Women Who Rock: PJ Harvey

First up, Polly Jean Harvey.

Born on October 9th, 1969, this British dynamo has been an important voice in music since the early 1990s with the release of Dry (1992) and Rid Of Me (1993). But she really hit the big time in 1995 with To Bring You My Love and the smash single Down By The Water. It was then that the public realized she also had a habit of changing her musical and fashion styles with just about every release.

In 1996, she released Dance Hall At Louise Point with John Parrish, a critical success if not a commercial one, but the accolades continued with Is This Desire? (1998), the amazing Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea (2000) and Uh Huh Her (2004).

When famed radio presenter John Peel passed away, she released a compilation of her performances on his show as The Peel Sessions 1991-2004 in October of 2006 (including the rare song Naked Cousin from the soundtrack to The Crow: City Of Angels), before the release of her next album, White Chalk (2007).

2009 came along with another collaboration with John Parrish, A Woman A Man Walked By, and two weeks ago she released the terrific Let England Shake.

She is a major artist who releases high-quality stuff regularly, for which she is often recognized in awards ceremonies, as attested by her 3 Mercury Prize nominations (one win, in 2000), 5 Grammy nominations (unusual for a foreign artist), and was named the #1 female artist by Q Magazine in 2002.

On our side of the pond, Rolling Stone magazine named her 1992's Best New Artist and 1995's Artist Of The Year, in addition to naming two of her albums (Rid Of Me and To Bring You My Love) among the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time.