Reply With QuoteStrangely enough I consider Liverpool Tide a great addition to the White Chalk era / playlist.
Mystery of Love sounds so much like a Stories track to me. I can see PJ doing it A Place Called Home-style. It would've made a great inclusion on Uh Huh Her, I kind of wish she really ran with the "scrapbook" feel of the album and included more miscellany from past sessions. It seems like she beats herself up over this album and the fact that it isn't a conceptual masterpiece, but that's what I love about it.
Strangely enough I consider Liverpool Tide a great addition to the White Chalk era / playlist.
Totally agreed. It has a charm that is missing from the rest of her albums that is enduring; every time I listen it to I end up liking it more. And it was her best era for b-sides behind Is This Desire?Originally Posted by JIM
I've been really really into this album lately. It's weird, cause I loathed it the first time I listened to it, tried to give it a few more tries and hated it worse every time, then just kinda threw it in a box and gave up on it. But for some strange reason it's just clicked for me now. I love the intimacy of it, like she's in a confessional pouring her heart out and the listener is the priest on the other side of the partition. Even the harder, electric guitar driven songs sound really intimate. Oh yeah, and The Darker Days of Me & Him is such a gem, it's my current favorite PJ song.
You know, I think it's the production on the album she doesn't really like. She probably had a hard time producing it and looking back now she probably didn't enjoy producing.
I've been rediscovering this album as well, and am surprised to find how much I'm loving it seven years later. I had kind of given up on this album, now I'm wondering what the hell was wrong with me!
I like her production, for the most part. It's a little muddy at times, I suspect a lot of it may have been recorded at home on 4-track, but that's part of the appeal too. I especially like hearing the tape hiss on The Slow Drug, the off-key bass parts in Pocket Knife, and the overloaded bass on Cat on the Wall and The Letter which is kind of exhilarating. The only album more candid than this one is 4-Track Demos. It's too bad she's unhappy with it, cuz I would like to hear her produce again.
That's exactly what I've been thinking! I dunno, I was just listening to it in the dark one night when I couldn't sleep with headphones in so I would have to focus all my attention on it, and that was it. It just clicked.
I also get the feeling she found it a bit too hard going doing everything on the record - not only did she produce it but I believe she played most of it, bar the drum parts? She's also described some of the songs as weak (I think she definitely named Cat On The Wall in that regard and possibly The Letter, a song I love.) She does however seem to be proud of The Desperate Kingdom Of Love and I was thrilled to hear that she played Pocket Knife at the second London Troxy show.
Definitely. I thought that was the point, being almost the antithesis to Stories in terms of production. The Slow Drug would lose it's dizzying eroticism if it was re-recorded in a studio setting. It's insanely intimate, as are a lot of these songs. There's something special about hearing the first recording of a song and I think that was probably a factor in her production decisions.
She has said in interview that 3 of the songs were recorded completely in the studio, I take these to be Who The Fuck? (cos we have the demo), The Darker Days of Me and Him, and maybe Badmouth or The Letter. There isn't too much of a difference in terms of listenability in comparison to the other tracks.
If I'm recalling correctly, Bill Murray gave her those gloves to wear on Letterman. He was a guest that night, dressing himself up in a clown outfit and the gloves were (or were supposed to be) part of his outfit. I think he wore them, then gave them to her to wear after his time "in the chair" was up.
Did she wear them in subsequent live appearances as well?
I absolutely adore the production as well. She seems to have a talent for everything when it comes to music.
Absolutely! If you cleaned up, the songs it would lose a lot.
I'm not surprised if she's not overly fond of cat on the wall, either, but it's not THAT bad. It's actually a really good album, I think it's just overlooked a lot because she has so many other really good albums too. You Come Through is probably one of my favorite songs, period. I never get tired of it.
When this album came out I was living in Mexico for a couple months, near Mexico City. I will always remember a particular day while I was walking to the subway and listening to It's You. I remember the street, the houses, flowers, smell of the air, the temperature...There are only a couple songs I associate with certain moments of my life, and It's You is one of them.
Uh Huh Her is a great album. I don't listen to Cat On The Wall often, but I like the record as a whole, and think it has outstanding tracks and great production, as well! I don't know exactly what she set out to do, but it feels like she accomplished it!
I thought she did, but of course, I could be mistaken.
