Editing PJ Harvey (section)

=== PJ Harvey Trio; ''Dry'' and ''Rid of Me'': 1991–1994 ===
Harvey decided to name her new band the PJ Harvey Trio, rejecting other names as "nothing felt right at all or just suggested the wrong type of sound",<ref>Harvey, PJ. "We were playing around with other names but nothing felt right at all or just suggested the wrong type of sound or just wasn't right. And I also felt I am the songwriter in the band and I know that I'm going to be wanting to write songs and continue making music for quite a while but I can't guarantee that Rob and Steve will want to." Extracts from a transcription of an interview with PJ Harvey on ''[[120 Minutes]]''. Broadcast on MTV on 20 June 1993.</ref> and also to allow her to continue music as a solo artist. The trio consisted of Harvey on vocals and guitar, Ellis on drums and backing vocals, and Oliver on bass. Oliver later departed to rejoin the still-active Automatic Dlamini. He was subsequently replaced with Steve Vaughan. The trio's "disastrous" debut performance was held at a [[skittles (sport)|skittle alley]] in [[Charmouth]] Village Hall in April 1991. Harvey later recounted the event saying: "we started playing and I suppose there was about fifty people there, and during the first song we cleared the hall. There was only about two people left. And a woman came up to us, came up to my drummer, it was only a three piece, while we were playing and shouted at him 'Don't you realise nobody likes you! We'll pay you, you can stop playing, we'll still pay you!'"<ref>{{cite web|title=A Minimalist Effort From Rocker PJ Harvey: NPR|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4112178|work=[[NPR]]|author=Linda Wertheimer|date=16 October 2004|access-date=23 June 2010}}N.B. User must click "Listen" or "Download" to access MP3 stream.</ref>
The group relocated to London in June 1991 when Harvey applied to study sculpture, still undecided as to her future career.<ref name="pjh" /> During this time, the group recorded a set of [[Demo (music)|demo]] songs and distributed them to record labels. Independent label [[Too Pure]] agreed to release the band's debut single "[[Dress (PJ Harvey song)|Dress]]" in October 1991, and later signed PJ Harvey. "Dress" received mass critical acclaim upon its release and was voted Single of the Week in ''[[Melody Maker]]'' by guest reviewer [[John Peel]], who admired "the way Polly Jean seems crushed by the weight of her own songs and arrangements, as if the air is literally being sucked out of them&nbsp;... admirable if not always enjoyable."<ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=[[Melody Maker]]|volume=February 1992|year=1992|last=Peel|first=John|title=Really the Blues|page=52}}</ref> However, Too Pure provided little promotion for the single and critics claim that "''Melody Maker'' had more to do with the success of the "Dress" single than Too Pure Records."<ref>{{cite book|title=The Wire, Volumes 281–286|last=Parker|first=C|year=2007|publisher=University of California Press|location=California, United States|page=218|title-link=The Wire (magazine)|chapter=Issue 283, September 2007 }}</ref> A week after its release, the band recorded a live radio session for Peel on [[BBC Radio 1]] on 29 October featuring "Oh, My Lover", "Victory", "[[Sheela-Na-Gig (song)|Sheela-Na-Gig]]" and "Water".<ref>{{cite web|title=BBC – Radio 1 – Keeping It Peel – 29/10/1991 PJ Harvey|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/johnpeel/sessions/1990s/1991/Oct29pjharvey/|work=[[BBC Radio 1]]|date=October 2005|access-date=5 September 2011}}</ref>

The following February, the trio released "Sheela-Na-Gig" as their equally-acclaimed second single and their debut studio album, ''[[Dry (album)|Dry]]'' (1992), followed in March. Like the singles preceding it, ''Dry'' received an overwhelming international critical response. The album was cited by [[Kurt Cobain]] of [[Nirvana (band)|Nirvana]] as his sixteenth-favourite album ever in his posthumously published ''[[Journals (Cobain)|Journals]]'' (2002).<ref>{{cite book |last=Cobain |first=Kurt |url=https://archive.org/details/kurtcobainjourna00coba/page/271 |title=Journals |publisher=Riverhead |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-57322-232-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/kurtcobainjourna00coba/page/271 271] |author-link=Kurt Cobain}}</ref> ''[[Rolling Stone (magazine)|Rolling Stone]]'' also named Harvey as Songwriter of the Year<ref name="IR">{{cite web|title=PJ Harvey – Artists|url=http://www.islandrecords.co.uk/group_artists.php?id=33|work=[[Island (UMG)]]|access-date=25 February 2012|archive-date=10 November 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131110033520/http://www.islandrecords.co.uk/group_artists.php?id=33|url-status=dead}} N.B. User must select "Click to Read" on the Biography section.</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Hunter-Tilney|first1=Ludovic|year=2011|title=Person in the News: The guitar-wielding poet of our age|newspaper=[[Financial Times]]|issue=September 2011|page=3|url=http://www.pjharvey.net/home_images/inthenews/Financial_Times.pdf|access-date=25 February 2012|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120105181644/http://www.pjharvey.net/home_images/inthenews/Financial_Times.pdf|archive-date=5 January 2012}}</ref> and Best New Female Singer.<ref name="IR" /> A limited edition double LP version of ''Dry'' was released alongside the regular version of the album, containing both the original and demo versions of each track, called ''Dry Demonstration'', and the band also received significant coverage at the [[Reading and Leeds Festivals|Reading Festival]] in 1992.<ref>{{cite web|title=1992 – History – Reading Festival 2011|url=http://www.readingfestival.com/2011/history/1992|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110820050530/http://www.readingfestival.com/2011/history/1992|url-status=dead|archive-date=20 August 2011|work=[[Reading Festival]]|access-date=5 September 2011}}</ref>

{{Listen|filename=PJHarveyRidOfMe.ogg|title="Rid of Me"|description=The album's title track "ricochets violently between revenge fantasies and the desperate neediness of the backing chorus."<ref>Reynold, Simon and Joy Press, "The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion, and Rock 'n' Roll, Harvard University Press, 1995. p. 339</ref>}}

[[Island (PolyGram)]] signed the trio amid a major label bidding war in mid-1992, and in December 1992 the trio travelled to [[Cannon Falls, Minnesota|Cannon Falls]], Minnesota in the United States to record the follow-up to ''Dry'' with producer [[Steve Albini]]. Prior to recording with Albini, the band recorded a second session with John Peel on 22 September and recorded a version of [[Bob Dylan]]'s "[[Highway 61 Revisited (song)|Highway 61 Revisited]]", and two new songs "Me Jane" and "Ecstasy".<ref>{{cite web|title=BBC – Radio 1 – Keeping It Peel – 22/09/1992 PJ Harvey|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/johnpeel/sessions/1990s/1992/Sep22pjharvey/|work=BBC Radio 1|date=October 2005|access-date=5 September 2011}}</ref> The recording sessions with Albini took place at [[Pachyderm Studios|Pachyderm Recording Studio]] and resulted in the band's major label debut ''[[Rid of Me]]'' in May 1993. ''Rolling Stone'' wrote that it "is charged with aggressive eroticism and rock fury. It careens from [[blues]] to [[gothic rock|goth]] to [[grunge]], often in the space of a single song."<ref name=rolrid>{{cite web|title=500 Greatest Albums: Rid of Me – PJ Harvey  |url= https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-19691231/rid-of-me-pj-harvey-19691231 |archive-url= https://archive.today/20120604203028/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-19691231/rid-of-me-pj-harvey-19691231 |url-status= dead |archive-date= 4 June 2012 |work= rollingstone.com|access-date=20 January 2012}}</ref> The album was promoted by two singles, "[[50ft Queenie]]" and "Man-Size", as well as tours of the United Kingdom in May and of the United States in June, continuing there during the summer.

However, during the American leg of the tour, internal friction started to form between the members of the trio. Deborah Frost, writing for ''Rolling Stone'', noticed "an ever widening personal gulf" between the band members, and quoted Harvey as saying "It makes me sad. I wouldn't have got here without them. I needed them back then – badly. But I don't need them anymore. We all changed as people."<ref>{{cite news|last1=Frost|first1=Deborah|title=Primed and Ticking: PJ Harvey beat the sophomore jinx and get their mojo workin' with an American tour and a powerful new album, ''Rid of Me''
| magazine = Rolling Stone
| issn=0035-791X
| pages = 52–55
| issue = 663
| date =19 August 1993
}}</ref> Despite the tour's personal downsides, footage from live performances was compiled and released on the long-form video ''[[Reeling with PJ Harvey]]'' (1993).<ref>{{cite web|title=Reeling With PJ Harvey [1993] [VHS]: PJ Harvey: Amazon.co.uk: Video|url=https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reeling-PJ-Harvey-VHS/dp/B000007UD2|work=[[Amazon.com|Amazon]]|date=11 April 1994|access-date=5 September 2011}}</ref> The band's final tour was to support the Irish rock band [[U2]] in August 1993, after which the trio officially disbanded. In her final appearance on American television in September 1993 on ''[[The Tonight Show with Jay Leno]]'', Harvey performed a solo version of "Rid of Me". As ''Rid of Me'' sold substantially more copies than ''Dry'', ''[[4-Track Demos]]'', a compilation album of demos for the album was released in October and inaugurated her career as a solo artist. In early 1994, it was announced that U2's manager, [[Paul McGuinness]], had become her manager.<ref name=lucy/>