24. This Mess We're In
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO9tA8-kbk8 Artist: PJ HarveyAlbum: 'Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea'Year: 2001 The Mercury Prize may be famous for its bizarre choice of winners, but they certainly pick a decent shortlist. And whilst Thom Yorke is the most nominated man of all time, for both his solo and Radiohead work, he's never actually won the prize. He does however feature on PJ Harvey's masterpiece, 'Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea'. 'The Mess We're In' is a duet between the two artists and features Yorke at his most hypnotic, as his feathery falsetto conflates beautifully with Harvey's own anxious croon. It almost sounds like a couple's phone call, and it's a side of Yorke we never really see; he's not really a writer of love songs, so it's not often we see how he talks about the opposite sex. That's precisely why the song's so interesting though, and it says a lot about the man that he was revealing new sides to his character then, and he still is twelve years later.