Is This Desire?

PJ Harvey

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 29, 1998)
• Original Release Date: September 29, 1998
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Island
• ASIN: B00000AFFI
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (113 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #19,517 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

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  Music > Alternative Rock > Singer-Songwriters

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential recording
Each of Harvey's previous albums has been a distinct affair as she took steps forward in not only forging her sound but also exploring the wealthy veins of rock & roll. So on first listen, Is This Desire? almost disappoints; it's very close to the same dark, woozy, and bluesy musical territory she staked out on To Bring You My Love. But it's been said that though good stories can be read once, great stories must be read twice, and, like great literature, this album deserves repeated listenings to appreciate its beautiful complexities and subtle shadings. A recommendation: Spend a few nonstop hours with Is This Desire? It will change you. --Tod Nelson

Spin
Is This Desire? Is Harvey's fifth album. Incredibly, she's pulled off a double magic act: Her third-person tales are so enticing you won't miss her, and--this should be impossible--she's become more refined while retaining raw power. There are more contempo club textures here than the blues riffs she was firing off when we met her, and her voice is still building on the operatic moves of 1995's To Bring You My Love.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars bloody terrifying, November 25, 1999

By	g cooper (New York City) - See all my reviews

This may be one of my favorite records of 1998, but it makes for no easy listen. The best songs on this album ( Angeline, The Sky Lit Up, The Wind, My Beautiful Leah, A Perfect Day Elise, Catherine, The Garden, No Girl So Sweet, and Is This Desire?) conjur up rare emotions and sweet atmospheres, but there is also an air of the grotesque. While earlier albums like Dry and Rid Of Me made her emotions known ate blistering levels, Is This Desire makes them known at a whisper. Her songwriting is some of the scariest I have ever heard here (like the line, "God is the sweat running down his back, the water turns her blond hair black.") It's an uncomfortable album, made for sitting in a chair watching your knuckles turn white.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A few of Desire's faces , August 8, 2005

By	Menelaos "bookworm" (Outer Space) - See all my reviews

PJ Harvey is a gifted songwriter and a great performer. She also tends to write about things you don't want to hear about and shout them for everyone to hear, much like Patti Smith and Tori Amos. This record is not different. Desire can be beautiful and destructive. Here, Ms. Harvey concentrates on the destructive face but she also includes so much beauty in this album, that its eerie effect is coated with sugar.
Monologues of love, dusty lust, hidden passion, sexual madness, and personal resilience are a few of the themes she handles here, each one in a seperate short story with its own players.
The songwriter PJ Harvey takes a while to get used to because of her ventures into hard sonic and lyrical terrain, but when a listener gives this more than one or two tries, he/she will comprehend the artist's strong vision.
The performer Harvey is, however, going to leave audiences stupefied. She plays every character of each short story of this with fire, dedication and chameleon skills. You can hear the fragile prostitute of "Angelene", and you can hear the creeping madness in every word of "Perfect Day, Elise". The erotic promise of "No Girl so Sweet" manages to be sensual and dirty without becoming crude.
Thousands of albums about desire have been released. What makes this difference is the respect to the listener and PJ Harvey's skill and obvious amount of work

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why can't this be available?!?, August 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Is This Desire? (Audio CD)

This 'extra tracks' version of "Is This Desire?" is amazing. It includes the actual album plus another cd along with it that has tracks ["The Northwood," "Sweeter than anything," "The Bay," and an instrumental] from the "Perfect Day Elise" singles. "The Northwood is raw, like the recordings found on "4-Track Demos." It is the best raw recording of Polly's that I have ever heard. "The Bay" is also incredible. I wish that someday Island Records will re-release this album. It's incredible.