kraftwerk. She also likes U2, Tricky, Will Oldham, "Take That", Queens of the Stone Age. Oh, and she just can't stand "Oasis"! )))

Nowadays she listens to A LOT of folk music from all over the world.

[dax]

A few years ago, around the time of Let England Shake, she said she was really into the Pogues, Doors, Velvet Underground and Neil Young. She has also expressed admiration for Mark Lanegan (who is indeed awesome) in the past. I'm not exactly sure what she's been into lately, but I love finding out what my favorite artists listen to.

[soulfadelic]

She's also mentioned at various stages of her career:

The Fall, Th'Faith Healers (drummer was the 'Joe' who inspired the song and, subsequently, the entire Rid of Me album), Pixies, Frank Black, The Breeders, Beth Gibbons, Sandy Denny, Slint, Steven R. Smith, Motorhead, Marianne Faithfull, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Calexico, Giant Sand, Radiohead, Tiffany Anders, Vincent Gallo/John Frusciante, Christmas (Rob Ellis's band), The Creatures (Siouxsie's band), The Rachels, The Black Heart Procession, Guided By Voices, The Kamkars (Iranian traditional music), Yat-Kha, The Dirty Three, Robert Forster, Third Eye Foundation, Mark Hollis (his solo record, I think it was mentioned somewhere), early Roxy Music, some David Bowie, Iggy & The Stooges, Billy Bragg & Wilco, Billy Childish, Laurie Anderson... and probably a whole lot more.

[Kuk91]

"Motorhead"? Interesting. )))

[soulfadelic]

From the Select mag interview '93 with Polly and Steve Albini:

Steve: Do you like Motorhead?
Polly: I heard them when I was a lot younger and I thought they were ugly, but great music. We used to call 50 Ft. Queenie our Motorhead song.

[Kuk91]

"...I thought they were ugly, but great music. We used to call 50 Ft. Queenie our Motorhead song."

LOL, and makes sense. Imagine if she would say it to Lemmy in person: "You're kinda ugly, but that's okay - music is great". )))

[Kuk91]

When she was a teenager, she wanted to be "exactly how" her school friends, so she listened to "Duran Duran", "Tears for Fears" and etc 80s stuff. As she turned 13 or so parents bought Polly her first own record-player, and they were seriously terrified of those "Duran Duran" records which Polly played as an act of teenage protest. )))

In 2000 or 2001 she said what she would like to work with Brian Eno one day.

In 2011 at Kosovo she said what she also listens to a lot of classical music as well as folk.

[zeez]

She also once mentioned Arvo Pärt and Joy Division - good Girl :-)

[Kuk91]

"Joy Division"

I always thought what some of her dancing moves were very Ian Curtis-ey (and I mean no disrespect to neither one of them - I know what Ian had an epilepsy, and in my eyes Polly Jean is just simply a real-life Terpsichore).

[Romario11]

she talks about some of the music she loves here.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXZQ8qXE0t8

[diogenesagogo]

When she's in the bus, on the 'Reeling' video, while driving through Manchester you can hear Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta playing in the background.

Which is pretty damn groovy.

[dax]

She also mentioned that it was through her being with Nick Cave that she got into Van Morrison. She also said she loved Elvis as a little girl.

[Kuk91]

She also said she loved Elvis as a little girl.

Right, I forgot about that. In "Siren Rising" it says what she had a huge poster of Elvis on the wall, and she was very upset when he died. And also there is this:

[Kuk91]

she talks about some of the music she loves here.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXZQ8qXE0t8

Thanks for the link, very interesting. Turns out (47:20) Polly was recording her "4-Track Demos" in 1991 surrounded by the old russian furniture and old russian vinyls, which she wanted to play "all day every day". This is probably one of the reasons why I LOVE this record so much. I already posted this in a different thread, but here's two songs by Lyudmila Zykina which Polly particularly like:

Song from "4-Track Demos" which is called "On Seven Winds", it's about 2nd World War: http://m-fradkin.narod.ru/n7v.mp3.
From "Hook" out of 1995 Glastonbury set - "Russian field": http://kkre-27.narod.ru/zykina/rpo.mp3.

Most likely, Polly have this vinyl from 1969 called "Native sounds" - http://www.discogs.com/%D0%9B%D1%8E%D0%B4%D0%BC%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%B0-%D0%97%D1%8B%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B0-%D0%A0%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5-%D0%9D%D0%B0%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%8B/release/3004417: both songs go in row - B1 and B2.

And here's the exact rendition of Beethoven's Sonata 31 by Solomon Cutner that she was talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TroIpl1YLwU&index=5.

P.S.: By the way, exactly one year ago today miss Polly Jean Harvey received the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Hooray!