Rid of Me by PJ Harvey

Rid of Me, PJ Harvey's second album, came out on Island in 1993, about a year after Dry made her a critics' darling, and it's a far nastier animal: rawer, angrier and more aggressive than the debut. The trio here is Polly Harvey singing and playing guitar, Rob Ellis drumming and adding harmonies, and Steve Vaughan on bass, and Steve Albini recorded most of it. The guitars sound like they're chewing through the speakers, and Harvey sings like she means every threat.

It was the last record the three made together; they split before 1993 was out. The acclaim hasn't cooled. It keeps turning up on lists of the best records of the 1990s, and of all time too, and a 2020 ranking of the 500 greatest albums lifted it to number 153, up from 406.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.