PJ Harvey - Down By The Water

What this video is

Released in February 1995 as the lead single from 'To Bring You My Love,' 'Down by the Water' served as PJ Harvey's mainstream US breakthrough, reaching number 2 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart and receiving extensive MTV and college radio rotation. The video's iconography — Harvey as a hyper-glamourised, almost drag-exaggerated femme figure drowning in emerald water — directly confronted mid-90s…

Why it matters

A canonical document of mid-1990s art-rock's cinematic ambition, 'Down by the Water' demonstrates how alternative female artists leveraged MTV's visual platform to construct complex, theatrically-charged personas that challenged both grunge's studied dirtiness and pop's passive femininity. The…

The director

Maria Mochnacz is a British photographer and music video director, trained in fine arts at Coventry Polytechnic (1983–1986). Best known for her extensive, career-spanning creative partnership with PJ Harvey beginning in 1991, she directed 12 PJ Harvey music…