Born on October 9: PJ Harvey, a free woman beyond taboos and ease

She was born in 1969 in a small town in Dorset (England) and is celebrating her 56th birthday.

PJ Harvey's angular profile conceals a rich and complex personality. While she poses topless for the cover of the British music weekly New Musical Express, she deserves nothing more than the image of a scandalous singer. Polly Jean, by demanding the same rights as men, was, on the contrary, making a strong feminist gesture. "The reactions were grotesque," she told us upon the release of the aptly titled "Is This Desire?", "especially from feminist circles! I simply thought I best embodied the simplicity of our music, but everyone focused on the image without attempting to connect it to our musical approach. The humorous aspect was also completely erased."

Constantly compared to Patti Smith (at least in her early days), PJ Harvey disturbs some (but fascinates many others) because she deviates from the usual pattern of love songs. She even refutes any connection to female rock! "I'm not at all interested in belonging to the clan of rock chicks," she confided to us. "I don't even know Patti Smith, who is often cited as an inspiration. I only heard her album "Horses" once. I thought it was magnificent, but I don't know if I resemble her in any way."

And when PJ Harvey wrote songs like "Dry" or "Happy And Bleeding" (from her first album in 1992), she addressed typically feminine issues such as frigidity and the menstrual cycle bluntly but delicately. Additionally, she's released an abrupt album that ranks among the most interesting of the '90s... "It's usually anger that motivates each of my songs. I never feel the need to embellish or disguise them. You have to take them as they are, without unnecessary embellishments. When I put a song down on paper, it's completely finished. I've mulled it over in my mind for a long time, and it just needs to be recorded without further changes, even if, naturally, it will evolve over the course of the concerts."

After a long hiatus from recording, PJ Harvey recorded the very somber "I Inside The Old Year Dying" in the summer of 2023, followed by a long tour that ended in the fall of 2024 in Los Angeles.

(MH with Stéphane Soupart - Photo : Christophe Dehousse / Music Belgium Photos)

Photo: PJ Harvey on stage at the Cirque Royal in Brussels (Belgium) on October 9, 2023, the very day of her birthday!