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Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea

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Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea is the fifth studio album by the English singer-songwriter PJ Harvey, released on 23 October 2000 by Island Records.[2] Recorded during March to April 2000, it contains themes of love that are tied into Harvey's affection for New York City.[3]

Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
Studio album by
PJ Harvey
Released23 October 2000 (2000-10-23)
RecordedMarch–April 2000
StudioLinford Manor
(Milton Keynes, England)
GenreAlternative rock[1]
Length47:25
LabelIsland
Producer
PJ Harvey chronology
Is This Desire?
(1998) 		Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
(2000) 		Uh Huh Her
(2004)
Singles from Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
  1. "Good Fortune"
    Released: 13 November 2000
  2. "A Place Called Home"
    Released: 26 February 2001
  3. "This Is Love"
    Released: 8 October 2001

The album became the second major commercial success of her recording career, following her successful breakthrough To Bring You My Love (1995). Upon its release, the album received acclaim from most music critics and earned Harvey several accolades, including the 2001 Mercury Prize. It spent 17 weeks on the UK Albums Chart, and has been certified Platinum in the United Kingdom and Australia.[4][5] It is generally regarded as one of her best works.[6][7][8]

Background and music

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In 1998, while shooting a film as an actress for Hal Hartley in New York, she felt inspired by the city and wrote several songs. Some of them ended up on the record.[9] In 1999, she chose to live there for nine months.[10] However, she insisted in interviews it was not "my New York album". Songs were also written while she was in London or at home in Dorset.[10] Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea was then recorded at Linford Manor in Milton Keynes in March – April 2000. The record was co-produced by Mick Harvey, Rob Ellis and Harvey, and mixed by Victor Van Vugt at the Fallout Shelter. The album featured a duet with Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke on the track "This Mess We're In", as well as backing vocals and keyboards from Yorke on the songs "One Line" and "Beautiful Feeling". She had met Yorke in 1992 and they had stayed in contact. She said: "I'd long been interested in the idea of somebody else singing a whole song on a record of mine, to have a very different dimension brought in by somebody else's voice. It adds so much dynamic within the record to have this other character coming in".[9]

She wanted the record to be more direct: "It's very different musically to the first couple of albums. It's very melodic, and it's much rounder and fuller. The earlier albums were very black and white in some sense, very extreme. Melodically, this is much more sophisticated than those records. It kind of feels like a combination of every album I've made so far rolled into one."[9] The songs were also a musical departure from her previous dark material. Harvey told Q in 2001, "I wanted everything to sound as beautiful as possible. Having experimented with some dreadful sounds on Is This Desire? and To Bring You My Love—where I was really looking for dark, unsettling, nauseous-making sounds—Stories from the City... was the reaction. I thought, No, I want absolute beauty. I want this album to sing and fly and be full of reverb and lush layers of melody. I want it to be my beautiful, sumptuous, lovely piece of work." She did, however, concede jokingly that it was only "pop according to PJ Harvey, which is probably as un-pop as you can get according to most people's standards."[11]

Pitchfork compared her voice on the lead single "Good Fortune" to that of the Pretenders's Chrissie Hynde,[12] while the Los Angeles Times observed: "Her singing often recalls Patti Smith and Siouxsie Sioux, artists who, like Harvey, project a sexuality derived from—yet never bound by—rock's male sensibilities."[13]

Release and commercial performance

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The album was released on 24 October 2000, and promoted with a video for the lead single "Good Fortune", shot at night in streets of London. It reached number 23 on the UK Albums Chart.[14] The album was certified Platinum in the UK, with sales over 300,000 copies. The album debuted at number 42 on the US Billboard 200 chart.[15] As of 2003, it has sold 357,000 copies in United States according to Nielsen SoundScan.[16] It has also been certified Gold in France, and has sold 1 million copies worldwide.[17]

The album was reissued on vinyl in February 2021 as part of a comprehensive reissue campaign of Harvey's back catalogue. A collection of unreleased demos, titled Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea – Demos, was also released.[18]

Critical reception

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Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic88/100[6]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic     [19]
Chicago Sun-Times    [20]
Entertainment WeeklyA−[21]
Los Angeles Times    [13]
NME9/10[22]
Pitchfork5.5/10 (2000)[23]
8.4/10 (2021)[24]
Q     [25]
Rolling Stone     [26]
Spin8/10[27]
The Village VoiceA+[7]

Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea received critical acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 88, based on 25 reviews.[6] NME hailed it as "a magnificent, life-affirming opus" by Harvey.[22] Robert Christgau called it "the best album of her career" in his review for Rolling Stone.[26]

Other critics rated it as only average. Spencer Owen of Pitchfork viewed the album as lacking in distinction, saying "the sheen gets slicker and her music gets duller".[12] The publication later, however, ranked it at number 124 in their "The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s" list in 2009.[28] In 2021, they included it in their "Rescored" list, saying that they wished to change their original score of 5.4 to an 8.4.[29]

Accolades

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The album earned Harvey Brit Award nominations as Best British Female Artist for two years running, as well as two Grammy Award nominations for Best Rock Album and Best Female Rock Performance for the single "This Is Love".[30]

For the album, Harvey was nominated for the 2001 Mercury Prize for the third time (her previous nominations were for Rid of Me and To Bring You My Love). The award ceremony was held on 11 September 2001. Harvey was in Washington, D.C., on that day and witnessed the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon from her hotel room window. She was announced as the winner and accepted her award by phone, saying "It has been a very surreal day. All I can say is thank you very much, I am absolutely stunned."[31] The win made Harvey the first female solo artist to receive the Mercury Prize in the award's history.

The album was ranked number eight on Rolling Stone's list of the 50 Essential "Women in rock" Albums.[32] In 2002, Q magazine named Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea the Greatest Album of All-Time by a Female Artist.[33] In 2006, the album was chosen by Time as one of the 100 best albums of all time.[34] In 2009, Pitchfork named the album the 124th Top Album of the 2000s.[35] In 2009, NME also placed the album inside their Top 100 Greatest Albums of the Decade, at number six.[36] The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[37] Rolling Stone named it the thirty-fifth best album of the decade.[38] In 2019, the album was ranked 19th on The Guardian's 100 Best Albums of the 21st Century list.[39] In the 2012 version of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, it was ranked at number 431,[40] then in the 2020 update, it was moved up to number 313.[41]

Track listing

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All tracks are written by PJ Harvey.

Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea – Standard edition
No.TitleLength
1."Big Exit"3:51
2."Good Fortune"3:20
3."A Place Called Home"3:43
4."One Line"3:14
5."Beautiful Feeling"4:00
6."The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore"4:01
7."This Mess We're In"3:57
8."You Said Something"3:19
9."Kamikaze"2:24
10."This Is Love"3:48
11."Horses in My Dreams"5:38
12."We Float"6:07
Total length:47:25
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea – Australia, UK and Japan bonus track
No.TitleLength
13."This Wicked Tongue"3:42

Singles and promo videos

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"Good Fortune"
"Good Fortune" by PJ Harvey
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Personnel

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All personnel credits adapted from the album's liner notes.[42]

Musicians

  • PJ Harvey – vocals, guitar (1–3, 5–11), bass (1), keyboards (3, 4, 8, 10), piano (12), djembe (12), maracas (6), e-bow (12), producer, engineer
  • Rob Ellis – drums (2, 3, 6–12), piano (2, 3, 7, 11, 12), tambourine (1, 8, 10), synthesizer (2), keyboards (12), bells (12), harpsichord (1), electric piano (2), vibraphone (4), background vocals (11, 12), producer
  • Mick Harvey – organ (12), bass (2–4, 6–12), drums (1, 4), percussion (3), harmonium (1), keyboards (7, 9, 10), accordion (4), background vocals (11, 12), producer

Guest musicians

Production

Design

Charts

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Certifications and sales

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Certifications and sales for Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
Region Certification Certified units/sales
Australia (ARIA)[5] Platinum 70,000^
Belgium (BEA)[64] Gold 25,000*
France (SNEP)[65] Gold 100,000*
United Kingdom (BPI)[4] Platinum 316,529[66]
United States — 357,000[16]
Summaries
Worldwide — 1,000,000[17]

* Sales figures based on certification alone.
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References

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  1. ^ Battaglia, Andy (23 September 2000). "P.J. Harvey: New York Dull … Sun Ra: Cosmos Factory". The New York Observer. Retrieved 25 June 2015.
  2. ^ "New Releases – For Week Starting October 23, 2000: Albums" (PDF). Music Week. 21 October 2000. p. 26. ISSN 0265-1548 – via World Radio History.
  3. ^ Cinquemani, Sal (20 January 2001). "Review: PJ Harvey: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". Slant Magazine. Retrieved 21 March 2010.
  4. ^ a b "British album certifications – PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  5. ^ a b "ARIA Charts – Accreditations – 2007 Albums" (PDF). Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  6. ^ a b c "Reviews for Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea by PJ Harvey". Metacritic. Retrieved 29 September 2009.
  7. ^ a b Christgau, Robert (28 November 2000). "Getting Bizzy". The Village Voice. New York. Archived from the original on 10 September 2014. Retrieved 21 March 2010.
  8. ^ Hoard, Christian (2004). "PJ Harvey". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 368–369. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8. Retrieved 21 March 2010.
  9. ^ a b c Appleford, Steve (29 October 2000). "Checking In With . . . PJ Harvey In a New York State of Mind". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 10 May 2016.
  10. ^ a b Segal, Victoria, I'm just a raunchy sex queen. Is that what you wanted to hear?" Yes, frankly. Re-introducing PJ Harvey
  11. ^ Cavanagh, David. "Dark Star". Q. No. December 2001.
  12. ^ a b Owen, Spencer (31 October 2000). "PJ Harvey: Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea". Pitchfork. Retrieved 24 December 2009.
  13. ^ a b Nichols, Natalie (29 October 2000). "Harvey Fuses the Raw and the Lush". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 23 October 2012. Retrieved 21 March 2010.
  14. ^ "Mercury Prize 2011: Every Mercury Prize winner, ever, including PJ Harvey". The Guardian. 7 September 2011. Retrieved 10 January 2012.
  15. ^ Columnist. Jay-Z Extends Chart 'Dynasty'. Billboard. Retrieved 21 March 2010.
  16. ^ a b "PJ Harvey Eyeing Festivals, Collaborations". Billboard. 15 April 2003. Retrieved 19 August 2018.
  17. ^ a b "Rewind: PJ Harvey's Stories from the city, stories from the sea". Tidal. 15 April 2003. Retrieved 19 August 2018.
  18. ^ Torres, Eric (6 January 2021). "PJ Harvey Announces Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea Vinyl Reissue". Pitchfork. Retrieved 17 April 2021.
  19. ^ Phares, Heather. "Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea – PJ Harvey". AllMusic. Retrieved 24 December 2009.
  20. ^ DeRogatis, Jim (5 November 2000). "P.J. Harvey, 'Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea' (Island)". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on 31 December 2017. Retrieved 16 October 2016.
  21. ^ Browne, David (3 November 2000). "Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea". Entertainment Weekly. No. 567. New York. p. 82. Retrieved 24 December 2009.
  22. ^ a b Mulvey, John (21 October 2000). "Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". NME. London. p. 42. Retrieved 21 March 2010.
  23. ^ "PJ Harvey: Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea". Pitchfork. Retrieved 16 February 2023.
  24. ^ "Pitchfork Reviews: Rescored". Pitchfork. 5 October 2021.
  25. ^ "PJ Harvey: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". Q. No. 171. London. December 2000. p. 133.
  26. ^ a b Christgau, Robert (9 November 2000). "Hot Child in the City". Rolling Stone. No. 853. New York. p. 128. Archived from the original on 1 October 2007. Retrieved 28 June 2004. Posted 26 October 2000. Also archived at "PJ Harvey: Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea". robertchristgau.com. Retrieved 1 August 2011. Note: When printed, this was a four stars. As written it was 4.5 stars.
  27. ^ Clover, Joshua (December 2000). "PJ Harvey: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". Spin. Vol. 16, no. 12. New York. pp. 215, 218. Retrieved 23 December 2009.
  28. ^ "Staff Lists: The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s: 150-101". Pitchfork. 29 September 2009. Archived from the original on 16 October 2009. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
  29. ^ "Pitchfork Reviews: Rescored". Pitchfork. 5 October 2021. Retrieved 5 October 2021.
  30. ^ "Artist: PJ Harvey". National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 17 August 2018.
  31. ^ "PJ Harvey wins Mercury prize". BBC News. 11 September 2001.
  32. ^ Berger, Arion; George-Warren, Holly; Sheffield, Rob; Udovitch, Mim (31 October 2002). "Women in Rock: The 50 Essential Albums". Rolling Stone. No. 908. p. 135. The otherworldly lass hits the concrete hard, sweaty from sex, looking for weapons and heading toward hope. With Stories, Harvey moved from punk to celestial, and took you with her. List posted at "Rock On The Net: Rolling Stone: The 50 Essential 'Woman In Rock' Albums". rockonthenet.com. Retrieved 2 May 2007.
  33. ^ "100 Women Who Rock The World". Q. January 2002. List posted at "Rocklist.net...Q Magazine Lists". rocklistmusic.co.uk. Retrieved 24 November 2008.
  34. ^ Light, Alan (2 November 2006). "Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea All-TIME 100 Albums". Time. Retrieved 5 May 2007.
  35. ^ Phillips, Amy (29 September 2009). "The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s: 124. PJ Harvey Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea". Pitchfork. Pitchfork Media. Archived from the original on 15 July 2012. Retrieved 29 September 2009.
  36. ^ THE TOP 100 GREATEST ALBUMS OF THE DECADE NME 2000s
  37. ^ Robert Dimery; Michael Lydon (23 March 2010). 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die: Revised and Updated Edition. Universe. ISBN 978-0-7893-2074-2.
  38. ^ "100 Best Albums of the Decade". Rolling Stone. New York. 9 December 2009. Archived from the original on 6 January 2010. Retrieved 14 May 2013.
  39. ^ "The 100 best albums of the 21st century". The Guardian. 13 September 2019. Retrieved 18 September 2019.
  40. ^ "500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. 31 May 2009.
  41. ^ "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". Rolling Stone. 22 September 2020.
  42. ^ Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (CD). PJ Harvey. Island Records. 2000. 548 144-2.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  43. ^ "Austriancharts.at – PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea" (in German). Hung Medien. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  44. ^ a b "Ultratop.be – PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  45. ^ "Top RPM Albums: Issue 7274". RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  46. ^ "Dutchcharts.nl – PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  47. ^ "European Top 100 Albums" (PDF). Music & Media. Vol. 17, no. 46. 5 November 2000. p. 21. OCLC 29800226 – via World Radio History.
  48. ^ "PJ Harvey: Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea" (in Finnish). Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  49. ^ "Lescharts.com – PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". Hung Medien. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  50. ^ a b "Offiziellecharts.de – PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  51. ^ "Irish-charts.com – Discography PJ Harvey". Hung Medien. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  52. ^ "Italiancharts.com – PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". Hung Medien. Retrieved 7 July 2022.
  53. ^ "Norwegiancharts.com – PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". Hung Medien. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  54. ^ "Swedishcharts.com – PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". Hung Medien. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  55. ^ "Swisscharts.com – PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". Hung Medien. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  56. ^ "Official Albums Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  57. ^ "PJ Harvey Chart History (Billboard 200)". Billboard. Archived from the original on 21 May 2018. Retrieved 17 June 2023.
  58. ^ "Australiancharts.com – PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". Hung Medien. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  59. ^ "Charts.nz – PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". Hung Medien. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  60. ^ "Ultratop.be – PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea" (in French). Hung Medien. Retrieved 6 March 2021.
  61. ^ "Portuguesecharts.com – P. J. Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea". Hung Medien. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
  62. ^ "ARIA Top 100 Albums for 2001". Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
  63. ^ "The Official UK Albums Chart 2001" (PDF). UKChartsPlus. p. 6. Retrieved 8 July 2018.
  64. ^ "Ultratop − Goud en Platina – albums 2006". Ultratop. Hung Medien. Archived from the original on 8 March 2021.
  65. ^ "French album certifications – PJ Harvey – Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea" (in French). Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique. Retrieved 4 July 2012.
  66. ^ Paine, Andre (26 April 2023). "PJ Harvey signs to independent label Partisan after three decades at Island". Music Week. Retrieved 10 July 2023.
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