Album · 1998
Is This Desire?
by PJ Harvey
Is This Desire? is a 1998 alternative rock album by PJ Harvey. It runs 17 tracks across 53 minutes on Partisan Records. Riffiter listeners rate it 4.2/5 from 3 ratings.
Alternative Rock · Rock · Indie Rock
Your rating
- 4.2 /5
- 3 ratings
- 81 /100
- 9 critics
- 17
- Tracks
- 53 min
- Runtime
- 143 bpm
- Tempo
- F minor
- Key
Ratings
3 ratings · avg 4.2
Recent activity
Marcus Vinicius5.0★Moniek Roeloffs5.0★
- slackerfi2.5★
Reviews
No reviews yet.
4 people have played it start to finish
Critics
9 publications
- Los Angeles Times4/4
- Entertainment WeeklyA
- The Village VoiceA−
- Pitchfork8/10
- Spin8/10
- The Guardian4/5
- Rolling Stone4/5
- AllMusic3/5
- NME6/10
Scores collected from the English Wikipedia ratings box (CC BY-SA). Ratings belong to the publications; follow a link to read the review.
Is This Desire? album cover

The Is This Desire? cover was designed by Maria Mochnacz and Rob Crane, photographed by Julia Hember, Maria Mochnacz, Nick Daly and Simon Jacobs, and illustrated by Polly.
- Design
- Maria Mochnacz, Rob Crane
- Photography
- Julia Hember, Maria Mochnacz, Nick Daly, Simon Jacobs
- Illustration
- Polly
Your rating for the cover
Tracklist
17 tracks · 53 min
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About
Is This Desire? is the fourth studio album by the English alternative rock musician PJ Harvey, released on 28 September 1998 on Island Records.Recorded on and off in Dorset and London between April 1997 and April 1998, it was co-produced by Flood, Head and Harvey herself, and featured instrumental contributions from Rob Ellis, John Parish, Mick Harvey, Eric Drew Feldman, Joe Gore and Jeremy Hogg. It marked a move away from Harvey’s earlier guitar-driven rock style into subtler, quieter, atmospheric soundscapes and mood pieces based around keyboards, bass and electronics. Is This Desire? is the album which PJ Harvey claims to feel the proudest of out of all her music to date. She spoke about the making of it to Filter magazine in 2004: "Again working with Flood, again trying to find new ground, but a particularly difficult time in my life. So, it was a very, very difficult, difficult record to make and still one I find very difficult to listen to, but probably my favorite record that I've made because it had a lot of guts. I mean, I was making extremely difficult music, experimenting with techniques I hadn't used before and not really caring what other people thought about it.
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I'm quite proud of that one." She also told the The Telegraph, "I do think Is This Desire? is the best record I ever made—maybe ever will make—and I feel that that was probably the highlight of my career. I gave 100 per cent of myself to that record. Maybe that was detrimental to my health at the same time." It is the first PJ Harvey album to feature its lyrics printed on the inner sleeve. The song "The Wind" was inspired by Saint Catherine, and in particular St Catherine's Chapel, Abbotsbury. The lyrics discuss the chapel's location on top of a hill, and end with an inversion of a traditional prayer which women used at the chapel to pray for a husband. The village of Abbotsbury is near PJ Harvey's home.
In brief
- Is Is This Desire? good?
- Riffiter listeners rate Is This Desire? 4.2/5 from 3 ratings.
- When was Is This Desire? released?
- Is This Desire? was released in 1998 on Partisan Records.
- How many tracks are on Is This Desire??
- Is This Desire? has 17 tracks, with a runtime of 53 minutes.
- What genre is Is This Desire??
- Is This Desire? is catalogued under Alternative Rock, Rock, Indie Rock.
- What BPM is Is This Desire??
- Is This Desire? runs at a median tempo of 143 BPM across its tracks, most often in F minor, measured from audio analysis.
- What albums are similar to Is This Desire??
- Listeners of Is This Desire? also rate In Rainbows by Radiohead, Doolittle by Pixies, The Boatman's Call by Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds.
- Who produced Is This Desire??
- Is This Desire? was produced by Flood, Head, PJ Harvey and Marius de Vries, among 5 credited in total. Flood produced 12 of them.
Credits
- Mixed by
- Played by
- Richard HuntTerry Edwards
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