PJ Harvey biography
Island Records signed the trio amid a major label bidding war in mid-1992 and in December 1992, the trio travelled to Cannon Falls, Minnesota in the United States to record the follow-up to Dry with "controversial" producer Steve Albini. Prior to recording with Albini, the band recorded a second session with John Peel on 22 September and recorded a version of Bob Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited," and two new songs "Me Jane" and "Ecstasy." The recording sessions with Albini took place at Pachyderm Recording Studio and resulted in the band's major label debut Rid of Me in May 1993. Rolling Stone wrote that it "is charged with aggressive eroticism and rock fury. It careens from blues to goth to grunge, often in the space of a single song." The album was promoted by two singles, "50ft Queenie" and "Man-Size." To promote the release of the album, the band began touring in the United Kingdom in May and then in the United States in June, continuing there during the summer. However, during the American leg of the tour, internal friction started to form between the members of the trio. Deborah Frost, writing for Rolling Stone, noticed "an ever widening personal gulf" between the band members, and quoted Harvey as saying "It makes me sad. I wouldn't have got here without them. I needed them back then - badly. But I don't need them anymore. We all changed as people." Despite the tour's personal downsides, footage from live performances was compiled and released on the long-form video Reeling with PJ Harvey (1993). The band's final tour was to support U2 in August 1993, after which the trio officially disbanded. In her final appearance on American television in September 1993, on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Harvey performed a solo version of "Rid of Me." As Rid of Me sold substantially more copies than Dry, 4-Track Demos, a compilation album of demos for the album was released in October and inaugurated her career as a solo artist. In early 1994, it was announced that U2's manager, Paul McGuinness, had become her manager.
As Harvey embarked on her solo career, she explored collaborations with other musicians. In 1995, she released her third studio album, To Bring You My Love, featuring former bandmate John Parish, Bad Seeds multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey and Belgian drummer Jean-Marc Butty; all of whom would continue to perform and record with Harvey throughout her career. The album was also her first material to be produced by Flood. Both a more blues-influenced and more futuristic record than its predecessors, To Bring You My Love showcased Harvey broadening her musical style to include strings, organs and synthesizers. Rolling Stone said in its review that "Harvey sings the blues like Nick Cave sings gospel: with more distortion, sex and murder than you remember. To Bring You My Love was a towering goth version of grunge." The record generated a surprise modern rock radio hit in the United States with its lead single, "Down by the Water." Three consecutive singles-"C'mon Billy", "Send His Love to Me" and "Long Snake Moan"-were also moderately successful. During the successive tours for the album, Harvey also experimented with her image and stage persona, a style she later dubbed "Joan Crawford on acid." including 370,000 in the United States. It was also certified Silver in the United Kingdom within seven months of its release, having sold over 60,000 copies. In the United States, the album was voted Album of the Year by The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, USA Today, People, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. Rolling Stone also named Harvey 1995's Artist of the Year and Spin ranked the album third in The 90 Greatest Albums of the '90s, behind Nirvana's Nevermind (1991) and Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet (1990).
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