
Originally Posted by
ontheindianside
While I can't really disagree with your opinions, I actually sort of think Tori gets a lot more shit for some of the same things (musically, not visually!) that PJ Harvey gets away with. Admittedly, I'm not a giant PJ fan. I haven't listened closely to an album since When Under Ether (I tried to get into LES, but I just couldn't, though I recognize that there are good songs on it--and I was also listening on free Spotify, which I never use and didn't realize would just shuffle all PJ Harvey songs, and I think some Hope Six Demolition got in there). I saw her last month, and I just felt like there was a palpable difference between the earlier stuff and the new stuff: mostly more direct lyrics that don't have the same evocative power and simpler, or at least less dynamic, instrumentation. PJ was amazing. It was one of the best sounding shows I've ever seen. But it left me a little dull, where a Tori show--even those we now deem "bad" (like 2009)--always leaves me feeling like I just had a spiritual experience. I feel like, because PJ Harvey was always "cool" and Tori kind of wasn't, she gets a pass when she writes lyrics that are kind of cringeworthy, and her intention overshadows her execution when the music doesn't quite hold up.
I'm not trying to start a Tori v. PJ fight, either. I think this happens to a lot of artists (I call it "Third Album Syndrome" because that's often, especially in more recent times, when artists start overproducing and their lyrics get too on the nose or whatever, but obviously, like, for Tori it's technically Seventh or Eighth Album Syndrome, and when you've made that many great albums in a row, you kind of get a pass in my book). I guess my point is basically that it may seem more pronounced with Tori (which is especially obvious on the visual side of things), but I don't think it's unusual, and I think some artists get "cool points" where others might not, and those cool points hang over them and their work densely enough that people don't notice the quality decline. I'm sure I could think of other examples, but I just woke up, so apologies if this is incoherent.