Last night Britain’s most hyped music accolade, the Mercury Prize was awarded to PJ Harvey for her record Let England Shake, making her the first person to have ever clinched the title two times. Her first victory was in 2010 for the highly acclaimed Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea that was almost universally adored (with the notable exception of indie blog kingpins, Pitchfork Media, who scored it 5.5 out of 10).
Featuring beautifully raw vocals and a haul of great melodies Let England Shake is an ode to war – or a protest for peace in the form of a record. When accepting the prize, Harvey said “Obviously this record that I’ve won tonight with is largely about the wars that we are involved in. Contemporary wars – but also, in a way, I wanted it to be timeless because we’ve always been involved in wars. But I think the greater urgency that I felt to write an album like this now is because of the result of what has happened in the last 10 years.”
As Hemingway once said “from great wars come great art”. Well, maybe he never said that. But he did write A Farewell To Arms so … war.
