PJ Harvey

Polly Jean Harvey has spent three decades doing the opposite of what pays: changing her sound just when the previous one was starting to work. She debuted in 1992 with a bare, aggressive rock, followed it with a dark, theatrical blues, then with a luminous pop written in New York, and later with a whole album about England's wars. Each time she dismantled the formula the previous record had built for her. There is one fact that measures that without metaphors: she is the only person to have won the Mercury Prize twice, the award a jury gives to the best album of the year by an artist from the United Kingdom or Ireland. She won it in 2001 and in 2011, with two records that are nothing like each other. Of the generation of songwriters the nineties brought to the front — Tori Amos, Alanis Morissette — she was, for many, the one who conceded least to the market.

From Bridport to rock without ornament

She was born on 9 October 1969 in Bridport, in the county of Dorset, in the south-west of England. It was not London and it was not a scene: it was countryside. Her first record, Dry, came out in 1992, when she was twenty-two, and it already carried a formed idea of what she wanted to do.

Rid of Me arrived in 1993 and went further still: dirty guitars, silences that open up all at once, a voice that moves from a whisper to a scream inside the same bar. It earned her her first Mercury nomination, that same year.

Two years later, To Bring You My Love showed her in another register: slow blues, theatrical arrangements, a different character in each song. She was nominated again, in 1995. Neither of the two records won, and at that point the story seemed to point towards the classic cult artist whom the jury respects and does not award.

New York, England and two Mercurys

In 2000 she released Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, her most open and most luminous record, written largely around New York. It won the 2001 Mercury and, with it, she became the first woman to take the prize as a solo artist in its history.

The second came eleven years later and by the opposite road. Let England Shake, from 2011, is a record about war and about what England did and let be done in its name: songs built with faded instruments, battlefield lyrics, no consoling choruses. It won the Mercury that year.

It is worth being precise about what that prize is, because it tends to grow in the telling. The Mercury is not a career award, nor the highest honour of British music — that popular prestige belongs to the BRITs. It is decided by a jury, a single album of the year takes it, and the eligible territory includes Ireland, as well as residents of more than five years since 2021. Records such as Different Class, by Pulp, have won it, in 1996.

The record, and what she never won

The arithmetic is short, and that is why it is striking. PJ Harvey has four Mercury nominations: Rid of Me in 1993, To Bring You My Love in 1995 and the two winners. With the full list of editions since 1992 reviewed, nobody else has won it twice. As of October 2026 the record is still intact, with this year's edition yet to be awarded.

At the Grammys it went exactly the other way round: eight nominations and no award. And in 2013 the British state gave her a recognition of another order, the MBE honour "for services to music".

In 2026 she is writing a new record, with no release date and no tour announced. That is, so far, her usual way of working: appearing when she has something different to deliver, and not before.

What to remember

The strange thing about PJ Harvey is not that she is respected; it is that she is respected without ever having repeated the record that made her respectable. From the knife-edge rock of Rid of Me to the theatrical blues of To Bring You My Love, from the light of Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea to the historical mourning of Let England Shake, every album forced you to learn her again. That is the difficult part of her career and the part the awards do not show.

And then there are the awards, which in her case say something concrete. Two Mercurys, in 2001 and in 2011, for two records that share neither tone nor subject nor method. No other person has managed it in more than three decades of the prize's history. Eight Grammy nominations without a single statuette suggest that mass recognition was never the aim. Freedom, on the other hand, worked out well for her.

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Sources

PJ Harvey (Polly Jean Harvey) is an English singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist born on 9 October 1969 in Bridport, county of Dorset, England. Her debut album, "Dry", was released in 1992; it was followed by "Rid of Me" (1993), "To Bring You My Love" (1995), "Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea" (2000) and "Let England Shake" (2011), among others. She has received four Mercury Prize nominations: for "Rid of Me" in 1993, for "To Bring You My Love" in 1995, and for "Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea" and "Let England Shake", which won the 2001 and 2011 editions respectively. With the 2001 prize she became the first woman to win the Mercury as a solo artist. With every edition of the prize since 1992 reviewed, she is the only person to have won it twice. The Mercury Prize is awarded by a jury to the best album of the year by an artist from the United Kingdom or Ireland; since 2021 residents of more than five years may also be eligible. "Different Class", by Pulp, won the 1996 edition. PJ Harvey has eight Grammy nominations without winning any award. In 2013 she was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to music. In 2026 she is writing a new album, with no release date and no tour announced. Profile compiled for Rebobinados with fact-checking; interpretations of the meaning of the work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, Official Charts Company and other coverage.