One has to wonder exactly what Courtney Love could gain from resurrecting the Hole name. The sad reality is that, thanks to a despicable media smear campaign that has now been running for 15 years, she will never be allowed a place in the canon. The fact that she released one of the best hard rock albums of the '90s doesn't matter, nor does the fact that she somehow managed to recover from crippling personal tragedy to release another classic in a radically different style and mood - the unfortunate reality is that being rabidly and unfairly hated is a side-effect of being loved by a rock legend, no matter how dignified, intelligent, or artistically vital you might be. Just ask Yoko.
So what good could come of Nobody's Daughter? The chances of any significant number of people changing their minds about Hole, or Courtney Love, are somewhere between 'slim' and 'none', no matter how good this album is - Margaret Thatcher could hunt down Osama bin Laden and kill him with her bare hands and she'd still be a hate figure for a generation who weren't even alive at the time, and so too Love will never escape the prejudices of people who've never heard her music. The only people who are going to appreciate this are people who were fans anyway, and is it really worth the risk of alienating them with a poorly-received comeback? There's much more to lose than there is to gain here; and unfortunately, Courtney's lost it.
Nobody's Daughter starts well, in fairness - the title track and "Skinny Little Bitch" are both good enough to appear on a future band retrospective without sounding out of place. To make a rather obvious comparison, neither is quite as good as "Tarantula", but they put every other song by the recently resurrected Smashing Pumpkins to shame. After that, though, it's all downhill.
Perhaps surprisingly, for those who saw Celebrity Skin as evidence of Love growing up, the weaker tracks here are the mellow ones that hark back to that album - "Pacific Coast Highway" and "Samantha" are difficult to get through back-to-back, particular as the latter collapses into an ill-advised 'people like you *** people like me' refrain and cops a line directly from "Doll Parts". Those songs are largely followed by tracks that sounds like B-sides from the band's last two albums - "Because You're Worthless", in particular, sounds like a minor US rock radio hit from 1997.
If you can excuse some major, attention-grabbing mis-steps, Love's lyrics are very good throughout, but it's hard to find any way to really praise this album beyond that. It's almost irritatingly average - a spectacular, all-or-nothing failure would have been more entertaining, and more fitting to Love's legacy and her personality. I would love nothing more than to tell you that Nobody's Daughter is a massive ***-you to the haters, but unfortunately, all this does is give them more ammunition, meekly soiling the legacy of a band that deserves far, far better.
Good review. I've never bothered with her music and she always seems to be in the media for something negative (talking shit with NIN and Smashing Pumpkins, etc).
Unknowingly, I downloaded one track for tap tap revenge (hey it was free!), and tbh it's not bad. It's just kinda generic and there's nothing memorable about it.
I love Hole (I mean even if it is just Courtney with different band) so of course I did enjoy this, but the two things I dislike about the album is the track listing, it places the heavier songs at the top and bottom of the album with the mellow slower songs in the middle which is difficult and boring to listen through, that being said my other problem is that the middle of the album is just sorta meh, Lyrics and Ideas are good but the songs seem a average. "Never Go Hungry" is my personal favorite.
Rolling Stone gave this a 3 or a 3.5, not that that really means anything. Never really bothered with this band, but I should probably check'em out at some point.
SPIN had an amazing profile of Love last month, treated her really nicely, but the whole tone of it was like 'Yeah, Courtney is cool as all fuck, but the girl's got problems'.
One has to wonder exactly what Courtney Love could gain from resurrecting the Hole name. The sad reality is that, thanks to a despicable media smear campaign that has now been running for 15 years, she will never be allowed a place in the canon. The fact that she released one of the best hard rock albums of the '90s doesn't matter, nor does the fact that she somehow managed to recover from crippling personal tragedy to release another classic in a radically different style and mood - the unfortunate reality is that being rabidly and unfairly hated is a side-effect of being loved by a rock legend, no matter how dignified, intelligent, or artistically vital you might be. Just ask Yoko.
So what good could come of Nobody's Daughter? The chances of any significant number of people changing their minds about Hole, or Courtney Love, are somewhere between 'slim' and 'none', no matter how good this album is - Margaret Thatcher could hunt down Osama bin Laden and kill him with her bare hands and she'd still be a hate figure for a generation who weren't even alive at the time, and so too Love will never escape the prejudices of people who've never heard her music. The only people who are going to appreciate this are people who were fans anyway, and is it really worth the risk of alienating them with a poorly-received comeback? There's much more to lose than there is to gain here; and unfortunately, Courtney's lost it.
none of this shit has anything to do with the album. nice one, bulldog.
the unfortunate reality is that being rabidly and unfairly hated is a side-effect of being loved by a rock legend, no matter how dignified, intelligent, or artistically vital you might be. Just ask Yoko.
Yes, I'm sure "Dignified, intelligent and artistically vital" are things one usually associates with Courtney Love, LOL
