Uh Huh Her
Encyclopedia
Uh Huh Her is an album
by British singer-songwriter
PJ Harvey
. The album was written, recorded and produced over a two-year period by the singer/songwriter herself. She also played every instrument in the album – a first from Harvey since 4-Track Demos
in 1993 – with the exception of the final drum tracks, added by long-time collaborator Rob Ellis. It was released in May 2004.
To support the release, Harvey toured for seven months. She performed in various European summer festivals such as Glastonbury
and opened for Morrissey
in a few dates. During the same tour she also performed the album's unreleased title-track. Uh Huh Her debuted and peaked at number 12 in the UK Albums Chart
and has been certified Silver by the BPI
. It became Harvey's highest charting album to date in the U.S., peaking at number 29 in the Billboard 200
, and had sold more than 135,000 copies there as of 2005, according to AskBillboard. Although it charted higher than Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
in many territories, Uh Huh Her failed to achieve its predecessor chart longevity and crossover interest.
The album received largely positive reviews upon its release, although there was some criticism towards its production. It currently holds a 79 out of 100 metascore at Metacritic
based upon 28 reviews, indicating "Generally Favorable Reviews". Uh Huh Her also earned PJ Harvey nominations to awards such as the Grammy Awards and the Brit Awards
.
album, she produced it herself and played every instrument bar the final drum tracks, which were handled by her longtime collaborator Rob Ellis. Final engineering and mixing work was done by Head in rural Devon in autumn/winter 2003.
Uh Huh Her was released in May 2004 in the UK and peaked at #12 in the UK Albums Chart
. The album was preceded by lead single "The Letter", which reached #28 in the UK Singles Chart
. Uh Huh Her became PJ Harvey's highest-charting record on the US Billboard
charts, reaching #29. Overall, however, it did not spark the same level of crossover interest as its million-selling predecessor Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
. As usual with Harvey, the critical reception was generally strong: Alternative Press
described the record as "profoundly moving", Entertainment Weekly
called it "raw, dark and beautiful... a jagged, edgy winner", and Time
noted that "No singer since Janis Joplin
has moved as easily between primal scream and intimate sigh". The Sunday Times
hailed it as "a thrilling, bone-rattling barrage, interleaved with moments of hushed, accordion-flecked intimacy whose closeness and apparent candour make you want to shield yourself from their passion." Hot Press magazine, meanwhile, felt it was "an extremely potent record... that contains more perspectives, characters and camera angles than maybe any PJ album to date". It won Harvey her sixth BRIT Award
nomination, as Best British Female Artist, and her fifth Grammy Award
nomination, for Best Alternative Music Performance of 2004.
Harvey told Mojo
magazine, "I don't think 'tender' is a word that could be applied to anything I've written before, but that's how I feel about this album and I'm really pleased about it. Some of the songs are very gentle, very loving; with others I had a lot of fun in the words I used and the way I sang them." She explained to Time Out magazine how she "wanted to get back to the earthy, rootsy, more dirty side of things" following the popular success of her last album, 2000's Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. She said, "I wanted this record to be simple, I wanted it to be ugly in some places, I wanted it to have a swagger to it... but also a real honesty and intimacy. I wanted a warmness and closeness and I wanted to make a welcoming record." To Spin
magazine she said that, in contrast to the extreme darkness of some of her earlier LPs, "I find an enormous amount of openness and hope on this record... "The Desperate Kingdom of Love" or "You Come Through" I find incredibly optimistic and tender." Harvey also explained to Tracks magazine that, "I was looking for distressed, debased sounds. So all of the guitars are either tuned so low that it's hard to detect what notes they're playing or they're baritone guitars or they're played through the shittiest amps I could find."
On the inside sleeve of the album cover are a long set of self-portrait photographs that Harvey took over the years, and a series of scribbled annotations she collected during the songwriting process of Uh Huh Her - notes to herself such as "Scare yourself", "Too normal? Too PJ H?" and "All that matters is my voice and my story" (a piece of advice given to her by her friend Elvis Costello
). She admitted to Shaken Stir that producing the record on her own was "a completely draining, disorientating, exasperating, invigorating experience" and "one of the hardest pieces of work I've ever done... I couldn't say that this record was an enjoyable experience. I think it was a journey that I learnt an enormous amount from, but certainly there were very enjoyable moments... I mean when I look back on it now it was a very difficult, hard and taxing time, and yet I'm so glad I did it – so glad."
Harvey underwent a seven-month tour in support of the album with drummer Rob Ellis and two new bandmates, bass player Dingo
and guitarist Josh Klinghoffer
, which included various European summer festivals such as Glastonbury
, and a few dates opening for Morrissey
.
There is a song called "Uh Huh Her" that was not included on the album, but was regularly played during the world tour.
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
by British 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...
. The album was written, recorded and produced over a two-year period by the singer/songwriter herself. She also played every instrument in the album – a first from Harvey since 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 1993 – with the exception of the final drum tracks, added by long-time collaborator Rob Ellis. It was released in May 2004.
To support the release, Harvey toured for seven months. She performed in various European summer festivals such as Glastonbury
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...
and opened for Morrissey
Morrissey
Steven Patrick Morrissey , known as Morrissey, is an English singer and lyricist. He rose to prominence in the 1980s as the lyricist and vocalist of the alternative rock band The Smiths. The band was highly successful in the United Kingdom but broke up in 1987, and Morrissey began a solo career,...
in a few dates. During the same tour she also performed the album's unreleased title-track. Uh Huh Her debuted and peaked at number 12 in the UK Albums Chart
UK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
and has been certified Silver by the BPI
British Phonographic Industry
The British Phonographic Industry is the British record industry's trade association.-Structure:Its membership comprises hundreds of music companies including all four "major" record companies , associate members such as manufacturers and distributors, and hundreds of independent music companies...
. It became Harvey's highest charting album to date in the U.S., peaking at number 29 in the Billboard 200
Billboard 200
The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...
, and had sold more than 135,000 copies there as of 2005, according to AskBillboard. Although it charted higher than Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea is the fifth studio album by English singer-songwriter PJ Harvey, released 23 October 2000 on Island Records. Recorded during March to April 2000, the album contains themes of love that are tied into Harvey's affection for New York City...
in many territories, Uh Huh Her failed to achieve its predecessor chart longevity and crossover interest.
The album received largely positive reviews upon its release, although there was some criticism towards its production. It currently holds a 79 out of 100 metascore at Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
based upon 28 reviews, indicating "Generally Favorable Reviews". Uh Huh Her also earned PJ Harvey nominations to awards such as the Grammy Awards and the 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...
.
History
The album was written and recorded over a two-year period in Dorset and Los Angeles. Much of the recording was done alone by Harvey using her four-track and eight-track home studio, guitar, keyboards and drum machine. For the first time since 1993's 4-Track Demos4-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...
album, she produced it herself and played every instrument bar the final drum tracks, which were handled by her longtime collaborator Rob Ellis. Final engineering and mixing work was done by Head in rural Devon in autumn/winter 2003.
Uh Huh Her was released in May 2004 in the UK and peaked at #12 in the UK Albums Chart
UK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
. The album was preceded by lead single "The Letter", which reached #28 in the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
. Uh Huh Her became PJ Harvey's highest-charting record on the US Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
charts, reaching #29. Overall, however, it did not spark the same level of crossover interest as its million-selling predecessor Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea is the fifth studio album by English singer-songwriter PJ Harvey, released 23 October 2000 on Island Records. Recorded during March to April 2000, the album contains themes of love that are tied into Harvey's affection for New York City...
. As usual with Harvey, the critical reception was generally strong: Alternative Press
Alternative Press (music magazine)
Alternative Press is an American music magazine based in Cleveland, Ohio. It generally provides readers with band interviews, photos, information on upcoming releases, and music charts. It was founded in 1985 by Mike Shea, who is the current president....
described the record as "profoundly moving", Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
called it "raw, dark and beautiful... a jagged, edgy winner", and 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...
noted that "No singer since Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
has moved as easily between primal scream and intimate sigh". The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
hailed it as "a thrilling, bone-rattling barrage, interleaved with moments of hushed, accordion-flecked intimacy whose closeness and apparent candour make you want to shield yourself from their passion." Hot Press magazine, meanwhile, felt it was "an extremely potent record... that contains more perspectives, characters and camera angles than maybe any PJ album to date". It won Harvey her sixth BRIT Award
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...
nomination, as Best British Female Artist, and her fifth 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...
nomination, for Best Alternative Music Performance of 2004.
Harvey told 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...
magazine, "I don't think 'tender' is a word that could be applied to anything I've written before, but that's how I feel about this album and I'm really pleased about it. Some of the songs are very gentle, very loving; with others I had a lot of fun in the words I used and the way I sang them." She explained to Time Out magazine how she "wanted to get back to the earthy, rootsy, more dirty side of things" following the popular success of her last album, 2000's Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. She said, "I wanted this record to be simple, I wanted it to be ugly in some places, I wanted it to have a swagger to it... but also a real honesty and intimacy. I wanted a warmness and closeness and I wanted to make a welcoming record." To 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...
magazine she said that, in contrast to the extreme darkness of some of her earlier LPs, "I find an enormous amount of openness and hope on this record... "The Desperate Kingdom of Love" or "You Come Through" I find incredibly optimistic and tender." Harvey also explained to Tracks magazine that, "I was looking for distressed, debased sounds. So all of the guitars are either tuned so low that it's hard to detect what notes they're playing or they're baritone guitars or they're played through the shittiest amps I could find."
On the inside sleeve of the album cover are a long set of self-portrait photographs that Harvey took over the years, and a series of scribbled annotations she collected during the songwriting process of Uh Huh Her - notes to herself such as "Scare yourself", "Too normal? Too PJ H?" and "All that matters is my voice and my story" (a piece of advice given to her by her friend Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello , born Declan Patrick MacManus, is an English singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as an early participant in London's pub rock scene in the mid-1970s and later became associated with the punk/New Wave genre. Steeped in word play, the vocabulary of Costello's lyrics is broader...
). She admitted to Shaken Stir that producing the record on her own was "a completely draining, disorientating, exasperating, invigorating experience" and "one of the hardest pieces of work I've ever done... I couldn't say that this record was an enjoyable experience. I think it was a journey that I learnt an enormous amount from, but certainly there were very enjoyable moments... I mean when I look back on it now it was a very difficult, hard and taxing time, and yet I'm so glad I did it – so glad."
Harvey underwent a seven-month tour in support of the album with drummer Rob Ellis and two new bandmates, bass player Dingo
Dingo
The Australian Dingo or Warrigal is a free-roaming wild dog unique to the continent of Australia, mainly found in the outback. Its original ancestors are thought to have arrived with humans from southeast Asia thousands of years ago, when dogs were still relatively undomesticated and closer to...
and guitarist Josh Klinghoffer
Josh Klinghoffer
Joshua Adam "Josh" Klinghoffer is an American multi-instrumentalist, who is best known as the current guitarist for the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers. Klinghoffer replaced his friend and frequent collaborator John Frusciante, who left the band in 2009.Klinghoffer also fronts Dot Hacker, and was...
, which included various European summer festivals such as Glastonbury
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...
, and a few dates opening for Morrissey
Morrissey
Steven Patrick Morrissey , known as Morrissey, is an English singer and lyricist. He rose to prominence in the 1980s as the lyricist and vocalist of the alternative rock band The Smiths. The band was highly successful in the United Kingdom but broke up in 1987, and Morrissey began a solo career,...
.
There is a song called "Uh Huh Her" that was not included on the album, but was regularly played during the world tour.
Track listing
All tracks written by PJ Harvey.- "The Life & Death of Mr. Badmouth" – 4:53
- "Shame" – 2:33
- "Who the Fuck?" – 2:09
- "Pocket Knife" – 3:44
- "The Letter" – 3:22
- "The Slow Drug" – 3:25
- "No Child of Mine" – 1:08
- "Cat on the Wall" – 3:03
- "You Come Through" – 2:48
- "It's You" – 4:13
- "The End" – 1:23
- "The Desperate Kingdom of Love" – 2:44
- Untitled ("Seagulls") – 1:11
- "The Darker Days of Me & Him" – 4:34
Samples
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, electric and acoustic guitar, bass, piano, melodica, accordion, autoharp, producer, engineer, mixing - Rob Ellis: drums, percussion, background vocals
- Head: engineer, mixing, background vocals
- Evelyn Isaac: background vocals
- Rob Crane & Maria Mochnacz: artwork
Album
| Year | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|
| 2004 | UK Albums Chart | 12 |
| 2004 | France Top 150 | 10 |
| 2004 | Top Internet Albums | 29 |
| 2004 | U.S. Billboard 200 | 29 |
Singles
| Year | Single | Chart | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2004 (May) | "The Letter" | UK Singles Chart | 28 |