All fucking Violet!

December 14, 2007 2:34 PM

Courtney Love Rocks Harder Than You.
posted by Firas (166 comments total)

No she doesn't-- she just rocks grosser than me.
posted by dersins at 2:39 PM on December 14, 2007 [7 favorites has favorites]

Sad but true. I'm only a 3.2 on the Mohs scale.
posted by Iridic at 2:39 PM on December 14, 2007 [5 favorites has favorites]

rocked harder than I.
posted by doublesix at 2:40 PM on December 14, 2007

Well, it's possible that she rocked harder than me in 1994.
posted by blucevalo at 2:40 PM on December 14, 2007

Courtney Love(s) Rocks Harder Than Us.
posted by HyperBlue at 2:42 PM on December 14, 2007 [4 favorites has favorites]

Ah, back before she was deeply disturbing.

It's a pity YouTube doesn't have her on the Graham Norton show, blatantly drunk or drugged out of her head. There was somethring really rather freaky and repelent about her there, almost insectile.
posted by Artw at 2:43 PM on December 14, 2007

You don't know how I rock.
posted by brevator at 2:43 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

no, no she doesn't. just because you can't hit the note doesn't mean you rock. she played the songs Kurt wrote forwith her well enough, but nothing before or after that material holds water. I will grant she's more hardcore (in that I've only dreamt of sucking the life out of my now ex-, but never went through with fantasies of killing them).

oh, and obligatory 'this not the best of the web'
posted by Busithoth at 2:44 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

terrible terrible terrible
posted by xmutex at 2:48 PM on December 14, 2007

I rock so much harder than Courtney Love. She only gets about a 4 on the Rockometer, while I consistently register a 7.2.

But Melissa Auf der Maur rocks almost as hard as me. Mostly because she has Danzig wristbands, which make up for the fact that she played with Courtney Love, but don't quite get her to my level of rock.

I'll grant you that the Billy Corgan songs that Courtney Love recorded are very good.
posted by The World Famous at 2:48 PM on December 14, 2007

Let me guess, you just discovered this "You Tube" thing and you're not very familiar with rock.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 2:49 PM on December 14, 2007 [6 favorites has favorites]

LOL GEN-XERS
posted by delmoi at 2:49 PM on December 14, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

Oh, is that what she does? She rocks? I'd been wondering.
posted by Dave Faris at 2:51 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

"Ah, back before she was deeply disturbing."

Was there ever such a time?

The first time I ever saw her, she was in Vanity Fair, mostly naked, pregnant with Frances Bean - and still apparently hitting the smack.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:53 PM on December 14, 2007

A large part of Hole's sound weren't just St. Kurt or Corgan, the lead guitarist (Eric Erlandson) was crucial.
posted by Firas at 2:55 PM on December 14, 2007

And apparently all of that rockin' took a toll on her lips.
(Actually I really liked Hole back in the day. But she's been freakin' scary ever since.)
posted by miss lynnster at 2:55 PM on December 14, 2007

I guess it's more of a sliding scale than an absolute thing...
posted by Artw at 2:55 PM on December 14, 2007

D Listed on Courtney Love
posted by Artw at 2:56 PM on December 14, 2007

Here's a snippet from the Graham Norton episode. She is 2 years older than me but the surgery makes her look older than my mother.
posted by miss lynnster at 3:04 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Courtney Love Rocks Harder Than You.

Possibly. But I have a higher melting point temperature, and one day, that may prove useful.
posted by quin at 3:04 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I'm secure in my rockulinity.
posted by DU at 3:05 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

No, YOUR favorite band sucks.
posted by mrnutty at 3:05 PM on December 14, 2007

No, YOUR favorite band sucks.

not with those lips
posted by pyramid termite at 3:08 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Ute Lemper can sing "Moondance" on Dancing With The Stars, Netherland Edition, and still rock harder than Courtney Love. Also, she can kill you with her mind.
posted by ardgedee at 3:11 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

What did Kurt Cobain say right before he shot himself?
(wait)
(wait)
(wait)
Hole's gonna be big!
posted by Item at 3:11 PM on December 14, 2007 [8 favorites has favorites]

Oh please. I can kick that girl's ass on Moondance. Sorry, but that sucked rocks.
posted by miss lynnster at 3:13 PM on December 14, 2007

Eh. I still say she sold out after her stint with Faith No More.
posted by lekvar at 3:14 PM on December 14, 2007

Flagged as sucked.
posted by dhammond at 3:17 PM on December 14, 2007

I still can't get over that she broke up the Beatles.
posted by found missing at 3:17 PM on December 14, 2007

I still can't get over that she broke up the Beatles.

and that was after brian jones was found in her swimming pool
posted by pyramid termite at 3:18 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Courtney Love helped destroy one of the greatest men of my generation. She is awful, just awful.
posted by oddman at 3:19 PM on December 14, 2007

Courtney Love rocks rock hard. Oh you!
posted by fire&wings at 3:24 PM on December 14, 2007

"Courtney Love helped destroy one of the greatest men of my generation."

Who?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:27 PM on December 14, 2007

"Courtney Love helped destroy one of the greatest men of my generation."

Who?

Sid Vicious
posted by The World Famous at 3:30 PM on December 14, 2007 [10 favorites has favorites]

Courtney Love helped destroy one of the greatest men of my generation

Hold on, now. There's no proof she pushed El Duce beneath that train.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 3:30 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Neal Cassady
posted by ardgedee at 3:30 PM on December 14, 2007

Pretty on the Inside is a hell of a punk rock record. Then again, my favorite Husker Du album is Land Speed Record so what do I know. Also, I have a favorite Husker Du album, so I'm too old know how hard anyone rocks anymore.
posted by gwint at 3:31 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

"Courtney Love helped destroy one of the greatest men of my generation."

she got jim morrison, too?
posted by pyramid termite at 3:31 PM on December 14, 2007

That, and you think that Pretty on the Inside is "a hell of a punk rock record".
posted by Item at 3:32 PM on December 14, 2007

Oh please. I can kick that girl's ass on Moondance. Sorry, but that sucked rocks.
posted by miss lynnster

Yeah, that's not the worst version of Moon Dance I've ever heard, but then it didn't actually contain any farm animals, so that's not saying much.
posted by doctor_negative at 3:32 PM on December 14, 2007

Item, were you in Nation of Ulysses? They were pretty good too.
posted by gwint at 3:34 PM on December 14, 2007

"Courtney Love helped destroy one of the greatest men of my generation."

Geez. Kurt Cobain was only famous for what he could have been if he hadn't shot himself. There's every chance he'd have faded away in a few years without Teh Guaranteed Stamp Of Fame By Shotgun. He most certainly wasn't the greatest man of anyone's generation.

Mind you. There wasn't anyone else with any talent in that band, so at least he was carrying those four. I mean, that drummer fella. Whats his name? He never amounted to much. Yeah. It was ALL Kurt. All the way.
posted by Brockles at 3:35 PM on December 14, 2007

There is another four letter work that has a K in it that she might, might do harder then me.
posted by edgeways at 3:37 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

It's not punk per se that she did circa Pretty on the Inside, it's basically Riot Grrl .. which is influenced by punk but not very similar to it. So it's still a hell of a record even if it's not Sex-Pistols-y.
posted by Firas at 3:37 PM on December 14, 2007

There is another four letter work that has a K in it that she might, might do harder then me.

puke?
posted by pyramid termite at 3:41 PM on December 14, 2007

Item, were you in Nation of Ulysses? They were pretty good too.

I once had a girl break up with me to date a former member of Nation of Ulysses, a band I had never cared for.

I have no idea why you asked me if I was in that group, though. Explain.
posted by Item at 3:43 PM on December 14, 2007

if by "rocks harder than you" you mean "killed curt cobain" then, yes.
posted by snofoam at 3:45 PM on December 14, 2007

.

Too soon?
posted by uri at 3:47 PM on December 14, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

Regardless of how hard I or she rocks, the bitch killed Kurt.
posted by trbrts at 3:50 PM on December 14, 2007

No, but heroin does.
posted by rhizome23 at 4:00 PM on December 14, 2007

Honestly, do ya'll hate her because you dislike her music (which is a fairly generic rock sound circa mid-90s) or because it's easy to hate her for being as annoying as any other rock star persona minus the cucumber in the pants? I don't need a thesis-length argument, I'm honestly wondering.

And oddman, you should really, really get a grip. Cobain was a junkie with mental problems long before he met her.
posted by sleepy pete at 4:01 PM on December 14, 2007 [5 favorites has favorites]

Melissa auf der Maur should have written How to Work with Difficult People... what sort of a masochist goes from Courtney Love to Billy Corgan to lobbying for David Suzuki as The Greatest Canadian?

[I VOTED for Suzuki, but he's a complete asshole in person.]
posted by ethnomethodologist at 4:08 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I liked her music. And I don't think she killed Cobain. But I think she's proven herself to be a fucking mess of a woman with no class whatsoever. It's a tossup which version of her is grosser to me... the skinny heroin addict or the bulemic plastic surgery addict. Either way, she's a single parent and her daughter apparently adores her, so her openly self-destructive behavior bothers me doubly.
posted by miss lynnster at 4:11 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

*allegedly* bulemic
posted by miss lynnster at 4:13 PM on December 14, 2007

I think Courtney is interesting in a trainwreck sort of way, but I feel sorry for Frances having to have her for a mother (although, maybe she'd be good as a freaky aunt). The only song of hers I really like is Hole's cover of Gold Dust Woman.
posted by amyms at 4:17 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Courtney Love helped destroy one of the greatest men of my generation. She is awful, just awful.

that like totally sucks balls for your generation dude.
posted by mattoxic at 4:23 PM on December 14, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

mattoxic, you should have seen what she did to mozart - it's a miracle he lasted as long as he did
posted by pyramid termite at 4:26 PM on December 14, 2007

Greatest? Really? I like Nirvana plenty, but how is being a particularly adept tunesmith cause one to be one of the greatest men of his generation?

Nirvana—with Kurt, Courtney, the drugs, the sales, the music, the suicide—is certainly one of the great rock mythologies, though.
posted by Weebot at 4:34 PM on December 14, 2007

do ya'll hate her because you dislike her music (which is a fairly generic rock sound circa mid-90s) or because it's easy to hate her for being as annoying as any other rock star persona minus the cucumber in the pants?

I don't hate her. I just recognize that I rock way, way harder than she ever has. I mean, I play a Flying V and she doesn't, so I automatically rock harder than her, even if I decide to leave it in the case.

Some of her songs are great. Mostly the ones that Billy Corgan wrote (on Celebrity Skin). But she is annoying on a level far beyond any other mainstream rock persona of our time who I can think of off the top of my head. And as trainwrecks go, she's not even all that compelling to watch.
posted by The World Famous at 4:35 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Ugh. Next time, I'll proofread what I write. Promise.
posted by Weebot at 4:36 PM on December 14, 2007

Kurt Cobain is remembered by many (with or without reason) as the John Lennon of his day, and that makes Courtney Love the Yoko Ono of the 1990s. Not exactly a good thing to be remembered as, really.
posted by clevershark at 4:41 PM on December 14, 2007

You know I have a soft spot for her, but oops it fell out and landed right, right there-----> .
posted by snsranch at 4:43 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I like her music just fine, I *do* think she killed her husband, and I still rock harder than she does even though I don't make music and my husband is, so far, still alive.

Hole was a great live band at a certain point in their history though.
posted by padraigin at 4:44 PM on December 14, 2007

I think Chris Cornell getting stalked by his ex and some creepy former cop is a hell of a lot more interesting than Courtney Love. God bless TMZ!
posted by ktrain at 4:45 PM on December 14, 2007

A formerly good friend of mine from high school years lost her virginity to a member (heh) of Nation of Ulysses. I have no feelings either way about them as a band or first time sexual partner.
posted by yodelingisfun at 4:47 PM on December 14, 2007

Why is it that whenever anyone wants to insult Courtney Love's music (leaving aside the unfortunate plastic surgery debacles which seem to be all too common with industry people who live in Los Angeles too long) they immediately pull out the Kurt/Billy/whoever wrote her best songs comment? Pretty on the the Inside was a great album. Heck, I like the majority of her stuff.

Courtney DOES rock out live, and she doesn't rely on electronic tricks onstage like half the other lame-o musical acts out there today. She's outspoken, she's always had a good connection with her fans and they like her. So immediately she gets torn down for being a Yoko Ono, for having bad lip injections, whatever... lame.

Yup. I like Courtney Love. Not everyone wants to be a suburban soccer mom, y'know?
posted by bitter-girl.com at 4:52 PM on December 14, 2007

(Oh, and on the Nation of Ulysses / sex thing -- a friend of mine's first wife left him for a member of Ween. Ween! You can't top that).
posted by bitter-girl.com at 4:54 PM on December 14, 2007

Why is it that whenever anyone wants to insult Courtney Love's music they immediately pull out the Kurt/Billy/whoever wrote her best songs comment?

Because we want to insult Courtney's music, and not insult the fantastic music of Kurt/Billy/Whoever.
posted by The World Famous at 4:56 PM on December 14, 2007

Courtney is, to paraphrase, a fabulous NIGHTMARE.

Like many from back-in-the-day Seattle I have breathed the breath of Courtney Love and have beheld the the body odor of Courtney Love. I been have trapped by her insane looping compulsive conversations, smiling and nodding with the rest of the clique as there is nothing else to do but claw your own skin off your face.

She is a god damned David Lynch movie and a slow motion stomach ache. You want to look away but you can't. You want to run, but you can't. She has the worst sort of charisma.The Charisma of a car accident.

There is no cure for Courtney but to to go to bed and wake up the next day and pretend it never happened.
posted by tkchrist at 5:02 PM on December 14, 2007 [8 favorites has favorites]

So immediately she gets torn down for being a Yoko Ono, for having bad lip injections, whatever...

she can't sing - and unlike some other people who can't sing, she's not interesting when she's failing at it, just shrill, annoying and tiresome - i would rather listen to a cat being shoved into a blender than any more of her music - the cat, at least, would fight its way out after 15 seconds and it would be over
posted by pyramid termite at 5:04 PM on December 14, 2007

Courtney Love did a nice turn in the Larry Flynt movie with Woody Harrelson and I really liked Cobain's music even though I was too fucking old for that demographic. But I am about the same age as her father who used to tour with the Grateful Dead and he thinks she killed him. Stranger things have happened.
posted by Huplescat at 5:07 PM on December 14, 2007

The World Famous, you're correct. I wasn't suggesting that she's a particularly notable guitarist; it was just a manner of phrasing :)
posted by Firas at 5:09 PM on December 14, 2007

I know - I was just riffing on your riff. :)
posted by The World Famous at 5:12 PM on December 14, 2007

And Ashlee Simpson is any better, pyramid termite? I have more respect for someone like Courtney Love who puts a little oomph into their performance than the prepackaged can't-singers on the market now. Kiri te Kanawa she ain't, but why is it ok to mock Courtney Love when you could just as easily say the same about Kat Bjelland from Babes in Toyland or any number of other singers from the whole screamy and shrill early 90s musical pantheon?

I was listening to "Violet" driving back from Boston this week and caught myself singing along. There are some songs that just make you want to sing with, badly, loudly, with all your might -- "Violet" is one, "Mono" is one... I guess that's why I like Courtney. She's not all precious and twee.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 5:13 PM on December 14, 2007

Courtney Love helped destroy one of the greatest men of my generation.

No concept of irony, eh?
posted by dhartung at 5:15 PM on December 14, 2007

She's not all precious and twee.

She is many things. But THAT she is not. You could not have understated that more if you'd said it with invisible ink underwater and backwards.
posted by tkchrist at 5:18 PM on December 14, 2007

Yup. I like Courtney Love. Not everyone wants to be a suburban soccer mom, y'know?

That's unfortunate that you only had two options.
posted by dhammond at 5:20 PM on December 14, 2007 [9 favorites has favorites]

And Ashlee Simpson is any better, pyramid termite?

you're really going to convince a lot of people with THAT argument

hmmm - well, ashlee ain't that great, but she's better than courtney

nice how they ripped off the christina aguilera song, "beautiful," isn't it?

I have more respect for someone like Courtney Love who puts a little oomph into their performance than the prepackaged can't-singers on the market now.

it's a sign of your naivete that you think the "i'm a pissed off junkie who's going to scream out my rage at the world" type of singer isn't any less pre-packaged - it's a pose, just like many other poses that rock performers fall into

why is it ok to mock Courtney Love when you could just as easily say the same about Kat Bjelland from Babes in Toyland or any number of other singers from the whole screamy and shrill early 90s musical pantheon?

ah, rebels and their mindless conformity and their willingness to present themselves as marketable "rebellion"
posted by pyramid termite at 5:30 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

desuetude, I have no idea what she looks like, but her voice and I could do dirty, dirty things together.
posted by lekvar at 5:32 PM on December 14, 2007

Spleen

I'm like the King of some damp, rainy clime,
Grown impotent and old before my time,
Who scorns the bows and scrapings of his teachers
And bores himself with hounds and all such creatures.
Naught can amuse him, falcon, steed, or chase:
No, not the mortal plight of his whole race
Dying before his balcony. The tune,
Sung to this tyrant by his pet buffoon,
Irks him. His couch seems far more like a grave.
Even the girls, for whom all kings seem brave,
Can think no toilet up, nor shameless rig,
To draw a smirk from this funereal prig.
The sage who makes him gold, could never find
The baser element that rots his mind.
Even those blood-baths the old Romans knew
And later thugs have imitated too,
Can't warm this skeleton to deeds of slaughter,
Whose only blood is Lethe's cold, green water.

— Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire
posted by elpapacito at 5:36 PM on December 14, 2007

Melissa Auf Der Maur and Karen Elson (youtube) singing Devil's Plaything in the Chelsea Hotel.
posted by liam at 5:45 PM on December 14, 2007

Bad singer.
Bad guitarist.
Bad songwriter (although it's unclear if she ever wrote any of them).

Bad mother.
Bad wife.
Bad human.

Bad concept.
Bad execution.
Bad FPP. You can do better.
posted by chuckdarwin at 5:49 PM on December 14, 2007 [4 favorites has favorites]

I'm like the King of some damp, rainy clime,

sorry, but the kids are doing baudelaire differently now
posted by pyramid termite at 5:49 PM on December 14, 2007

Oops. Melissa Auf Der Maur & Karen Elson (youtube) singing Devil's Plaything in the Chelsea Hotel.
posted by liam at 5:52 PM on December 14, 2007

bitter girl - I think some of us don't like her because she murdered her husband and got away with it. The evidence is really pretty compelling.

The page that trbrts links to makes a really strong case for her guilt as a murderer.

So, before you keep supporting her quite so strongly, I might suggest just perusing some of the evidence against her. It's pretty damning.

Me, I'm not a huge fan of the music of murderers.
posted by MythMaker at 5:53 PM on December 14, 2007

elpapacito, I have no idea what prompted that, but Hole has a lyric like that—

Hey you, you're way ahead of me
You're drunk on apathy
You burned right out
Hey you, you're just a cripple now...
You're bored of everything
You burned right out

As does Plath:

These girls looked awfully bored to me. I saw them on the sunroof, yawning and painting their nails and trying to keep up their Bermuda tans, and they seemed bored as hell. I talked with one of them, and she was bored with yachts and bored with flying around in airplanes and bored with skiing in Switzerland at Christmas and bored with the men in Brazil.

Girls like that make me sick.

Courtney Love failed her Mickey Mouse Club audition; she read Plath's Daddy for it (!)
posted by Firas at 5:55 PM on December 14, 2007

I think some of us don't like her because she murdered her husband and got away with it.

speak for yourself, please - i don't believe it
posted by pyramid termite at 5:55 PM on December 14, 2007

Yeah, but she didn't fail her stripper audition at Jumbo's Clown Room.
posted by miss lynnster at 6:06 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Huh. And here I thought it was just me. Thanks for vindicating my visceral dislike, MeFi!
posted by mumkin at 6:15 PM on December 14, 2007

Courtney Love Rocks Harder Than You

Courtney Love hardly rocks, thank you.
posted by 23skidoo at 6:19 PM on December 14, 2007

Firas writes "elpapacito, I have no idea what prompted that, but Hole has a lyric like that"

It seems to me they both were addressing the same "spleen" , conceived as that particular, hard to define sensation felt by some people who notice the decadent, the tumescent, the horrible, the temporary illusory relief of pleasure..yet because of their own perception and their description , they are rejected by society that finds them horrible as well. In this sense, Courtney seems to be exactly that kind of decadent, self destroying , I-am-a-trainwreck-yet-i-look-above-you-all person ; not the same as an Amy Winehouse because Amy just sings about her being a complete trainwreck, she inspires a lot more piety than Courtney.

Possibly part of their audience is attracted both by their self-destruction persona ( not really caring wheter amy or Court are acting themselves or not) and also by what they say and in :

Hey you, you're way ahead of me
You're drunk on apathy
You burned right out
Hey you, you're just a cripple now...
You're bored of everything
You burned right out

It's pretty evident the writer is addressing somebody, not for the shake of addressing the person, but to say to self that there is someone more miserable than her, finding some kind of relief in that. Where as Amy sings

I cheated myself
Like I knew I would
I told ya, I was trouble
You know that I'm no good

It's first person, speaking to somebody else about herself, again not because of a need to say othes, but to say to self and to give a "fair warning" of not messing with wrecks (reminds me , somehow, of Tom Hanks in Terminal movie, in which Zeta Jones says him she warned him , to stay away from her...)
posted by elpapacito at 6:21 PM on December 14, 2007

Sure, Courtney Love rocked.
posted by The corpse in the library at 6:22 PM on December 14, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

I've been waiting for someone to state the obvious, and it hasn't happened yet, so here goes:

Without the association with Cobain, Love would be just another junkie groupie blowing assorted guitar techs and drummers. There would be no MeFi thread, no appearances in Milos Forman films, and no media visibility. She's a talentless skank, a fucking vampire with a hunger for the blood of those with actual talent.
posted by dbiedny at 6:33 PM on December 14, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

Despite the feeble snipes of the naysayers who can't put their snark on hold for even one second, Cobain was brilliant musician, possibly the best of Generation X (a name which in my voice is neither mocking, ironic, nor anything to be ashamed of). Since, I value art as much as politics, science, medicine, etc., I think of him as one of our greatest. It's as simple as that.

I remember listening to "Smells Like Teen Spirit." It was, honestly, a revelation for a kid from the suburbs. When the scratchy guitar starts, you can just tell that this is something different. The man playing that guitar did not tease his hair six inches high. A few seconds later, when the drums and bass kick in, it's clear that these guys have something going on. Something that wasn't constructed by a music label, something that isn't just an attempt to cash in. This music. This is real. this is right. Then it all slows down, gets softer, fuzzy. You don't really know what he's singing at first. You sit there in your car thinking to yourself "Who the hell is this?" And then you here the chorus for the first time "Hello, Hello, Hello, How low?" you think to yourself "Yeah, How low? How low?"

Then it gets going again, hard and fast, "WITH THE LIGHTS OUT IT'S LESS DANGEROUS! HERE WE ARE NOW ENTERTAIN US!" and you are just like "HELL YEAH!" and your head is rocking back and forth so hard that you just might get whiplash but you don't give a fuck because, God damn it, this is exactly how you feel. This man is singing for you, not to you. This, this is your music, everything that came before it feels empty, antiseptic. Everything that comes after will suffer in comparison. This music, this is completely and uniquely of your time. You will never have feel like this again. And you don't.

Years later, many years. You'll be a father, you'll be a responsible adult with prosaic concerns. You'll care too much about the laundry. But every now and then you'll here that scratchy guitar, and you'll turn the radio up just a bit too loud. And when he starts asking "How low" you'll be singing along, and when the loud part of the chorus hits, you'll be nodding your head just as hard as you use to. But, now the feeling doesn't last. You'll remember that the man singing is dead. He shot himself. He opened your eyes and showed you a part of yourself you didn't realize was withering away, and he's dead.

And this is when you try very hard to remember that the music was beautiful, and strong, and wonderful and that you are grateful for having lived with it. You remember that, and you hold on to that and you let it get you past the sadness.
posted by oddman at 6:38 PM on December 14, 2007 [12 favorites has favorites]

Honestly, do ya'll hate her because you dislike her music (which is a fairly generic rock sound circa mid-90s) or because it's easy to hate her for being as annoying as any other rock star persona minus the cucumber in the pants? I don't need a thesis-length argument, I'm honestly wondering.


I don't hate her for her music, and I didn't start out hating her. I thought Live Through This was a great record. I admit that I saw the Manson/Hole tour in '99, and it was a very good show (seconding whoever mentioned that Erlandson was the talent in that band, tho) She's hateable because she's systematically destroyed any reason anyone would have for cutting her slack or extending her goodwill.

She posited herself as this radical feminist voice who was only maligned Because of How Real She Was and the Uptight Male Establishment Couldn't Handle It. Kurt bought that line for while and towed it for her. But she's a complete sham, in the fullest possible sense. All she is is a fame whore, to a degree that's so baldfaced it's...boring. She has absolutely nothing substantive to say, musically or otherwise. He figured it out eventually, and now everyone else has too.
posted by anazgnos at 6:40 PM on December 14, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

WAX MY ANUS!
posted by jonmc at 6:56 PM on December 14, 2007

This is the YouTube Comments of MeFi threads.
posted by psmealey at 7:14 PM on December 14, 2007 [5 favorites has favorites]

Oh boy, I get to tell my Hole story ...

They toured the country a bunch in 1991, and passed through Atlanta twice. I kinda liked them, them being all rough around the edges and screamy and all that, and me being all sludgefeast and noisecore and social reject and all that, so yeah I was definitely there at both shows. That creepy Erik guy was in the band then too. I think the Dicknail performance in the FPP (the "harder" link) is probably from that same period.

Both times they played the Masquerade, at least once and possibly both times down in the Purgatory lounge area, which used to be set up for smaller bands to play. Thank god, that upstairs cavern is just awful for any band except the biggest acts (e.g. Ramones, X).

Soooooanyway, I remember that one time they came through, before the show Courtney was stomping around looking all angsty and pissed and nervous, like a girl wondering where her boyfriend is. They were staying at my friends house, and he later complained that Courtney ran up a big phone bill calling Kurt to talk to him (this preceded cheap cell phones and free long distance). I think she was working really hard to latch on to him then and wasn't going to let him go.

Hmmm, now that I think about it, Nirvana was touring a bunch then too (saw them twice on the tour that just preceded the Nevermind release). So she probably had to call all over the place to hunt him down.

Slut kiss girl
Does she promise you smack
Is she pretty on the inside
Is she pretty FROM THE BACK
posted by intermod at 7:42 PM on December 14, 2007

... you'll be nodding your head just as hard as you use to. But, now the feeling doesn't last. You'll remember that the man singing is dead... And this is when you try very hard to remember that the music was beautiful, and strong, and wonderful and that you are grateful for having lived with it. You remember that, and you hold on to that and you let it get you past the sadness.

Then Yoko starts singing.
posted by hal9k at 8:06 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

When I saw Hole play Lollapallooza, CL basically walked out onstage, put one foot up on a monitor & just stayed in the that position for the entire set - except for the part where she had Drew Barrymore briefly walk out to wave to the crowd or whatever. I have read that the setlist also didn't change for the entire tour, which is just...incredibly lazy & insulting IMO.

She did scream a lot & I suppose that sort of 'righteous fury' goes a long way with some people at some point in their lives, but basically I'm just saying yes, she also sucked as a live performer. She wasn't charming or funny or intense or interesting or, for that matter, rocking in any way.
posted by stinkycheese at 8:09 PM on December 14, 2007

The corpse in the library wins the thread and my Lois-loving geekitude. I'm now off to find the "Don't Mix the Colors" cover.

Please resume the insanity, please.
posted by sleepy pete at 8:11 PM on December 14, 2007

Is it OK to be indifferent about Hole / Courtney Love?
posted by maxwelton at 8:47 PM on December 14, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

Courtney Love Rocks Harder Than You.

At least until the next fix.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:13 PM on December 14, 2007

oddman:

You've never heard of The Pixies, huh?

Seriously, though, really, you need to get a fucking grip. I saw Nirvana the week Nevermind came out... in Kansas. Not even the suburbs, but, yeah, pat yourself on the sweaty, anarchy-symbol wearing back some more. You're talking about Kurt and Courtney on metafilter in 2007.

Buy a new record!

This thread is stupid and contagious.
posted by sleepy pete at 9:18 PM on December 14, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

Buy a new record!

so what new record has had the impact that nirvana did, back in the day?
posted by pyramid termite at 9:31 PM on December 14, 2007

Yeah, Violet is a pretty fucking good song. That's about the nicest thing I have to say.
posted by Jimbob at 9:40 PM on December 14, 2007

I miss being able to read the first twenty or so snarks in a post like this, then scanning quickly down the page to find all the hilarious images.
posted by interrobang at 10:21 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I remember listening to "Smells Like Teen Spirit." It was, honestly, a revelation for a kid from the suburbs.

Speaking as a teen from the suburbs at exactly that time, no, it really wasn't. This was *right* before Metallica started their slide into suck. Every headbanging, "they're singing to me!," reference you could make about Nirvana works for Metallica right up to the Black album. A couple years earlier you could have seen Guns N' Roses on the Appetite tour before Axle went all Elton John and Izzy left. You could have traded Misfits mix tapes because you liked Garage Days so much you hunted down their vinyls and "ripped" them for your friends.

You only had a revelation because you weren't paying attention.
posted by Cyrano at 10:28 PM on December 14, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

The synchronicity of this whole life thing is what disturbs me. For reasons I can't explain I was walking down an office hallway this morning when I belted out "you should learn how to say no!^%" in that sort of painful rock yell that caused a more or less embarrasing moment when I rounded the hallway and found someone standing there, alarmed. "Uh, nice singing voice, uh, there" she said -- and there I was trying to explain how I was channeling wailing cats.
posted by cavalier at 10:49 PM on December 14, 2007

Oh boy, I get to tell my Hole story ...

intermod, a good story has a beginning, a middle and an end.

How did your friend end up paying the phone bill? Did Courtney kick in some bucks? Did your friend send her a copy of the bill?
posted by mattoxic at 11:04 PM on December 14, 2007

so what new record has had the impact that nirvana did, back in the day?

Musically speaking? Pick up a copy of Rated R, my friend.
posted by The World Famous at 11:59 PM on December 14, 2007

You only had a revelation because you weren't paying attention.

See, this is why the loss of the img tag hurts so much - sometimes, apparently, you really do have to flap your dick in somebody's face.
posted by gompa at 12:08 AM on December 15, 2007

To be fair, I've watched her break. I've also watched her burn.

I'm just waiting for the pills to kill her.

Not anxiously. Just kind of passively, for closure.

Seven Year Bitch and L7 and a hell of a lot of other women did it better than Courtney.
posted by Ufez Jones at 12:19 AM on December 15, 2007

Courtney Love wishes she was PJ Harvey.
posted by Summer at 1:26 AM on December 15, 2007

Courtney Love seems to me like a true-life Frankenstein's monster of a personality. I am fascinated that someone like her even exists.
posted by tgyg at 1:32 AM on December 15, 2007

I quite like some Hole songs.
posted by Sparx at 1:59 AM on December 15, 2007

I think this PJ Harvey song is the one this thread needs.
posted by tiny crocodile at 2:11 AM on December 15, 2007

Don't forget The Gits! @ Ufez Jones
It's hard to remember, but at that time there really was only L7, 7 Year Bitch, The Gits, The Lunachicks, and Tribe 8. Even Riot Grrl was just a twinkle in it's mama's eye at that time, at least nationally. There were other bands that were about to come up like Sleater Kinney,Team Dresch and (bleah) 4 Non Blondes, but at the time for your regular feminist rocker/punk rocker, Hole was the apex at that time.
I still love Live Through This, and I'm not ashamed. I even rebought it on cd recently.
posted by smartyboots at 2:32 AM on December 15, 2007

Musically speaking? Pick up a copy of Rated R, my friend.

queens of the stone age? they're alright, but i'm not hearing the impact there - they're an ok cross between crazy horse, the stooges and the kinks, only not as great

it's been done before
posted by pyramid termite at 4:44 AM on December 15, 2007

It's hard to remember, but at that time there really was only L7, 7 Year Bitch, The Gits, The Lunachicks, and Tribe 8.

How dare you mention those bands without mentioning the bestest of them all: Bikini Kill.
posted by psmealey at 5:56 AM on December 15, 2007

Me, I'm not a huge fan of the music of murderers.
Me neither. Except for Burzum.
posted by generalist at 6:18 AM on December 15, 2007

Lydia Lunch.

That's all.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 6:47 AM on December 15, 2007

intermod, a good story has a beginning, a middle and an end. How did your friend end up paying the phone bill? Did Courtney kick in some bucks? Did your friend send her a copy of the bill?

Yes, I too would like closure on that anecdote. Alas, until I next run into Greg Whatshisname and ask him about it, we'll never know. Also, he had a nice pro-grade video camera and videotaped like Everything from that era (that came through Atlanta or Athens) so he must have a killer library of performances. I vaguely remember hearing that he was going to try to, uh, monetize it. Like Ian Svenonius rocketing around a stage with his arm in a cast, having broken it earlier in that year's Nation of Ulysses tour doing ... the same.
posted by intermod at 6:58 AM on December 15, 2007

I was gonna call her a skank, but someone beat me to it.
posted by bwg at 7:01 AM on December 15, 2007

Oh yeah? I five stared Celebrity Skin in Rock Band, so I'd say that I rock just as much as she does.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 7:17 AM on December 15, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Erm, Kurt apparently thought she rocked. So if you don't think so, you're saying Kurt had no taste? Just pointing this out.

I think she rocks sometimes and sucks sometimes, just like most people.
posted by Camofrog at 7:43 AM on December 15, 2007

Your favorite Courtney Love sucks.
posted by Cookiebastard at 8:20 AM on December 15, 2007

Courtney Love as a pioneer of riot grrrl? Major-label revisionist bullshit. That's a sad joke made all the sadder by the way that the K and KRS crowd saw it coming years in advance (Lois Maffeo and Kathleen Hanna are both good examples of this).

Also, my favorite Courtney moment is this 1995 Kurt Loder Madonna interview (Love appears at about 2:30).
posted by box at 8:26 AM on December 15, 2007

queens of the stone age? they're alright, but i'm not hearing the impact there - they're an ok cross between crazy horse, the stooges and the kinks, only not as great

it's been done before

As if Nirvana hadn't been done before, over and over again.
posted by The World Famous at 8:31 AM on December 15, 2007

I think she's quite boring and her music is very mediocre. That's all.
posted by inoculatedcities at 8:40 AM on December 15, 2007

Well she does do heroin and tries to sleep with as many celebrities as she can, and I don't so you may have me there.
posted by monkeyboy_socal at 8:41 AM on December 15, 2007

"Cobain was brilliant musician, possibly the best of Generation X"

He wasn't even the best musician in his own band.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:59 AM on December 15, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

While the Kurt Cobain/John Lennon comparison may have at least a little substance (though not much), the Courtney Love/Yoko Ono comparison has none at all.
posted by DarkForest at 9:04 AM on December 15, 2007

As if Nirvana hadn't been done before, over and over again.

but nirvana did it with world class songwriting and world class drumming - queens of the stone age are merely good

they simply haven't had the same impact

i don't believe anyone in this decade has
posted by pyramid termite at 9:11 AM on December 15, 2007

Erm, Kurt apparently thought she rocked. So if you don't think so, you're saying Kurt had no taste?

Well, taste is subjective. Though in Kurt's favor he apparently loved The Raincoats.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 9:17 AM on December 15, 2007

Also, my favorite Courtney moment is this 1995 Kurt Loder Madonna interview

"courtney love is in dire need of attention right now" - madonna
posted by pyramid termite at 9:26 AM on December 15, 2007

so what new record has had the impact that nirvana did, back in the day?

pyramid termite, in terms of the ubiquitous nature of song play and downhill slide in the public eye probably caused by drug use, I'd say Britney Spears. That's probably all marketing, though.
posted by sleepy pete at 9:27 AM on December 15, 2007

Well, taste is subjective.

And let's end it with that.
posted by brevator at 9:39 AM on December 15, 2007

Summer, tiny crocodile: And you guys think you'e being snarky...
posted by Weebot at 9:48 AM on December 15, 2007

impact =/= innovation

The fact that Nirvana popularized a style of music is just not that interesting in the long term.
posted by rottytooth at 10:02 AM on December 15, 2007

Am I the only one who thinks Hole's music holds up much better than Nirvana's?
posted by rottytooth at 10:13 AM on December 15, 2007

Am I the only one who thinks Hole's music holds up much better than Nirvana's?

It depends on your datum, I guess. In my opinion, Hole's music was a pile of hideous shit then, and is every bit as bad now. So it's 'holding up' is 100%.

Nirvana were a fairly decent band that had some innovative stuff. People have produced more, better, innovative stuff since then, so their rating inevitably drops.

I guess that comparison makes you right.
posted by Brockles at 10:18 AM on December 15, 2007

It's not needed, I know, but I'd just like to weigh in here and submit my opinion of Courtney Love. Which is that she sucks. You can plausibly skip the rest of this comment and be just as well off. Thanks.

Her music was good enough on it's own, but she married her way into stardom, then killed off the fountain of creativity that both sprung her from obscurity and held her back from the hypocrisy she needed to embrace to go further than her husband would ever have let her go. Privately I feel that she probably had her husband killed so that she could go on do things like walk on red carpets, be on daytime TV shows, and be adulated by the media her husband so feared and abhorred.

What's worse is that she believed in her own genius with a dogged, tireless singularity of vision that ignored external gauges of merit and made her appear absolutely mad. Her scarecrow-faced appearance in the Graham Norton clip above, and in other media, cement her in my mind as the quintessential fame-whore that anyone willing to devalue themselves in deference to 'success' might be, if only they could stand the self-loathing required to get there.

And now, I'll shut up.
posted by Pecinpah at 11:17 AM on December 15, 2007

Yeah, well, her blogs are illegible, but I'll happily read any books that Frances Bean publishes in the future.

Her music is... hardly the reason people still pay attention to her.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 12:02 PM on December 15, 2007

If I understand right:

Courtenay was talentless and all her songs suck. And anyway, they were all written by Kurt or Corgan, who are geniuses.

She's a bad parent. Kurt, of course, did the best possible thing for his daughter by killing himself.

Doesn't really make sense to me, I can't understand the hatred. I suspect an undertone of sexism or jealousy ("that *bitch* is with Kurt!").

Her music wasn't particularly great, but it had its moments. And it's just silly to say she was unknown before she met Kurt; I remember reading about Hole in the NME (OK, OK....) well before I'd heard of Nirvana...
posted by Infinite Jest at 12:50 PM on December 15, 2007

Nobody is suggesting that Hole 'pioneered' Riot Grrrl. In fact she was kinda Goth back when Riot Grrrl was starting. I just meant that Pretty On the Inside is a record in the Riot Grrrl genre. It's really hard to argue with that.

I'm a big fan of Bikini Kill but their wanton explosiveness was never tempered by the likes of Erlandson into awesome fucking grunge music.
posted by Firas at 1:21 PM on December 15, 2007

And so, while Kathleen Hanna might have been the better Riot Grrrl, Courtney Love is the better/deeper/more transcending artist.
posted by Firas at 1:36 PM on December 15, 2007

I remember listening to (choose one):

Heartbreak Hotel
I Wanna Hold Your Hand
Purple Haze
Stairway to Heaven
Anarchy in the UK
London Calling
The Wait
Master of Puppets
In a Jar
Smells Like Teen Spirit
PDA

It was, honestly, a revelation for a kid from the suburbs.
posted by psmealey at 2:33 PM on December 15, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Wife-of-Cobain-ness aside, the glimmer of promise that Courtney Love once showed has long been surpassed by what an incoherent mess she's become. And in in the category of hard-rocking-girl-bands, Bikini Kill was (and is) way more up my alley. But those videos do remind me of the serious girl-crush I had on the very rockin' Melissa Auf Der Maur. Why doesn't she get FPPs?
posted by desuetude at 4:53 PM on December 15, 2007

Um, Courtney was never part of Riot Grrl. The Riot Grrrl crowd-- Kathleen Hanna, et. al.-- and Courtney hated each other. Remember the Hole song about Olympia? Yeah.

It's hard to remember, but at that time there really was only L7, 7 Year Bitch, The Gits, The Lunachicks, and Tribe 8. Even Riot Grrl was just a twinkle in it's mama's eye at that time, at least nationally.

I'm not exactly what time frame you mean here, though I'm guessing pre 1991 (when Pretty On the Inside was released), but this is not even remotely true.
posted by jokeefe at 5:01 PM on December 15, 2007

This is a big derail, but I imagine that anybody who's still reading at this point might be at least a little bit interested:

I'd argue that 'Riot Grrrl,' like 'punk,' wasn't a bundle of common musical qualities as much as a set of beliefs and ideals and whatnot. Or, more negatively, a clique. But, whether clique or ideology, Courtney Love just wasn't part of it. The cobnobblers at the Times Style section might've thought so, but they were wrong.

The Riot Grrrl crowd recognized Courtney's careerism very early (that was the joke behind Lois naming her band 'Courtney Love') (and, really, the Seattle/Portland/Olympia hipster set wasn't necessarily even that cool with Kurt's considerably more muted careerism, as evidenced by the way that early Sub Pop catalog descriptions of Nirvana featured sentences like 'These guys are going to make us rich,' and by two rejected titles for Incesticide, Piggy Bank and Cash Cow).
posted by box at 6:29 PM on December 15, 2007

oddman:

You've never heard of The Pixies, huh?

Fuck, you stole the snark right out of my keyboard! Seriously, I was scrolling down to type "a revolution for a kid from the suburbs... who had never heard The Pixies."

You may have won the battle my friend, but not the war.
posted by ludwig_van at 7:10 PM on December 15, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

Revelation, rather.
posted by ludwig_van at 7:10 PM on December 15, 2007

You've never heard of The Pixies, huh?

I loathe this comparison. Someone read an early Spin Magazine interview with Nirvana in which they said that they were experimenting with a Pixies-like bass line and came up with "Smells Like Teen Spirit". That's where the comparison starts and ends.

The Pixies, or as Steve Albini called them, "mildly entertaining college rock" wrote great little hooks and spliced them together in an attempt to pass them off as real songs. Nirvana wrote, great, simple, perfect and complete pop songs. Huge difference.
posted by Tommy Gnosis at 6:55 AM on December 16, 2007

Yeah, you're wrong about that.
posted by ludwig_van at 7:45 AM on December 16, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

Nice comeback.
posted by Tommy Gnosis at 8:09 AM on December 16, 2007

The Pixies are a less interesting Pere Ubu with the occasional guitar rave up thrown in. Amusing, perhaps, but hardly significant.
posted by Tommy Gnosis at 8:14 AM on December 16, 2007

this is what i like from 1991

they weren't a band, they were a force of nature
posted by pyramid termite at 8:29 AM on December 16, 2007

Someone read an early Spin Magazine interview with Nirvana in which they said that they were experimenting with a Pixies-like bass line and came up with "Smells Like Teen Spirit". That's where the comparison starts and ends.

You're free to think Nirvana was a better band than the Pixies, but the whole "we play the music quiet and sing on the verses, then for the chorus we play the exact same music but louder and we scream" aspect of SLTS is something, much more than a bassline, which is a signature part of what the Pixies music sounds like.
posted by 23skidoo at 8:37 AM on December 16, 2007

Tommy, I'm afraid I can't help you with whatever ear blockage is preventing you from hearing the Pixies -> Nirvana connection. I can only urge you to see your general practitioner before it gets worse.

And Steve Albini is, believe it or not, wrong about lots of stuff.
posted by ludwig_van at 9:04 AM on December 16, 2007

"courtney love is in dire need of attention right now" - madonna

Does anyone see the huge amount of irony there? I mean, Madonna saying that? Truth or Dare / Sex book / looky me! I'm British now / I'll out-adopt you, little Miss Angelina 20-years-of-attention-whoring MADONNA?

(Not to say that I don't like Madonna. I do. But damn, she's hardly the person to make that comment).
posted by bitter-girl.com at 10:25 AM on December 16, 2007

While we're gaping in shock, I'd just like to mention that the Ashlee Simpson connection is retarded. Seriously pyramid termite, were you joking? Ashlee fucking Simpson?

Let me know when Ashlee sounds like this or this.
posted by Firas at 11:35 AM on December 16, 2007

i wasn't the one who brought her up, you know - perhaps you should ask bitter-girl.com why she made that connection

Let me know when Ashlee sounds like this or this.

let's take up a collection and get courtney some autotune - damn, but she NEEDS it
posted by pyramid termite at 12:18 PM on December 16, 2007

The Pixies are a less interesting Pere Ubu with the occasional guitar rave up thrown in. Amusing, perhaps, but hardly significant.

Now that's just amusing.

The day that young musicians are namechecking Nirvana as an influence the way that the Pixies have been and continue to be, then we can talk. I liked Nirvana a great deal, but original they were not. Which is not a bad thing-- the skillful synthesis of current trends can also be great art. It's just not going to held in the same reverence twenty years down the line.

The Riot Grrrl crowd recognized Courtney's careerism very early (that was the joke behind Lois naming her band 'Courtney Love') (and, really, the Seattle/Portland/Olympia hipster set wasn't necessarily even that cool with Kurt's considerably more muted careerism, as evidenced by the way that early Sub Pop catalog descriptions of Nirvana featured sentences like 'These guys are going to make us rich,' and by two rejected titles for Incesticide, Piggy Bank and Cash Cow).

Given that Kurt forged his identity within that community, and how he desperately wanted its approval (not perhaps individually the Riot Grrls, but the alternative/punk/underground scene, with Sonic Youth as its apex and an ethic of rigorous purity throughout the ranks) it's worth being reminded of the simultaneous envy and contempt Nirvana's success inspired. Whenever anyone brings up that nonsensical "Courtney killed Kurt" stuff, I think of how conflicted Nirvana's position was within that community... also, how many object lessons do we need on the psychological breakdowns that can come with fame? No matter how many times we witness them, we always seem to be surprised.
posted by jokeefe at 1:02 PM on December 16, 2007

How you can make a FPP full of Hole videos without anyone linking to the best one of the bunch is beyond me. There is something about the 'Awful' video that just gets me everytime, it was the first thing that made me actually look at Courtney as something less than a total waste of space.
posted by sophist at 4:23 PM on December 16, 2007

Very late with this but Weebot - thanks! My comment was only intended to be half a snark - it's kinda funny to link to a song with the lines "don't you wish you never, never met her" in this thread, but the main reason I linked was that I thought that particular PJ song was very much the kind of thing Courtney was aiming for. Now I know why!

FWIW I think PJ does it marginally better, and has loads more strings to her bow. But that's just my opinion.
posted by tiny crocodile at 3:05 AM on December 18, 2007