Someone called her the "Patti Smith of the Millenium's end". But Polly Jean Harvey doesn't fear the embarrassing comparisons. And she can boldly reply: "Who's Patti?". Nevertheless you can find the echoes of the great rock priestess in this English songwriter, especially in the tone of her voice: dark, intense, submitted to the violence of the emotions. A style that is full of influences from rock and blues history.

You can hear it all also in the latest album for Pj Harvey called Stories from the city, stories from the sea, a short diary about the relationship between the English songwriter and New York City. In twelwe songs, PJ sings about the contrast between the American metropolis and the quiet England, in a way that brings Harvey in a more shiny and classic songwriter style. "The title comes from real places but also imaginary, created in my mind" she tells. "In 1999 I stayed for a period in New York. It wasn't very familiar for me, so I clashed against a new reality that forced me to learn many things. It's one of the centers of the world, a meeeting point for people, for cultures, for arts... There's a energy that you can transform in a dream. It's really different from London. NYC is more human, people get easily involved. London is more reserved and indifferent".

The new album is much more easier and immediate than the others. It's full of simple songs, ballads, stories, such as "This mess we're in" (a duet with Thom Yorke) and "Good fortune". 

"They're indipendent songs, some short films with a beginning and an end", she explains. "I wanted to come back to the roots of songwriting, creating songs that could walk by themselves". The dark side of Polly Jean returns in "Big Exit", a "murder ballad" based on the Americans obsession for guns. "It refers to the the other side of the city, that is not only art and creations. It was incredible hearing about all that fires and deaths every day. In the first weeks I was in NYC there was a killer pushing people under the trains of the metro. He killed six persons in a week. It was scary. Than I came back in the English country and that song was a way to face the fear, as I do in most part of the album". 

The time for shocking is over. Now, it's time for reflections for this thin thirty girl grown up in the country of Dorset, between cows, hens and hippy meetings around the fire.
Now, after all the prizes she won ("Better new singer" and "Artist of the year" for the magazine "Rolling Stone" in 1993, Mercury music prize and two nominations to the Grammy Awards in 1995), PJ Harvey has become a star. 

A success that was complete in 1999 with Is this desire?, her most mature album, in balance between "noir" ballads, rock and techno, with songs such as "A perfect day Elise", "The sky lit up", "The river", besides the title-track. A record that marked the top of Polly's dark lyrism.

Scarlet lipsticks and feather boas
Nevertheless, PJ too needed special effects to get success: on her look, more than in her music. Scarlet lipsticks, dark lady masks, sexy suits, skirts in leopard's imitation leather and feather boas lived with her for a long time during her theatrical concerts. So she was considered as the "femme fatale" of the new British rock. "All that was only a mask for me", she explained. "I needed it in order to exorcise a very difficult moment of my life. But it was all false, artificial. Now I'm changing. On the stage I feel good with myself, as if I went out for shopping".
Not only were her look and her poses provoking, but also her lyrics: a mixture of religious and feminists slogans, pornographic stories and anguish, all filled up with an obsessive ambiguity. Here are some samples: "I've lain with the devil/ Cursed God above/ Forsaken heaven to bring you my love" (from "To bring you my love", 1995); or the hymn to the menstruation of "Happy and bleeding" ('92); and the last album's track "Angelene", the story of a prostitute: "Love for money is my sin/ Any man calls I'll let him/ Rose is my colour and white/ pretty mouth, and green my eyes".
A damned songwriter's style that recalls Tom Waits and, above all, Nick Cave. And this time PJ can't deny: "I was eighteen when I first listened to Cave. His songs shocked me. I couldn't listen to anything else for a long time. His music had touched me deeply. After, I was astonished to know he was a heroin addict". After the shock passed, they met each other, they played a magical duet in "Henry Lee" (from the Cave's album "Murder ballads") and - according to gossips - they had a love affair.

Seaside sculptures
Not only collaborated Harvey with the Australian songwriter, but she also worked with Tricky, Pascal Comelade and John Parish in the experimental project Dance Hall at Louse Point. But in her life there isn't only rock'n'roll.
She loves arts ("in London I spend the most part of my time in the art galleries", she revealed) and she tries to make sculptures: "It's my hobby since the college times. I collect materials from the beach and then I use them to build something. It's only a game, nothing concrete". Her love for the figurative arts can be found also in her songs: "My method of writing is strongly influenced by the images. I put myself in a role or a in situation, like in a film, and then I transfer it into music. Sometimes I take inspiration from my photos too".
Now PJ Harvey has finally payed off her debit with cinema, with her appearance in the short of Sarah Miles "A bunny's tale", and with the interpretation of Maria Magdalena in the Hal Hartley's film "The book of life". In that film, a modern version of the story of Jesus Christ, Magdalena is the girlfriend and the bodyguard of Jesus. "It was an extraordinary experience", she told, "and it helped me to find new ideas for my songs; after the shots I had always something to write about and to transform in music. Now, I'd like to compose a soundtrack".

A country girl
In spite of her metamorphoses, PJ remains a country girl. She lives in a small village on the English coast, surrounded by green hills. She attends only a short group of friends. She says that London is "too much frantic". And she admits her adolescence in the deep Dorset's England wasn't easy: "I was a restless and sullen child. I spent much time by myself, painting or building objects and playing with the animals". Her parents hippy culture (they were members of "Flower Power") leaded her towards music. She began playing saxophone in experimental groups like Bologna and Automatic Dlamini. Then she choosed the guitar and, in 1991, she joined a trio with the bass player Steve Vaughn and the drummer Robert Ellis.
But it's in 1992 that she bursted out worldwide with Dry, between furious ballads in the style of American "riot-girls" and intimate confessions. The album was considered "not to be missed" by some music magazines. But PJ is always in motion. So, with the following album, Rid of me, she approached hard-rock and grunge. Though, the result wasn't satisfactory.

But the redeemed herself in 1995 with To bring you my love, in which PJ played guitar, vibraphone, percussions and all the keyboards. It was a great success thanks also to the strange lullaby of "Down by the water", her most famous song till now.
In the meantime, she refinded her voice, raw and soft, and now she can easily use it in different ways. "I begun to take singing lessons four years ago", she explained. "My teacher, from the Royal College of London, tried to set up my voice in a classical way, without any care for my rocker's training. I learned a lot singing classical tunes, it opened my mind". So PJ Harvey can't rest, dragged by her dreams ("they're so intense that I can't separate them from reality", she said) and by a fatal attraction for everything is restless and seductive, "the men with great problems" included. Her Bowiesque metamorphoses are rarer. But in Polly Jean's concerts you can always find her theatrical talent for the dance and the mime.