Brightest Young Things

Volume Please: Time has painted Polly Jean Harvey as a dark and brooding chanteuse but many forget how talented and raw a guitar player she once was. The woman standing out front, covered in makeup and biting colors, practicing mystical voodoo on her transfixed audience is a far cry from the shy and plain PJ that became a black-clad dervish on stage - yet hiding behind her guitar so that her tiny frame could only make it appear larger by the second. It's red shine often the only bit of color as Harvey slashed at her jagged blues chord progressions and careened back and forth. Backing her on this debut and the even caustic "Rid of Me" that followed was the stellar duo of Stephen Vaughan on insanely muscular bass and Rob Ellis's clattering percussion. The result was perhaps the most powerful trio since Hendrix (don't even think about throwing Nirvana in here with that rudimentary bass playing.) That they were young and unpracticed only made it that much more exciting.

Vaughan and Ellis would depart after the bracing, Albini-fueled "Rid of Me," freeing Harvey as a songwriter, but breaking apart the most powerful band in the world at the time.

For me, these songs, and this record in particular, would serve as a loss of innocence. Polly Jean would hide behind the band set-up, cheekily naming the group after her but refusing to refer to it in the singular or as a solo endeavor; yet the songs within were in your face with their personal accounts and blind admissions. She was nervous about playing the songs live and early shows did little to quell that. But soon the power of John Peel called and the trio was forced into the London showcase scene on the strength of his radio support. When Polly's beloved guitar was stolen at one of those shows it seemed to change her forever, although the detachment would take years to manifest itself on record. She couldn't love again. The guitar was only going to remain an instrument of catharsis until she could find another carrier to do her bidding. Ultimately that would take the form of other people all together and I can't help feeling that we are all the worse for it. Polly would forever be PJ and her stories would be about others - she dare not be exposed to having her precious thoughts and few possessions taken from her again. More and more barriers would be built in her music and public persona until we were left with someone playing the role of PJ - something she thought she wanted in the beginning but ultimately needed in the end.

The entire record is still a startling burst to swallow whole. From the opening push and pull of the plaintive "Oh My Lover," propelled by Vaughan's slinking bass work crashing into the kick ass speed blues of "O Stella" to the single that started everything "Dress;" it all beats you about the body, leaving you tired but wanting more. Harvey's songwriting and uninhibited singing combines with her jagged playing to create something so harsh and beautiful that it simply takes your breath away. Her empowering response to living the life of a woman while being treated like a girl is a common thread and few have embraced the honest approach she takes. It is a quality that not only endeared her to women hoping for something more than the L7's of the day but also songwriters like Kurt Cobain that would mine some of the same territory.

Liz Phair might have been there for the indie girls (and boys) in liberal arts school but PJ was there for the rockers.

Penning a song as powerful as "Happy & Bleeding" and it's slow burn Pixies build and following it with possibly the catchiest blues crunch and bald-faced lyricism on the record with "Sheela Na Gig," Harvey speaks from a perspective rarely heard before. Naked in all respects, she pronounces the most feminine lines of the 90s when she comes on to a lover with the allure of "look at these, my child bearing hips" and "my work strong arms" only to be rebuffed by a thoughtless request to "wash your breasts I don't want to be unclean, take those dirty pillows away from me" as she is branded an exhibitionist.

Thousands of songs have tackled the themes of sex and guilt, longing and despair, but only a handful have ever stripped them down to the bare essentials in the way that Harvey did - and that she managed to do so as a provincial teenager is simply stunning.

Okay okay, we are all in touch with our feminine side – but what does it look like? It would be easy to take the lips pressed against glass in a playful manner on the cover were it not for the gritty color and smeared little details that emerge upon closer inspection. The lips are drained of all color save for the tiny pink vein-like traces running down its crevices. The blush near the downturned corner of the mouth - is it pushed about the face or left on the glass as the subject pulls away (if they even have the power to do so?) Tiny bits of facial hair on the corner also leave the question as to whether this is a male or female. The slight bit of nose revealed looks like the person on the back panel (more on that in a moment) which means that it might be this PJ person herself. If that is the case, then what to make of the tiny hairs in a world of airbrushed models gracing most covers?

The very title "Dry" filled with so many meanings.

How is it possible that I am dealing with such basic imagery yet so unsure what to do with it?

Flipping to the back does little to help. At the time of it's release, Harvey was still very much an unknown and the still fledgling internet, much less the pages of the NME, were little help in quelling the discussion as to whether the bold voice inside belonged to the partially submerged girl/woman in the grainy black and white photo. The full nose, lips and eyebrows combined with the deep collarbones and tiny breasts seemed to say that it was. The mix of being exposed in the most brazen fashion while making you feel guilty for having viewed it (the breasts just barely visible at the bottom - challenging the male viewer to look away from the direct eye contact) seemed to guarantee it.

This would be a continuation of the work photographer Maria Mochnacz had done with Harvey on the video for “Dress.” It would be the beginning of a fruitful relationship, as Mochnacz would find herself following Harvey around the globe and shooting her videos and documentaries and covers along the way. Her work would take on the confidence of Harvey’s songs as they moved forward and her imagery continued to get stronger with each year.

The startling photos have their impact lessened just a bit by the plain and mildly clumsy typography applied by Foothold. The cover in particular perplexes me as the small font size is perfect but the placement seems off by centimeters and the spacing (or lack of kearning) between the "P" and the "J" has bothered me for 17 years! (This is something even more pronounced on the low tech 7 inches that preceded it.) The inside of the booklet is wasted as just centered type knocked out of black and the back is marred by the inclusion of a clunky colored Indigo logo (a division of Island.) The disc suffers even more from this logo and makes me yearn for an important version just to be rid of it.

For those keeping score at home: Music 8.5 Design 7.0

John Foster owns his very own design firm, Bad People Good Things and is the author of For Sale: Over 200 Innovative Solutions in Packaging Design (HOW), New Masters of Poster Design (Rockport), Maximum Page Design (HOW) as well as an upcoming collection of handmade graphics entitled Dirty Fingernails for Rockport and a monograph on Jeff Kleinsmith for Sub Pop Records.