To Bring You My Love

Last updated

To Bring You My Love
To Bring You My Love.jpg
Studio album by
Released27 February 1995
RecordedSeptember–October 1994
Studio Townhouse (London)
Genre
Length42:27
Label Island
Producer
PJ Harvey chronology
4-Track Demos
(1993)
To Bring You My Love
(1995)
Is This Desire?
(1998)
John Parish & Polly Jean Harvey chronology
Dance Hall at Louse Point
(1996)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [10]
Chicago Sun-Times Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svg [11]
Entertainment Weekly A [12]
The Guardian Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svg [13]
Los Angeles Times Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svg [14]
NME 8/10 [15]
Rolling Stone Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [16]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [17]
Spin 10/10 [18]
The Village Voice A [19]

As her second full-length release on a major label, To Bring You My Love received a heavy promotional push from Island Records. Extensive MTV rotation and college radio airplay for the first single "Down by the Water" — with its eccentric, eye-catching Maria Mochnacz-directed music video of Harvey drowning in an emerald pond while wearing an extravagant wig, heavy make-up and a slinky red satin evening gown — gave Harvey her biggest radio hit to date, reaching number two on Billboard 's Modern Rock chart. [20] The album itself debuted at number 40 on the Billboard 200 [21] and number 12 in the UK, [22] and went on to sell roughly one million copies. [23] The moderate commercial breakthrough of To Bring You My Love had nothing to do with any scaling-down of her trademark lyrical intensity: the infanticide fable "Down by the Water" — whose whispered coda of "Little fish big fish swimming in the water/Come back here, man, gimme my daughter" references the old Lead Belly blues standard "Salty Dog" — ostensibly deals with a mother drowning her child. [24]

The critical response was overwhelmingly positive. Rolling Stone praised the record as "astonishing" in its four-star review. [16] The Independent shared the same point of view, writing that Harvey's performance "make[s] the record stand out from its peers"; reviewer Nicholas Barber saw it as "a threatening, nightmarish creature", adding "imagine Siouxsie and the Bad Seeds". [25] Los Angeles Times noted the "rich imagery" of the lyrics, writing that "in the most gripping moments, [...] [Harvey] speaks with the captivating clarity and force of someone reaching for a final, life-saving anchor." [14]

Accolades

The album received universal acclaim. It was voted as the best album of the year in The Village Voice 's Pazz & Jop critics' poll by a wide margin, [26] and was also voted the year's number-one album by publications such as Rolling Stone, The New York Times , People , USA Today , Hot Press and, in "the biggest landslide victory in 15 years", the Los Angeles Times. It featured in Top Ten lists for magazines like Spin , NME , Melody Maker , Mojo and The Wire , [27] though a contrarian Time list dubbed it the "Worst Album of 1995." [28] The album received two Grammy Award nominations as Best Alternative Music Performance and Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for the single "Down by the Water", [29] and was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. Spin later ranked it at number three in a list of the best albums of the 1990s. [30] In 2003, Rolling Stone ranked the album at number 435 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. [31] Slant Magazine , in 2011, rated To Bring You My Love as the 20th best album of the 1990s. [32] As of December 2005, (according to AskBillboard) To Bring You My Love has sold 371,000 copies in the US. [33]

Track listing

All tracks are written by PJ Harvey.

No.TitleLength
1."To Bring You My Love"5:32
2."Meet Ze Monsta"3:29
3."Working for the Man"4:45
4."C'mon Billy"2:47
5."Teclo"4:57
6."Long Snake Moan"5:17
7."Down by the Water"3:14
8."I Think I'm a Mother"4:00
9."Send His Love to Me"4:20
10."The Dancer"4:06
Total length:42:27
Limited edition [34] B-sides CD
No.TitleLength
1."Reeling" (demo version)3:00
2."Daddy"3:16
3."Lying in the Sun"4:30
4."Somebody's Down, Somebody's Name"3:40
5."Darling Be There"3:46
6."Maniac"4:01
7."One Time Too Many"2:52
8."Harder"2:05
9."Goodnight (demo version)"4:17
Total length:31:27

Personnel

Musicians [35]

Production [35]

Design [35]

Charts

Certifications and sales

Certifications and sales for To Bring You My Love
RegionCertification Certified units/sales
Belgium (BRMA) [57] Gold25,000*
United Kingdom (BPI) [58] Gold100,000^
United States371,000 [33]
Summaries
Worldwide1,000,000 [59]

* Sales figures based on certification alone.
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

References

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