Courtney Love hasn't released any new music in six years, distracted by a full itinerary of random rehab bouts and child custody battles.
But Love has chosen not to fade away in the usual, washed-up-celebrity fashion of reality TV appearances and sex scandals. Instead, she has decided to reunite her once-great generational band Hole, which hasn't produced any material in 12 years.
This would perhaps be uplifting news had she bothered to call any other member of Hole during this alleged reunion. Perhaps it was a temporary memory loss from the dead cells in her brain, or maybe it was an impulsive decision that can be attributed to her anti-establishment attitude. Either way, Nobody's Daughter features no other Hole member besides Love, which is about as responsible as leaving a child alone in a museum. There's so much history here, it's too dangerous to leave someone this irresponsible alone.
Yet the barely-functional adult is miraculously still a somewhat-functional musician. Unfortunately, at the age of 45, her youthful anger has been stowed away. Her cynicism, once clever and dirty, is now much more textbook and thus less interesting.
Nobody's Daughter is average. It is not, however, OK. Calling the record average means the songs sound fine. She knows how to play an instrument and knows how to recruit others who can do the same. Calling it OK is saying what Love has done is acceptable. When you were the creative force behind Live Through This, with songs that sound as tough as Sheryl Crow when she hasn't had her morning coffee, Nobody's Daughter is not OK.
When you turned teen angst into pop-rock perfection on Celebrity Skin, and now your best attempt at an anthem is called Skinny Little Bitch - that's not OK. Most importantly, patronizing audiences by labeling this futile effort as a reprise of a Hole record is really, really not OK. Eric Erlandson and Melissa Auf der Maur don't deserve to be linked to Love's attempts at rejuvenation. More importantly, the name Hole, one that is seamlessly adjacent to Pearl Jam and Nirvana when speaking of '90s rock, should not be tarnished in this way.
3 Culture
Andy Collier
31514a.jpg
Provided
Review
Nobody's Daughter
Artist: Hole
Tracks: 11
Summary:
Courtney Love is back
