PJ Harvey Music Video: The Community Of Hope

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by Prince Of Petworth March 21, 2016 at 3:45 pm 7 Comments

Read about the background here from the Post’s Paul Schwartzman:

“At the end of the tour, after dropping off Seamus and Polly near their Adams Morgan hotel, I had an inkling that there was a bit more to this mysterious woman…”

Anon

Hmm. I generally like PJ Harvey’s music, but it basically sounds like she took a ghetto tour as a shortcut to having something “meaningful” to write about, and didn’t try to understand the city or neighborhood at all. Not really a good look.
thunder

Hmmmm. I think that it may reflect what the post reporter knows about east of the river. The words in the song are true, but there is much to be said.
Timebomb

Surprised they didn’t take the opportunity to cut in some news local news reports at the end about Walmart pulling out.
burritosinstereo

I definitely consider myself a PJ Harvey fan, but I’m feeling kind of torn about this. I know the WaPo article says it’s part of some sort of series (including Afghanistan and Kosovo)…but why DC? If she has some sort of connection to this city, I think that would have been worth mentioning. I guess I just don’t see the point, besides her using it as an opportunity to create new material.
Philippe Lecheval

I’ve been a huge PJ Harvey fan since Rid of Me came out, and this is far from her best work, but I feel like a lot of people are having a knee jerk reaction to the subject material here. I mean, is a musician required to limit themselves to writing new material only about their own little world?
- Anon
  
  Not at all. I think most folks familiar with her work know her to be an astute observer whose voice adds something to the discourse. Here, she’s not offering any sort of insight, just rehashing old tropes about DC. Granted, this is just one song of what’s said to be a hollistic album, so there might be something there of greater artistic merit? I just don’t see it with this singular track.
jcm

I definitely got an anthropologist-among-the-savages kind of vibe from it. That choir sure sounds sweet though.

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