To Bring You My Love
Encyclopedia
To Bring You My Love is the third studio album
by British
musician and singer-songwriter
PJ Harvey
. It was released by Island Records
in February 1995. Recorded after the break-up of the PJ Harvey trio it stands as her first proper solo album. The songs on the album are heavily influenced by American blues music.
To produce the album, Harvey chose Flood, best known for his work with U2
, Depeche Mode
, and Nine Inch Nails
. Harvey co-produced the record with Flood and John Parish
. To Bring You My Love would be the first of Harvey's many collaborations with Flood and Parish. The music on the album was played largely by Harvey and Parish, with contributions from seasoned musicians Joe Gore, Mick Harvey
, Jean-Marc Butty, and others. Many of the musicians who appeared on the album joined Harvey on tour to support it in 1995 and 1996.
To Bring you My Love is considered to be PJ Harvey's breakthrough. It garnered massive critical acclaim worldwide and became her best-selling album. The single "Down By the Water" received extensive airplay on radio and on MTV
. The album is ranked number 435 on Rolling Stone
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
.
and Rid of Me
) and a compilation (4-Track Demos
) in less than two years, she kept a low profile for most of the year. Harvey made only one public appearance in 1994, performing The Rolling Stones'
"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
" with Björk
at the annual BRIT Awards
.
Using the royalties she received from her first two albums, she bought a house in rural England close to her parents' home in Yeovil
. She described her new home as "completely in the countryside. I have no neighbors. When I look out the window, all I see are fields." Living in near isolation, she began writing the songs that would appear on To Bring You My Love.
Many of the songs on To Bring You My Love employ biblical imagery such a Heaven, God, and Jesus Christ. Harvey, however, is not a religious person. She wasn’t baptized and did not attend church as a child. She spoke of her use of religious imagery by saying "I look towards religion as possibly one means to finding an answer, to making sense why we’re here. That’s what drives the creative force, to make sense of one’s life. A very natural place to look is in that divine area, because it’s so strong and has been here long before us."
Many references are made to one of Harvey's major influences, Captain Beefheart
. The opening line of the album, "I was born in the desert", is also the opening line of Beefheart's debut album, "Safe as Milk". The album's second track, Meet Ze Monsta, borrows the line "meet the monster tonight" from Beefheart's "Tropical Hot Dog Night", the second track of his album Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)
, an album which Harvey has said had a particular impact on her. A lyrical resemblance to Beefheart's "Dropout Boogie" is also found on the track "I Think I'm a Mother".
Musically, the album is more complicated than Dry
or Rid of Me
. Two guitar parts are used in many of the songs, in most cases played by Harvey and Parish. Acoustic guitar and strings, used sparingly in her previous releases, can be heard throughout To Bring You My Love. Bells, chimes, and a vibraphone
add to the atmosphere of the recording. Keyboards and organ are also used extensively, a result of much of the album being composed on a Yamaha keyboard Harvey bought second-hand. The deep, rumbling organ tones provide many of the lower notes on the album, replacing traditional bassline
s. The bass played by Mick Harvey
on "Long Snake Moan" is one of the few times an actual bass guitar is heard on the album.
, U2
, Nine Inch Nails
, Smashing Pumpkins), her old Automatic Dlamini bandmate John Parish
and a new line-up of session musicians including Joe Gore, Eric Drew Feldman
, Mick Harvey
and Jean-Marc Butty. She herself played guitar, keyboards, vibes and bells on the record, as well as co-producing it with Flood and John Parish.
. Extensive MTV
rotation and college radio airplay for the first single "Down by the Water" — with its eccentric, eye-catching Maria Mochnacz-directed music video
of Harvey drowning in an emerald pond while wearing an extravagant wig, heavy make-up and a slinky red satin evening gown — gave Harvey her biggest radio hit to date, reaching #2 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart. The album itself debuted at #40 on the Billboard chart and #12 in her native UK, and went on to sell roughly one million copies. The moderate commercial breakthrough of To Bring You My Love certainly had nothing to do with any scaling-down of her trademark lyrical intensity: the infanticide
fable "Down by the Water" — whose whispered coda
of "Little fish big fish swimming in the water/Come back here, man, gimme my daughter" references the old Leadbelly
blues standard "Salty Dog" — ostensibly deals with a mother drowning her child.
The critical response was overwhelmingly positive — Rolling Stone
praised the record as "astonishing" in its four-star review, People claimed that "Harvey's raw, dense music rivals that of Bob Dylan
himself for sheer gut-wrenching melodrama" and Hot Press raved, "this is a creation of oceanic beauty, depth and mystery in which all of the themes previously explored in fragments by Harvey are united in a rich and complex whole".
Harvey and her new five-piece live band supported the album with a 10-month worldwide tour that included a three-month stint opening for the band Live
in the US, and a now-legendary performance at the UK's Glastonbury Festival
wearing a shocking pink catsuit and black Wonderbra
.
Harvey told Filter
in 2004, "To Bring You My Love was my first real venture into production and to use an incredible producer like Flood, who painted an atmosphere over my songs that I hadn't heard before, I was working with new musicians — it was all very, very exciting. And very, very draining. That was a difficult time in my life, as was the time of Is This Desire?
"
In 2005, Diplo sampled "Down By The Water" for a remix of the Mike Jones
single "Still Tippin'
" and then again the following year on Plastic Little
's indie rap track "Now I Hollar."
' s Pazz & Jop
critics poll by a wide margin, and was also voted the year's number-one album by publications such as Rolling Stone
, The New York Times
, People
, USA Today
, Hot Press and, in "the biggest landslide victory in 15 years", the Los Angeles Times
. It featured in Top Ten lists for magazines like Spin
, NME
, Melody Maker
and Mojo
, though a contrarian Time
list dubbed it the "Worst Album of 1995." The album received two Grammy Award
nominations as Best Alternative Music Performance and Best Female Rock Vocal for the single "Down by the Water", and was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. Spin magazine later ranked it at number 3 in a list of the best albums of the 90s. In 2003, Rolling Stone
magazine ranked the album at number 435 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
. Slant Magazine
, in 2011, rated To Bring You My Love as the 20th best album of the 90s. As of 2005, (according to AskBillboard) To Bring You My Love has sold 375,000 copies in the US.
Limited Edition B-Sides CD
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
musician and singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
PJ Harvey
PJ Harvey
Polly Jean Harvey is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer and occasional artist. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments including piano, organ, bass, saxophone, and most recently, the autoharp.Harvey began her career in...
. It was released by Island Records
Island Records
Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group...
in February 1995. Recorded after the break-up of the PJ Harvey trio it stands as her first proper solo album. The songs on the album are heavily influenced by American blues music.
To produce the album, Harvey chose Flood, best known for his work with U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
, Depeche Mode
Depeche Mode
Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in 1980 in Basildon, Essex. The group's original line-up consisted of Dave Gahan , Martin Gore , Andy Fletcher and Vince Clarke...
, and Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...
. Harvey co-produced the record with Flood and John Parish
John Parish
John Parish is a British musician and producer best known for his work with singer and songwriter PJ Harvey,. His sister is the actress Sarah Parish.-Partial discography:Solo*Rosie *How Animals Move...
. To Bring You My Love would be the first of Harvey's many collaborations with Flood and Parish. The music on the album was played largely by Harvey and Parish, with contributions from seasoned musicians Joe Gore, Mick Harvey
Mick Harvey
Michael John Harvey , is an Australian rock musician, composer, arranger and record producer. He is best known for his long-time collaboration with the singer and songwriter Nick Cave...
, Jean-Marc Butty, and others. Many of the musicians who appeared on the album joined Harvey on tour to support it in 1995 and 1996.
To Bring you My Love is considered to be PJ Harvey's breakthrough. It garnered massive critical acclaim worldwide and became her best-selling album. The single "Down By the Water" received extensive airplay on radio and on MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
. The album is ranked number 435 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
.
Background and History
PJ Harvey took a break from the spotlight in 1994. After releasing two studio albums (DryDry (album)
Dry is the debut album by PJ Harvey. It was recorded at the Icehouse, Yeovil, UK, and released in the UK on Too Pure , and subsequently on Indigo Records in the US...
and Rid of Me
Rid of Me
Rid of Me is the second studio album by British musician PJ Harvey. It was released by Island Records in May 1993, approximately one year after the release of her critically acclaimed debut album Dry...
) and a compilation (4-Track Demos
4-Track Demos
4-Track Demos is an album of demos by British singer-songwriter PJ Harvey. It was released in October 1993 by Island Records. It consists of 8 demos of songs from her previous album, Rid of Me, along with 6 demos of some unreleased tracks which never made it to being recorded with the three-piece...
) in less than two years, she kept a low profile for most of the year. Harvey made only one public appearance in 1994, performing The Rolling Stones'
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
" Satisfaction" is a song by the English rock band The Rolling Stones, released in 1965. It was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and produced by Andrew Loog Oldham. Richards's throwaway three-note guitar riff — intended to be replaced by horns — opens and drives the song...
" with Björk
Björk
Björk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...
at the annual BRIT Awards
Brit Awards
The Brit Awards are the British Phonographic Industry's annual pop music awards. The name was originally a shortened form of "British", "Britain" or "Britannia", but subsequently became a backronym for British Record Industry Trust...
.
Using the royalties she received from her first two albums, she bought a house in rural England close to her parents' home in Yeovil
Yeovil
Yeovil is a town and civil parish in south Somerset, England. The parish had a population of 27,949 at the 2001 census, although the wider urban area had a population of 42,140...
. She described her new home as "completely in the countryside. I have no neighbors. When I look out the window, all I see are fields." Living in near isolation, she began writing the songs that would appear on To Bring You My Love.
Music and Lyrics
The subject matter and tone of the songs on To Bring You My Love differs somewhat from what Harvey had presented on her earlier albums. The songs on Rid of Me (1993), for example, are aggressive in their depictions of relationships. Those songs deal with revenge ("Rid of Me", "Rub Til it Bleeds"), or act as an attack on traditional masculinity ("Man-Size", "50ft. Queenie", "Me-Jane"). Many of the songs on To Bring You My Love, however, are about the loss of, or longing for, a departed lover. The title track presents a narrator who not only desires love but is willing to sacrifice everything to get it. "I’ve lain with the devil," Harvey sings, "Cursed God above/Forsaken Heaven/To bring you my love."Many of the songs on To Bring You My Love employ biblical imagery such a Heaven, God, and Jesus Christ. Harvey, however, is not a religious person. She wasn’t baptized and did not attend church as a child. She spoke of her use of religious imagery by saying "I look towards religion as possibly one means to finding an answer, to making sense why we’re here. That’s what drives the creative force, to make sense of one’s life. A very natural place to look is in that divine area, because it’s so strong and has been here long before us."
Many references are made to one of Harvey's major influences, Captain Beefheart
Captain Beefheart
Don Van Vliet January 15, 1941 December 17, 2010) was an American musician, singer-songwriter and artist best known by the stage name Captain Beefheart. His musical work was conducted with a rotating ensemble of musicians called The Magic Band, active between 1965 and 1982, with whom he recorded 12...
. The opening line of the album, "I was born in the desert", is also the opening line of Beefheart's debut album, "Safe as Milk". The album's second track, Meet Ze Monsta, borrows the line "meet the monster tonight" from Beefheart's "Tropical Hot Dog Night", the second track of his album Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)
Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)
Shiny Beast is the tenth studio album by Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band. Originally released in 1978, it is considered to be Beefheart's comeback album following 1974's poorly received efforts, Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans & Moonbeams, and is the first of his three critically...
, an album which Harvey has said had a particular impact on her. A lyrical resemblance to Beefheart's "Dropout Boogie" is also found on the track "I Think I'm a Mother".
Musically, the album is more complicated than Dry
Dry (album)
Dry is the debut album by PJ Harvey. It was recorded at the Icehouse, Yeovil, UK, and released in the UK on Too Pure , and subsequently on Indigo Records in the US...
or Rid of Me
Rid of Me
Rid of Me is the second studio album by British musician PJ Harvey. It was released by Island Records in May 1993, approximately one year after the release of her critically acclaimed debut album Dry...
. Two guitar parts are used in many of the songs, in most cases played by Harvey and Parish. Acoustic guitar and strings, used sparingly in her previous releases, can be heard throughout To Bring You My Love. Bells, chimes, and a vibraphone
Vibraphone
The vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
add to the atmosphere of the recording. Keyboards and organ are also used extensively, a result of much of the album being composed on a Yamaha keyboard Harvey bought second-hand. The deep, rumbling organ tones provide many of the lower notes on the album, replacing traditional bassline
Bassline
A bassline is the term used in many styles of popular music, such as jazz, blues, funk, dub and electronic music for the low-pitched instrumental part or line played by a rhythm section instrument such as the electric bass, double bass, tuba or keyboard...
s. The bass played by Mick Harvey
Mick Harvey
Michael John Harvey , is an Australian rock musician, composer, arranger and record producer. He is best known for his long-time collaboration with the singer and songwriter Nick Cave...
on "Long Snake Moan" is one of the few times an actual bass guitar is heard on the album.
Recording
To Bring You My Love was Harvey's first album proper since disbanding the original PJ Harvey trio in 1993. For this recording she recruited producer Flood (Depeche ModeDepeche Mode
Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in 1980 in Basildon, Essex. The group's original line-up consisted of Dave Gahan , Martin Gore , Andy Fletcher and Vince Clarke...
, U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
, Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...
, Smashing Pumpkins), her old Automatic Dlamini bandmate John Parish
John Parish
John Parish is a British musician and producer best known for his work with singer and songwriter PJ Harvey,. His sister is the actress Sarah Parish.-Partial discography:Solo*Rosie *How Animals Move...
and a new line-up of session musicians including Joe Gore, Eric Drew Feldman
Eric Drew Feldman
Eric Drew Feldman is an American keyboard and bass guitar player. Feldman has worked with Captain Beefheart, Fear, Snakefinger, The Residents, Pere Ubu, Pixies, dEUS, Katell Keineg, Frank Black, The Polyphonic Spree, Tripping Daisy, Reid Paley, Charlotte Hatherley, Custard, and PJ Harvey.He was...
, Mick Harvey
Mick Harvey
Michael John Harvey , is an Australian rock musician, composer, arranger and record producer. He is best known for his long-time collaboration with the singer and songwriter Nick Cave...
and Jean-Marc Butty. She herself played guitar, keyboards, vibes and bells on the record, as well as co-producing it with Flood and John Parish.
Reception
As her second full-length release on a major label, To Bring You My Love received a heavy promotional push from Island RecordsIsland Records
Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group...
. Extensive MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
rotation and college radio airplay for the first single "Down by the Water" — with its eccentric, eye-catching Maria Mochnacz-directed music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
of Harvey drowning in an emerald pond while wearing an extravagant wig, heavy make-up and a slinky red satin evening gown — gave Harvey her biggest radio hit to date, reaching #2 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart. The album itself debuted at #40 on the Billboard chart and #12 in her native UK, and went on to sell roughly one million copies. The moderate commercial breakthrough of To Bring You My Love certainly had nothing to do with any scaling-down of her trademark lyrical intensity: the infanticide
Infanticide
Infanticide or infant homicide is the killing of a human infant. Neonaticide, a killing within 24 hours of a baby's birth, is most commonly done by the mother.In many past societies, certain forms of infanticide were considered permissible...
fable "Down by the Water" — whose whispered coda
Coda (music)
Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...
of "Little fish big fish swimming in the water/Come back here, man, gimme my daughter" references the old Leadbelly
Leadbelly
Huddie William Ledbetter was an iconic American folk and blues musician, notable for his strong vocals, his virtuosity on the twelve-string guitar, and the songbook of folk standards he introduced....
blues standard "Salty Dog" — ostensibly deals with a mother drowning her child.
The critical response was overwhelmingly positive — Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
praised the record as "astonishing" in its four-star review, People claimed that "Harvey's raw, dense music rivals that of Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
himself for sheer gut-wrenching melodrama" and Hot Press raved, "this is a creation of oceanic beauty, depth and mystery in which all of the themes previously explored in fragments by Harvey are united in a rich and complex whole".
Harvey and her new five-piece live band supported the album with a 10-month worldwide tour that included a three-month stint opening for the band Live
Live (band)
Live is an American rock band from York, Pennsylvania, composed of Chad Taylor , Patrick Dahlheimer , and Chad Gracey . Lead singer and principal songwriter Ed Kowalczyk left the band in November 2009....
in the US, and a now-legendary performance at the UK's Glastonbury Festival
Glastonbury Festival
The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts, commonly abbreviated to Glastonbury or even Glasto, is a performing arts festival that takes place near Pilton, Somerset, England, best known for its contemporary music, but also for dance, comedy, theatre, circus, cabaret and other arts.The...
wearing a shocking pink catsuit and black Wonderbra
Wonderbra
The Wonderbra is a type of push-up underwire brassiere that gained worldwide prominence in the 1990s. Although the Wonderbra name was first trademarked in the U.S. in 1935, the brand was developed in Canada. Moses Nadler, founder and majority owner of the Canadian Lady Corset Company, licensed the...
.
Harvey told Filter
Filter (magazine)
FILTER, the publication that promises us that "Good music will prevail," is a seasonal American music and off-beat entertainment magazine. It features commentary and photos of up-and-coming musicians and filmmakers ranging from actors to writer-directors...
in 2004, "To Bring You My Love was my first real venture into production and to use an incredible producer like Flood, who painted an atmosphere over my songs that I hadn't heard before, I was working with new musicians — it was all very, very exciting. And very, very draining. That was a difficult time in my life, as was the time of Is This Desire?
Is This Desire?
Is This Desire? is a 1998 album by British singer-songwriter PJ Harvey.Recorded on and off in Dorset and London between April 1997 and April 1998, it was co-produced by Flood, Head and Harvey herself, and featured instrumental contributions from Rob Ellis, John Parish, Mick Harvey, Eric Drew...
"
In 2005, Diplo sampled "Down By The Water" for a remix of the Mike Jones
Mike Jones (rapper)
Michael "Mike" Jones is an American southern rap artist, who initially was affiliated with the record label Swishahouse, then left to be the owner of Ice Age Entertainment....
single "Still Tippin'
Still Tippin'
"Still Tippin" is the first official single taken from the Mike Jones' album Who Is Mike Jones?. The last verse was given to rapper Paul Wall after a feud between Jones and fellow artist Chamillionaire, resulting in Chamillionaire's departure from Swishahouse.The beat, produced by Salih Williams,...
" and then again the following year on Plastic Little
Plastic Little (band)
Plastic Little is an American rap group consisting of Jayson Musson , Kurt Hunte , Jon Folmar , Si Young Lee and Michael Stern...
's indie rap track "Now I Hollar."
Accolades
The album received huge critical acclaim. It was voted as the best album of the year in The Village VoiceThe Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
Pazz & Jop
The Pazz & Jop critics' poll is a poll of music critics run by The Village Voice newspaper. It is compiled every year from the top ten lists of hundreds of music critics...
critics poll by a wide margin, and was also voted the year's number-one album by publications such as Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, People
People (magazine)
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Subscribers to this magazine received...
, USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, Hot Press and, in "the biggest landslide victory in 15 years", the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
. It featured in Top Ten lists for magazines like Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
, NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
, Melody Maker
Melody Maker
Melody Maker, published in the United Kingdom, was, according to its publisher IPC Media, the world's oldest weekly music newspaper. It was founded in 1926 as a magazine targeted at musicians; in 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.-1950s–1960s:Originally the Melody...
and Mojo
Mojo (magazine)
MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...
, though a contrarian Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
list dubbed it the "Worst Album of 1995." The album received two Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
nominations as Best Alternative Music Performance and Best Female Rock Vocal for the single "Down by the Water", and was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. Spin magazine later ranked it at number 3 in a list of the best albums of the 90s. In 2003, Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine ranked the album at number 435 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
. Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine
Slant Magazine is an online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York Film Festival.- History :...
, in 2011, rated To Bring You My Love as the 20th best album of the 90s. As of 2005, (according to AskBillboard) To Bring You My Love has sold 375,000 copies in the US.
Track listing
All songs written by PJ Harvey.- "To Bring You My Love" – 5:32
- "Meet ze Monsta" – 3:29
- "Working for the Man" – 4:45
- "C'mon Billy" – 2:47
- "Teclo" – 4:57
- "Long Snake Moan" – 5:17
- "Down by the Water" – 3:14
- "I Think I'm a Mother" – 4:00
- "Send His Love to Me" – 4:20
- "The Dancer" – 4:06
Limited Edition B-Sides CD
- "Reeling (Demo)" – 3:00
- "Daddy" – 3:16
- "Lying in the Sun" – 4:30
- "Somebody's Down, Somebody's Name" – 3:40
- "Darling Be There" – 3:46
- "Maniac" – 4:01
- "One Time Too Many" – 2:52
- "Harder" – 2:05
- "Goodnight" – 4:17
Personnel
- PJ HarveyPJ HarveyPolly Jean Harvey is an English musician, singer-songwriter, composer and occasional artist. Primarily known as a vocalist and guitarist, she is also proficient with a wide range of instruments including piano, organ, bass, saxophone, and most recently, the autoharp.Harvey began her career in...
: vocals, guitar, piano, Hammond organHammond organThe Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, in the 1960s and 1970s it became a standard keyboard...
, bells, strings, chimes, marimbaMarimbaThe marimba is a musical instrument in the percussion family. It consists of a set of wooden keys or bars with resonators. The bars are struck with mallets to produce musical tones. The keys are arranged as those of a piano, with the accidentals raised vertically and overlapping the natural keys ...
, vibraphoneVibraphoneThe vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
, percussion, producer - John ParishJohn ParishJohn Parish is a British musician and producer best known for his work with singer and songwriter PJ Harvey,. His sister is the actress Sarah Parish.-Partial discography:Solo*Rosie *How Animals Move...
: guitar, organ, percussion, drums, producer - Flood: producer, engineer, mixing
- Mick HarveyMick HarveyMichael John Harvey , is an Australian rock musician, composer, arranger and record producer. He is best known for his long-time collaboration with the singer and songwriter Nick Cave...
: bass, Hammond organ - Joe Gore: guitar, e-bow
- Jean-Marc Butty: drums, percussion
- Joe Dilworth: drums
- Pete ThomasPete Thomas (saxophonist)Pete Thomas is a leading British music producer, TV and film composer, recording musician, and saxophonist. He was born in London and is now based in Southampton, England. He is also an expert in Jazz music and theory.-Biography:...
: string arrangements - Sonia Slany: violin
- Jules Singleton: viola
- Jocelyn Pook: viola
- Sian Bell: cello
- Valerie Philips: photography
- Kate GarnerKate GarnerKate Garner is an English singer and photographer. Garner was one third of the trio of 1980s avant-garde, new wave pop project called Haysi Fantayzee, the other members being Jeremy Healy and Paul Caplin...
: photography - Cally: artwork
Album
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1995 | UK Album Chart | 12 |
| 1995 | The Billboard 200 | 40 |
Singles
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | "Down By The Water" | Modern Rock Tracks | 2 |
| 1995 (March) | "Down By The Water" | UK Singles Chart | 38 |
| 1995 (July) | "C'mon Billy" | UK Singles Chart | 29 |
| 1995 (October) | "Send His Love To Me" | UK Singles Chart | 34 |