Rid of Me by PJ Harvey (1993), № 98 in The Lead-In’s 100 greatest albums. Steve Albini recording PJ Harvey at Pachyderm in Minnesota. The loudest, ugliest, most honest record of the 90s, made by a woman who'd just been called the next big thing.
Fourteen tracks in 48 minutes. Recorded across approximately 2 weeks at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota in December 1992 with Steve Albini engineering. PJ Harvey's second LP, the deliberately abrasive Polly Jean Harvey trio (Polly Jean Harvey, Stephen Vaughan, Robert Ellis), recorded in twelve days for approximately $20,000, released by Island Records in May 1993. The album that consolidated Harvey as the canonical post-punk female front-person of the 1990s and inaugurated the female-led-blues-punk vocabulary every subsequent serious female rock voice has worked within.
Fourteen tracks in 48 minutes. Recorded across approximately 2 weeks at Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota in December 1992 with Steve Albini engineering. PJ Harvey's second LP, the deliberately abrasive Polly Jean Harvey trio (Polly Jean Harvey, Stephen Vaughan, Robert Ellis), recorded in twelve days for approximately $20,000, released by Island Records in May 1993. The album that consolidated Harvey as the canonical post-punk female front-person of the 1990s and inaugurated the female-led-blues-punk vocabulary every subsequent serious female rock voice has worked within.
Polly Jean Harvey in summer 1992 was twenty-two years old, one year past Dry's commercial-and-critical breakthrough (March 1992, UK #11 indie chart). The PJ Harvey Trio, Polly Jean on guitar and vocals, Stephen Vaughan on bass, Robert Ellis on drums, had been touring extensively across late 1991 and 1992. The trio's deliberate Captain Beefheart-via-Tom Waits abrasive-blues vocabulary had developed substantially across the touring; the second LP was conceived as a deliberately harsher document than Dry.
Steve Albini was contracted to engineer (not produce, Harvey self-produced) on the basis of his prior credits with the Pixies (Surfer Rosa), the Breeders (Pod), and substantial underground-rock catalogue. Albini's documentary engineering vocabulary, live tracking, minimal overdubbing, deliberately aggressive room ambience, was Harvey's specific request. Pachyderm Studios in Cannon Falls, Minnesota was Albini's preferred facility; the trio relocated there for twelve days in December 1992.
Sessions ran approximately twelve days. The basic tracks were cut live in the studio with the trio in the live room. Harvey's vocal performances were recorded with substantial dynamic-range extremes, whispered verses, screamed choruses, that the Albini documentary engineering captured without compression. Approximately $20,000 was the session budget. The completed album was mixed across approximately one week.
Rid of Me's central artistic decision was the deliberately abrasive sonic vocabulary. The Albini engineering preserved the Pachyderm room ambience with full dynamic range, quiet passages are extremely quiet, loud passages are extremely loud. The album's listening-volume difficulty (impossible to listen to at moderate volume, quiet passages disappear, loud passages distort) is the album's specific aesthetic argument. Subsequent Albini productions for Nirvana (In Utero, 1993) and others extended the dynamic-range vocabulary; Rid of Me is the founding text.
Island released the album on May 4, 1993. UK chart entry at #3 was Harvey's commercial breakthrough. US chart entry at #153 was modest but established her as a sustained commercial presence. Critical reception was extraordinary, Melody Maker called it the album of the year; NME's reviewers split sharply between celebration and difficulty with the album's volume-range demands.
Rid of Me belongs at #96 because it is the album that consolidated Harvey as the canonical post-punk female front-person of the 1990s and inaugurated the female-led-blues-punk vocabulary every subsequent serious female rock voice has worked within. Every subsequent Karen O, Annie Clark (St. Vincent), Adrianne Lenker, Jenny Lewis, Sharon Van Etten, Mitski LP that takes the voice-as-instrument blues-punk vocabulary seriously runs on the Rid of Me precedent. The Rolling Stone 2020 #406 ranking and Harvey's subsequent 2011 Mercury Prize win for Let England Shake (her second Mercury Prize) confirm the canonical-text status.
Original 1993 UK/European pressing, Island ILPS 8002 (also numbered 514 696-1), the album Steve Albini recorded for Harvey at Pachyderm. Look for the original Island labels and the ILPS 8002 catalogue number. The album has since been reissued, including a 2020 180-gram edition, so confirm the 1993 Island pressing to separate an original from a repress.
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