100 Greatest Songs of the 00’s #21 P J Harvey – This Is Love

Released: 2001

Much was said about Britpop’s reductive laddishness, about how it’s trade offs and compromises were usually focussed on getting down to somewhere near the lowest common denominator. And yet as the new millennium dawned here was Polly Jean Harvey, mistress of her own destiny, a skull full of mindful confusion and a paradoxical anti role model for girls – and plenty of boys – everywhere.

Whilst not having balls but playing in a guitar had been a hindrance to women in rock for quarter of a century, Dorset’s very own witch-queen-diva had spent the 90’s making Rid of Me and To Bring You My Love, either of which was wiping the floor with all but a tiny handful of the stuff which was released alongside them.

Then came Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea, a record influenced by New York that, by feat of spectacularly grand timing, mined a straight up rock aesthetic of which the boys would soon catch up. This Is Love was nu-Polly, a grinding Stooges riff played out under a characteristically puckish Yes-sex-please-we’re-British lyric, a right here, right now tune that sounded like clothes being ripped and stripped. It was like Britpop had never happened, which in her case was a truth absolute.