The Garden, a PJ Harvey Discussion Site

Nothing about the release of "The Community Of Hope" etched vinyl for The Record Store Day ?

I ordered a copy but my order is cancelled. Not available in France apparently.

head's_bullet wrote:The only problem is that her decisions are not a win/win case all the time, she favoured one thing and compromised another, my discontent is just about prosody, meter-wise speaking

I understand your point of view. For example, I actually felt the same thing about The Community of Hope with the line "OK, now this is just drug town, just zombies but that's just life": too many just make it a bit plane for my taste. At times it feels like she just took these words as spoken by other people and made a song out of it. I guess her aim was to use everyday language in order to keep it as realistic as it can possibly get: admirable, but here and there she sacrificed her excellent skill with words. But I have to say she counter-balanced this just fine with the book, I'm not implying she has lost her craft at all.

Having said that, I find this new album shocking, by turn hopeful and hopeless, moving, bizarre, captivating and beautifully difficult. I'm in love with all the saxophone parts, I utterly love the way it is played with the dirtiness and chaos it brings. I think this is the instrument that above all took the songs to another level.
So far my favorites are River Anacostia, Medicinals and Ministry of Defence, and A Line in the Sand is the strange one that is growing by each listen.

Had not purchased "The Hollow in the Hand" before today - just ordered it.

Love it¡¡ PJ Harvey "The Hope Six Demolition Project" out !

I've listened to the album about 6 times through from top to bottom- it's a solid piece of work. It's really difficult to compare to another Polly album since they are all so different, but it truly is like the counterpart/sequel to LES. That said, I hope she changes directions for the next album. This was surprisingly similar to the preceding album- at least in PJ Harvey world. Still, the songs are incredible and I love the journey it takes you on. It's beautiful, catchy, ugly and twisted...all in one.

Favorites remain "Ministry of Defence", "A Line In The Sand", "Medicinals" and "Dollar Dollar"

I am very disappointed. I think it is the worst thing she has ever done, by a considerable margin. I dislike the lyrics, the melodies, the phrasing, the arrangements, the sound of the recording, the artwork, & especially the male background vocals. I am selling it & buying The Wheel single because it’s the only song I like.

Conversely, I think it's one of the best things she's done. I've listened nonstop since the 14th and it's only getting better. The lyrics are detached, okay. But it's the opposite of LES. The music is anything but detached. It's a nice balance of more objective words, or less personal words. But her voice and the music tell 80 percent of the story.
Perhaps since les was so lyric based, people are overeat focused on the lyrics as a sow rate entity from the music. But pjs always made it clear, it's the story the music and words say together. A simple I love you can takes loads of meanings depending on how it's sung. She's been saying that since the 90s. People are getting too analytical about the words on the page.
If community of hope was sung in a sad dreary way, the meaning of the song would be very different. But it's so upbeat and airy, it turns the words on their head. Same with line in the sand.
Ministry of defense has very objective, descriptive lyrics, but the music and voice tell a very emotional story.
Maybe it will make sense to some of you, but the music alone at the end of dollar dollar sums up the point of the album.

Kuk91 wrote:Now, the voice she uses in "A Line In The Sand" - don't you think it suggests some (maybe, false) naivety? Maybe that's a mockery of Western point of view, how the politics always trying to justify themselves (for example, how Tony Blair was saying sorry for Iraq): "we got things wrong, but I believe we also did some good" - like, Polly is asking "What good did you make if people are forced to leave their countries and live in the tents?".

I share your point of view. It reminds me naivety of her voice on White Chalk. She sings like she was a little girl. I think she did what she used to do on her previous albums for that song : tell a story from the point of view of an imaginary character.

After several listenings now, I really like that album. I easily rank it as my fifth favourite PJ album just between ITD and ROM (1st : TBYML, 2nd : White Chalk, 3rd : LES, 4th : ITD). Really love all the brass parts and that's why The Ministry of Defence, The Ministry of Social Affairs and Dollar, Dollar are, by far, my favourite songs on it. One exception : I just don't get the love for The Community Of Hope which I find ok but quite linear and a bit boring, even if I liked the live version.

I hope that Polly will experiment again and, even, push it a bit far on her next records. I love the fact that many things on Hope VI are atonal (saxo on Ministry of Defence, Minstry of social affairs; choirs on River Anacostia...).

Pluton wrote:

Kuk91 wrote:Really love all the brass parts and that's why The Ministry of Defence, The Ministry of Social Affairs and Dollar, Dollar are, by far, my favourite songs on it.

I'm with you 100% on these three as the best songs. I saw her sing Dollar Dollar at Somerset House and RFH and was anticipating this being my favourite track.
Overall the album is growing on me - but I think I will be left with a few things I actively dislike, which I'm not used to with her music. Community of Hope in particular - the chorus is bizarrely bad - has me scratching my head.

Designing PJ Harvey’s Hope Six Demolition Project - CreativeReview

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog ... n-project/

protocols wrote: I am selling it & buying The Wheel single because it’s the only song I like.

Little dramatic, no?

My big problem with this record is that I feel dazed when it gets to its end, fading with the kids' voices. And I always ask myself, "okay, what can I do now?" And the answer is, well, listening to it again.

How is it dramatic to get rid of an album I don't like in exchange for a smaller one that contains the sole portion of the album that I do like?