ALBUM: Hole 'Nobody's Daughter' (Review & Photo by Emma Gilmour)
Nobody’s Daughter sounds like Courtney Love is channeling the collective musical spirits of Stevie Nicks, Marianne Faithful and Oasis. It shouldn’t work, but it does, and you get the feeling that the only way it could ever work is if Love was doing it.
During the late 90's she was a dominating force as the frontwoman of Hole, alongside founding member guitarist Eric Erlandson, power-bassist/backing vocalist Mellisa Auf Der Maur and alternating drummers Patty Schemel and Samantha Maloney. With the 1998 release of Celebrity Skin, they were one of the biggest bands in rock and Love was a Hollywood darling with a Golden Globe nomination for her incredible turn in The People vs Larry Flynt. Five years later it had come crashing down after the critically trashed solo album America’s Sweetheart and Love was the major punchline for every drug joke in America.
Nobody’s Daughter was born in the midst of Love’s addiction recovery and as far back as 2006, tracks such as Pacific Coast Highway have been tantalising the internet with rumours of a second solo album. Then came the whisper that Love would reunite with Melissa Auf Der Maur and hopes of a Hole reformation started to circulate.
It did become a Hole album but with Love as the sole original member. Confusion, disappointment and indeed, hope for the future, surround the lack of the Celebrity Skin era line-up, but in the centre of this lies a powerfully reflective album that sees Love reminding us all why she was, is and ever will be, the Queen of Rock.
The album opens with the title track pounding along like a ‘Courtney-fied’ version of Stiltskin’s anthemic Inside. The atmosphere of this standout track is immersive from the first chord to the final growl. In contrast, For Once in your Life and Honey are heartbreakers. The lyrics are so devastating and Love’s voice so aching that the music need not even exist. Her most ardent critic would have to be made of stone not to cry when she pleads helplessly to her adored late-husband, Kurt Cobain “Why was I not good enough to save you from destruction?”
Skinny Little Bitch, Samantha and Loser Dust are Love at her dirty blonde best. Rampaging lyrics and shredding guitars; these songs are all smeared make-up and ‘fuck you’ fun. When Love starts screaming “People like you fuck people like me in order to avoid agony...” you know the riotgrrl is still alive and well and determined to reclaim her crown.
Pacific Coast Highway sounds a lot like Celebrity Skin’s Boys on the Radio, and is the only West Coast surf pop rock song on the album. This addictive little piece of sunshine covertly exposes Love’s intention to “kick down your door if you don’t let me in”.
Visceral, cathartic and bruising Nobody’s Daughter is, like Love, “a force of nature”. But even in this force, there is a weak spot and that is the lack of the female camaraderie that Hole was built on (Eric Erlandson was always an honorary girl in the band). There is every reason to suspect that a reunion would produce one of the most brilliant albums of the next decade but for now Nobody’s Daughter is Courtney back to her best.
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