A woman called Harry likes it dirty

Sex, hype & Pop’n’Rock seem to be the re-writing of the old maxim; add to that controversy and you have a formula for charts. Thus, it is interesting to observe certain artists who employ some/most of these ‘promo’ tools and one such practitioner is Harry. Her publicity gathering and debut album ‘The Trouble With…’ equally go for sexploitation and anti-sexism, seriousness and airhead-ery, fatale and school-girlish, rocking and popping, black’n’white… A bit confusing but much greater fun than most other sisters!

Harry is a blonde bombshell, Victoria Harrison, who is aware of her charms and not afraid to use them as ‘weapons’ for mass appeal. Harry is a band but who’ll be able to look at anything but Harry? She was originally known as Dirty Harry – much more appropriate – but Warner Bros had no sense of anything and demanded protection of their franchise, the cash-cow movie series starring Clint Eastwood – oh, so passé! Harry’s been seen around town with different beaus, one being Kylie’s ex…

The artwork shows her headshot in a moment of… we’d like to think – passion, while delivering one of the raunchier tracks on the album; the cover’s back is more revealing and the inlay’s inside… Mama!? That’s the essence of Harry’s nature – ‘schizophrenic’, sonic-multiplicity, naughty and (probably) nice (to her niece). She knows sex sells and she deals it wholesale, via images of a rock-chic/pop-babe/electro-queen/funky-diva… with ease. Like every woman, she wants it all and right now. And, she is a real woman…

… Who likes to rock, cyber-based and inventive guitarwork around a vocal that dominates like a madam on ‘Goddess On The Floor’, ’10 Things’, ‘I Do What I Do’, ‘Heroin’, ‘Nothing Really Matters’, or getting down with catchy pop moments on ‘Underground’, ‘Push It (Real Good)… Harry can also roll mellow although her emo-side remains unexposed bar on ‘’Valley’. Ambition not being substitute for talent, Harry has a voice and vision to challenge the status quo of female stardom and avoid narrow-minded targeting. She offers an array of options, not least ‘Imagination’, the much in-demand soundtrack to the current Rimmel TV/cinema ad featuring Kate Moss.

Due to a variety of obstacles this disc is years coming but it hasn’t suffered for it. Produced by Youth (of Killing Joke), Harry’s music is often said to be inspired by Blondie but the truth is that she is the
product of a long line of independent femme artists, from Janis Joplin to Patti Smith to Debbie Harry to Siouxsie Sioux to Shirley Manson to Courtney Love… Electrifying, darkly synth-etic, heavily riffed, haunting, futuristic… A new ray of light, perhaps?

Each and every track is charged with erotic energy you’ll not find many other places where every word, tone, breath-intake is like an erogenous zone. This woman is a sex-goddess and, as someone suggested, you were to get into a babe-idol you couldn’t choose much better right now and we gla(n)dly second that emotion!

8/10