From scooping the Mercury for a second time to grilling Cameron on cuts to the arts on TV, PJ Harvey has had an incredible year. This week, PJ picked up the Uncut Music Award alongside artist and album of the year with ‘Let England Shake’. The panel of judges included Uncut Editor Allan Jones, Comedian Stewart Lee, BBC Creative Head of Music Entertainment Mark Cooper and BPI Chairman and Generator Board Member Tony Wadsworth.
Cooper described Harvey as “The best British artist of the last 20 years; A brilliantly inventive and self-demanding artist”.
Wadsworth added: “She’s one of my favourite artists ever”. The shortlist for the Music Award included Bon Iver, Josh T Pearson and Radiohead.
Uncut’s albums of the year saw Gillian Welch in second place with ‘The Harrow and the Harvest’ and Metronomy coming third with ‘The English Riviera’.
PJ Harvey told Uncut that plans to record the follow-up to ‘Let England Shake’ were already well underway, saying: "I'm quite far into working on what will become my next body of work and again my desire of wanting to learn continues to unfold. I began working on my next piece the moment I finished recording Let England Shake over a year ago. I'm well into that next project already".
The news follows the BPI revealing in November that Official Chart Figures showed that women artists now account for one in three (33.3%) albums sold in the UK, the highest ever share thanks to artists such as Adele, Jessie J and Florence and the Machine.
BPI Chief Executive, Geoff Taylor, said: “The success achieved by these young women demonstrates the positive opportunities music offers to young people from all backgrounds. It will inspire a future generation of female performers and shows that raw talent and hard work can take you to the very top."
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