Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea received critical acclaim from
music critics. At
Metacritic, which assigns a
normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an
average score of 88, based on 25 reviews.
The Guardian also praised the album, stating “What makes this album so fascinating is the way Harvey toys with the ideas of femininity”.
Robert Christgau called it "the best album of her career" in his review for
Rolling Stone. Other critics rated it as only average. Spencer Owen of
Pitchfork viewed the album as lacking in distinction, saying "the sheen gets slicker and her music gets duller". The publication later, however, ranked it at number 124 in their "The Top 200 Albums of the 2000s" list in 2009. In 2021, they included it in their "Rescored" list, saying that they wished to change their original score of 5.4 to an 8.4.
Accolades The album earned Harvey
Brit Award nominations as
Best British Female Artist for two years running, as well as two
Grammy Award nominations for
Best Rock Album and
Best Female Rock Performance for the single "
This Is Love". For the album, Harvey was nominated for the 2001
Mercury Prize for the third time (her previous nominations were for
Rid of Me and
To Bring You My Love). The award ceremony was held on
11 September 2001. Harvey was in
Washington, D.C., on that day and witnessed the terrorist attacks on
the Pentagon from her hotel room window. She was announced as the winner and accepted her award by phone, saying "It has been a very surreal day. All I can say is thank you very much, I am absolutely stunned." The win made Harvey the first female solo artist to receive the Mercury Prize in the award's history. The album was ranked number eight on
Rolling Stones list of the 50 Essential "
Women in rock" Albums. In 2002,
Q magazine named
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea the Greatest Album of All-Time by a Female Artist. In 2006, the album was chosen by
Time as one of the 100 best albums of all time. In 2009,
Pitchfork named the album the 124th Top Album of the 2000s. In 2009,
NME also placed the album inside their Top 100 Greatest Albums of the Decade, at number six. The album was also included in the book
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Rolling Stone named it the thirty-fifth best album of the decade. In 2019, the album was ranked 19th on
The Guardians 100 Best Albums of the 21st Century list. In the 2012 version of
Rolling Stones 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, it was ranked at number 431, then in the 2020 update, it was moved up to number 313. == Track listing ==