It would be difficult to imagine somebody more worthy of winning the Mercury Prize for a second time than Polly Harvey. Not least because the musical landscape is currently littered with female artists shaped in some way by her impressive legacy: from Florence Welch to fellow Mercury nominee Anna Calvi her power to influence the influencers is indisputable.
‘Let England Shake’ reinforces the notion that PJ Harvey is the most distinctive and innovative female artist to emerge since Kate Bush. But Polly Harvey is certainly not interested in merely recreating her many past glories. ‘Let England Shake’ sees her exploring new terrain both sonically and subjectively. It’s an album about war and what it is to be English in these troubled times of conflict. That in itself is would be tricky in the hands of many artists but PJ Harvey weaves a rich tapestry of haunting and powerful folk songs (in the loosest sense of the word) from an eclectic mix of singing styles and instrumentation.
What might be surprising to some is not that the album is lyrical, poetic, dark and thought-provoking but that it is also packed full of simply wonderful tunes. ‘Let England Shake’ is a beautifully crafted collection of songs that is at once accessible and complex. This combination makes it a fiercely intelligent record, something rare indeed.
‘Let England Shake’ deserves the Mercury prize because it stands alone as a landmark album from a landmark artist still consistently pushing boundaries, still restless and still searching for the truth. Perhaps more importantly than all of that – and certainly of importance for a music award – it proves that PJ Harvey is still making utterly brilliant and inventive music. If the Mercury music award is really about recognising the best album of the year then there is really only one serious contender.
Infinite Sparks 
I’m quite bored with this tired, sexist rhetoric that Harvey has only been of value to female artists. So all the men that have sung her praises are somehow irrelevant because they have different gender identities? Florence & The Machine is pop pap. As far as I know, she doesn’t play or write her own material and she’s always been quite polished, so these Harvey comparisons are beyond facile. I understand Calvi, but even there, she’s playing music cannibalized from surf and rockabilly and Morricone soundtracks, while Harvey was raw from the outset and assimilated those influences as opposed to sounding exactly like them. Hardly a littering of the landscape. It seems like every time a woman dons a guitar she’s the next PJ Harvey. I have yet to see someone who has written these retrospectives about Harvey’s early work rightfully place it alongside someone like The Jesus Lizard (a band of MEN! shocking), who are much more her peers in spirit and early sound than Tori Amos (yuck) or Bjork or riot grrrl or whatever they always seem to reference. I just hate when people throw female artists into a gender ghetto. Use your ears!
Good points.
My point about Calvi and Welch (although ‘Kiss With A Fist’ was written by Welch and DOES sound like PJ Harvey!) is not that those two have been directly influenced ‘sonically’ by PJ Harvey per se but that Polly’s unwillingness to conform to any industry stereotypes has struck a chord with certain female artists. This is clearly still far more of an issue for women in music than it is for men.
Polly Harvey has undoubtedly subverted those traditional gender stereotypes, twisting, distorting and poking fun at such lazy definitions in carefully contrived promotional images. This strikes me as being the work of someone who knows exactly what she’s doing and is fully aware of her position as a ‘Female Artist’.
In my haste to write 250 words in half an hour (you’ll have guessed I’m not a professional writer!) I am certainly guilty of broadly brushing over the subject. The final paragraph merely suggests that ‘Let England Shake’ is a bloody brilliant album, and that is the case if it had been created by hermaphrodite robots from Mars. Hey, ultimately I just wanted to win tickets for the gig!
That said I would agree with some of what you have said and appreciate your contribution.