The striking debut of PJ Harvey – a record that not only has the British singer maybe topping any of the new generation of American female singer/songwriters that were emerging at the time – but also really showing the world her skills as a producer too! There's a ferocity to some of these songs, and open emotion throughout – a style that's often dark, but never too brooding or self-absorbed – which is maybe why Harvey's star rose so much with a record like this! Titles include "Oh My Lover", "Dress", "Stella", "Happy & Bleeding", "Sheela Na Gig", "Hair", "Joe", and "Plants & Rags". LP, Vinyl record album

PJ Harvey, as much as any artist who has long-earned living legend status, has the kind of work worth cherishing in stages of development – and you probably don't need us to tell you that the Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea demos are much more than a mere companion piece to the album! While the main album itself isn't what we'd call elaborately produced, it has a big sound even in sparer moments, whereas the demos are a great showcase for her raw strength and huge voice – and the material his a different vibe all around in a lot of ways, making this a strong album of its own – and you get strains of her influences that get smoothed over on the album-proper. Includes "Big Exit", "Good Fortune", "A Place Called Home", "Beautiful Feeling", "The Whores Hustle And The Hustlers Whore", "Kamikaze", "Horses In My Dreams", "We Float". LP, Vinyl record album

The one that catapulted PJ Harvey from a critical favorite to something of a popular favorite on both the US and UK – and her most remarkable creative stride to date! At the time, it felt like this was the one where Polly Harvey made a conscious choice to go "big" with sound, working with producer Flood after that famously stripped down Rid Of Me with Steve Albini engineering, but in hindsight it's amazing how the bigger sound, unafraid of electronics and all around grander atmosphere never even comes close to hiding the by turns intimate and mysterious lyricism – and it might be the best showcase for Polly's voice on record – projecting varying, unpredictable mood from track to track. Includes "To Bring You My Love", "Meet Ze Monsta", "Down By The Water", "Send His Love To Me", "The Dancer" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

A little bit leaner, and little bit darker, and a lot more solo of a PJ Harvey album after the comparatively bigger sounding Stories From The City, Stories From The City (itself largely the work of trio, though more deliberately layered and polished) – but true to form, Polly subverts the expectation that she'd strip things raw on a record in which does all but play the drums on – not just on guitars and vocals, bass, piano, accordion, melodica and more on an effort that has a fleshed out band vibe done mostly herself! Rob Ellis handles drums and percussion and titles include "The Life And Death Of Mr. Badmouth", "Shame", "Who The F**k?", "The Pocket Knife", "The Letter", "The Slow Drug", "No Child Of Mine", "The End", "Seagulls" and "The Darker Days Of Me & Him". LP, Vinyl record album

The rawer root material of one of PJ Harvey's most singularly realized albums! Even the fully fleshed out Uh Huh Her was a mostly solo-spun effort, with Rob Ellis on drums and percussion and Polly playing most other roles in the writing, recording and performing, up to and including sleeve photography – yet it has a fleshed out band vibe that isn't exactly intimate sounding. With the demos you get that rawer presentation and root feel, and much like other archival recordings in her canon, it's a worthy alternate version rather than fans-only curio. Includes "The Life And Death Of Mr Badmouth", "Shame", "Who The F**k", "The Pocket Knife", "The Letter", "The Slow Drug", "It's You", "The Desperate Kingdom Of Love" and "The Darker Days Of Me & Him". LP, Vinyl record album

PJ Harvey mixing piano-heavy, often softly-sung arrangements with some of the darkest songcraft of her career to date! White Chalk might be her sharpest left turn ever – which is saying something given the creative leap from Rid Of Me to To Bring You My Love a decade earlier – veering from the raw guitar sound of the couple release to quietly haunting piano here. Her voice as always is her most uniquely compelling instrument, on songs that includes "The Devil", "Dear Darkness", "Grow Grow Grow", "When Under Ether", "White Chalk", "Broken Harp", "Silence", "The Piano", "To Talk To You", "Before Departure" and "The Mountain". LP, Vinyl record album

Previously unreleased demo versions of all the songs from PJ Harvey's White Chalk album – the released version itself a pretty stark left turn from a string of rawer guitar-based material to a lonelier, more haunting piano and other more darkly dreamy arrangements – stripped to the sparest essentials! Polly's voice is such a compelling instrument and her voice so distinctive, it's great to hear her work on a more formative level, but the White Chalk era is especially good in that sparer light. Includes "The Devil", "Dear Darkness", "Grow Grow Grow", "When Under Ether", "White Chalk", "Broken Harp", "Silence", "The Piano", "To Talk To You", "Before Departure" and "The Mountain". LP, Vinyl record album

The second PJ Harvey & John Parish' duo effort, more than decade after Dance Hall At Louse Point! Despite being frequent collaborators, the jointly billed couple albums show a lot of range and depth from both of them in ways that are subtly different than their other work. PJ stretches syllables and gives moody heft to just about every word, Parish's musicianship rolls from atmospheric guitar rock to angular acoustic instrumentation and back. Includes "Black Hearted Love", "Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen", "Leaving California", "The Chair", "April", "A Woman And A Man Walk By/The Crow Knows Where The Little Children Go", "The Soldier", "Pigs Will Not", "Passionless, Pointless" and "Cracks In The Canvas". LP, Vinyl record album

The second PJ Harvey album and the last with a stripped down, raw rock trio sound – and a tense, quiet-loud dynamic that's as thrilling today as the day it came out! Includes the challenging, masterful title track that's taut and chilling from beginning to end, but starts so quiet, you're almost forced to crank the volume only to blow your eardrums when the chorus rages in – for our money it's one greatest songs of the early 90s alt rock boom – and that's just beginning! Includes her great cover of "Highway 61 Revisited", "Legs", "Man-Size", "50 Queenie", Yuri-G", "Snake" and "Ecstasy". LP, Vinyl record album

PJ Harvey at peak power! This one came at a point in her career when she'd hit such stylistically varied high points earlier on, it's hard to imagine what she could've done to surprise long time fans or impress the critics as much as before – and she hits the mark by diverting expectations all together, with disarmingly great songs and her one of a kind voice. From the relatively spare and intimate songs to the fuzzy guitar stormers, she revisits styles she's done before without repeating herself, it's a next step all around and it hasn't aged a day since it came out. Includes "Big Exit", "Good Fortune", "A Place Called Home", "One Lane", "This Mess We're In", "This Is Love", "Horses In My My Dreams", "We Float", "Beautiful Feeling" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

... CD

The self-recorded 4 Track Demos for the Rid Of Me LP, an album eventually recorded by Steve Albini as one of the most surprisingly raw major label debuts of the early 90s – at a time when the majors were signing indie artists and putting out bigger sounding, more accessible versions of them, PJ Harvey bravely went the other way – and it's well worth hearing that era of her work even more intimately. Her voice and lyrics here stand out more here, and it's aching, scary beautiful stuff. Includes "Rid Of Me", Legs", Goodnight", "Yuri-G", "Driving", "50ft Queenie", "Hook", "Snake" and more. LP, Vinyl record album

Demo versions of every single track that appeared on the PJ Harvey album Is This Desire – maybe even more of a match for some of the songs on the record than previous demo releases, given that the standard record has a nicely stripped-down vibe at times! Yet there's also a strong difference here – a to-the-core sound that shows how much PJ Harvey could sometimes hide behind the larger mix of a record, even when she was sounding emotive – as there's a very personal, intimate quality here. Titles include "Angeline", "The Wind", "The Sly Lit Up", "A Perfect Day Elise", "Is This Desire", "The Garden", "No Girl So Sweet", and "My Beautiful Leah". CD

Demo versions of every single track that appeared on the PJ Harvey album Is This Desire – maybe even more of a match for some of the songs on the record than previous demo releases, given that the standard record has a nicely stripped-down vibe at times! Yet there's also a strong difference here – a to-the-core sound that shows how much PJ Harvey could sometimes hide behind the larger mix of a record, even when she was sounding emotive – as there's a very personal, intimate quality here. Titles include "Angeline", "The Wind", "The Sly Lit Up", "A Perfect Day Elise", "Is This Desire", "The Garden", "No Girl So Sweet", and "My Beautiful Leah". LP, Vinyl record album