Courtney Love resurrects Hole, channels Billy Corgan and Ozzy in the process
June 19th, 2009 by Joel Weiss in Commentary, News
Courtney Love is nuts. (Newsflash, right?) Years of drug abuse will do that to a person. She uses the Internet predominantly to bicker with Ryan Adams and wonder aloud, “What happened to all that Nirvana money!?”
Sometimes, she covers both topics simultaneously! She either hasn’t quite grasped or doesn’t give a shit about Twitter’s 140-character limit, opting instead for stream-of-consciousness commentary and storytelling sometimes interrupted mid-word. And she’s still close pals with lone original Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan.
Love has worked intermittently on her second solo album Nobody’s Daughter over the past three years. Because of various false starts and Internet leaks, the disc is three producers and four studios deep. Now it seems Nobody’s Daughter won’t even be a Courtney Love solo album. Courtney has taken a page from Corgan’s playbook and resurrected a dormant, yet familiar name.
Hole.
Britain’s NME got the inside scoop:
[Courtney Love] headed to London, with the intention of finding a band. The only survivor from that initial lineup [was] Micko Larkin… She scooped him up, took him to the Chateau Marmont and set about polishing the talent she saw into her new Eric Erlandson.
She’s still kept a bunch of the songs… but when she began writing with Larkin (whose talent she looks like having been right about), it became obvious that the ‘Rock Courtney’ was back in action, and that this music could only come out under one name, HOLE.
Micko will be lead guitarist, and Hole bassist Melissa auf der Maur, though working on projects of her own, has returned for backing vocals, and may play bass on tours next year. The album is as good as done, with the rest of the touring line-up for now remaining TBC.
To Love’s credit, at least she didn’t take out a pretentious full-page newspaper ad like Corgan. But the lack of important original members, such as Hole guitarist and songwriter Eric Erlandson, creates a startling parallel to post-reunion Smashing Pumpkins.
Corgan and Hole both led cutting-edge ’90s alternative bands, but if Corgan plays the role of misunderstood genius, Love lies closer to the likes of Ozzy Osbourne. She’s a spectacle — burnt out from years of drug abuse, barely intelligible, and long past her creative prime. Also like Ozzy during both his Black Sabbath and solo days, talented musicians surrounded her throughout the prime of her career. Hole, in the current case, is merely a brand name to be slapped on albums and concert tickets to help sales.
And if I were her, I’d totally do the exact same thing.
“Violet” from 1995 MTV VMAs
“Miss World” off Live Through This (1994)
August 6th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
fuck you, british music press – years past her creative prime at 45 – is elton john years past his creative prime at what – 66
No, according to you he’s the biggest hero in the world of music and runs your tiny country
Any chance to attack a woman who does what she wants and says what she wants – at any age
August 6th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
HAVE YEARS OF DRUG ABUSE LEFT TREY ANASTASIO NUTS? OR AL JOURGENSEN? ARE THEY YEARS PAST THEIR CREATIVE PRIME?