Live through this. Sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, awards, fame, madness, rehab, suicide attempts, breakdowns, bankruptcy, overdoses, arrests, lawsuits, child custody battles . . . say what you like about former Hot Press snapper Courtney Love, but the original riot grrl could never be accused of being boring or predictable.
John Lennon once observed that life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans. For much of the Noughties it looked as though Courtney’s tumultuous tabloid life was in danger of totally scuppering her artistic career. The release of Hole’s long-awaited fourth studio album was announced/postponed so many times that comparisons with Axl’s Chinese Democracy were inevitable.
As it’s turned out, it’s an unfair comparison. Chinese Democracy took a full 15 years to see the dark of night, and ultimately proved so over-baked it simply wasn’t worth the wait. Nobody’s Daughter took just 12 years – it’s the band’s first album since 1998’s three-time Grammy-nominated Celebrity Skin, and Love’s first record since 2004 solo effort America’s Sweetheart. Given the 45-year-old singer’s various legal and medical troubles, and the instability that has made her life difficult in so many ways, it’s significantly better than anyone could’ve ever expected
Of course, although billed as a Hole record, it’s essentially a Courtney Love record. She’s had a little help from friends and various collaborators along the way – chiefly producer Michael Beinhorn, co-writer Linda Perry and Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins – but these heart-on-sleeve songs are wholly steeped in her personal experiences. “I swear I’m too young to be this old,” she croons on ‘For Once In Your Life’. “I’ve been cheated/ covered in diamonds and covered in filth/ but I’m still breathing.”
Along with Courtney, the new line-up of Hole includes 23-year-old Irish guitarist Micko Larkin (formerly of London-based indie rockers Larrikin Love), bassist Shawn Dailey (of Rock Kills Kid) and percussionist Stuart Fisher (though Jack Irons, formerly of RHCP and Pearl Jam, played drums on the album).
Musically, the album is mostly comprised of tightly executed but familiar hard guitar rock, often using the grungy quiet-to-LOUD dynamic favoured by her late husband. There’sa theory that, if these songs weren’t being sung by Courtney Love, they might sound dated and few people would pay them any attention. But they are, so they don’t, so we will.
Despite the raging guitars and thumping percussion, Love’s husky tobacco-tinged vocals are never overshadowed. Many of these confessional songs were written in rehab and it’s fairly easy to spot which ones (the clues are in the titles: ‘Loser Dust’, ‘Letter To God’, ‘Because You’re Worthless’). On the opening title track, she sounds world weary but defiant: “The world broken doll/ The world’s shattered whore/ And you can’t walk/ But you can crawl/ Come on, infect us all.”
The snarled ‘Skinny Little Bitch’ is the angriest, sassiest track on the record, and is deservedly already a radio hit in the US. Equally loud, ‘Samantha’ features a memorably catchy chorus of, “People like you/ FUCK!/ people like me/ in order to avoid agony.” You can easily imagine it becoming a live favourite.
The ghost of Kurt Cobain floats obliquely through many of the tracks, but on the gutsy, heart-wrenching ‘Pacific Coast Highway’ she directly refers to the emotional scars she still bears following his 1994 suicide: “I knew a boy who came from the sea/ He was the only boy who ever knew the truth about me . . . I knew a boy who left me so ravaged/ Do you even know the extent of the damage?”
Courtney Love may well be damaged, but she remains strong, angry, defiant, determined and remarkably vital. “What are you staring at?” she wails on ‘How Dirty Girls Get Clean’ (originally a working title for this album). “This is how it’s done!”
Nobody does it better. Love through this.