Courtney Love
Encyclopedia
Courtney Michelle Love (born Courtney Michelle Harrison; July 9, 1964) is an American rock musician. Love is the lead vocalist, lyricist, and rhythm guitarist for alternative rock band Hole
, which she formed in 1989, and is an actress who has moved from bit parts in Alex Cox
films to significant and acclaimed roles in The People vs. Larry Flynt
(1996) and Man on the Moon (1999). She was married to Kurt Cobain
, frontman of the grunge
band Nirvana
, with whom she has a daughter, Frances Bean Cobain
. In the early 1990s, she also became known for popularising the fashion style "kinderwhore
", characterized by torn babydoll
dresses and smeared red lipstick. Throughout her career, Love's wild stage antics and subversive feminist attitude have polarized audiences and critics, with Rolling Stone
once calling her "the most controversial woman in the history of rock."
Love was born in San Francisco, California, to Linda Carroll
, a psychotherapist, and Hank Harrison, briefly road manager for The Grateful Dead. She had a disturbed upbringing, and as a boisterous teenager was sent to a youth correctional facility after being caught stealing. Later, she wrote for punk-zine Maximumrocknroll, and became a part-time exotic dancer, which enabled her to travel to Japan and Taiwan. A trust fund gave her some independence, and allowed her to briefly study at Trinity College, Dublin
, and to live in Liverpool
.
Her first musical project was in the early 1980s with an on-and-off band called Sugar Babydoll
, and then she had a brief stint as lead singer of Faith No More
. She started her career as an actress with minor roles in Alex Cox films, most notably Sid and Nancy
(1986), but turned her focus to music and moved to Los Angeles in 1989 where she formed Hole with guitarist Eric Erlandson
. Originally influenced by noise rock
and no wave
music, the band went on to release several successful albums in the 1990s, most notably Live Through This
(1994) and Celebrity Skin
(1998). Love received intense media attention over her 1992 marriage to Kurt Cobain, before and after his 1994 suicide
. She would later gain recognition as an actress for her award-nominated performance in The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), and she continued to occasionally star in films. Love had a brief solo career, releasing America's Sweetheart (2004), and was the subject of much media attention for various drug and legal issues in the following year. In 2006, Love was sentenced to six months of lock-down rehab and achieved sobriety thereafter. In 2009, Love re-emerged and reformed Hole with new members, releasing a fourth album, Nobody's Daughter
(2010).
, a psychotherapist, and Hank Harrison, a publisher who had some association with the Grateful Dead
- Love would later tell people that at five years old she was included in a group picture on the back of the band's third album, Aoxomoxoa
(1969). Her parents divorced in 1969, with custody being awarded to Carroll after a child custody hearing during which she alleged that Harrison had fed LSD to Love when she was four years old, which he denied. Carroll then remarried, eventually giving birth to two more daughters and adopting a son. Love moved with her family to Marcola, Oregon
in 1970. In 1972, Carroll relocated to New Zealand with her family, but sent Love back to the United States after she was kicked out of her boarding school. Carroll eventually returned to Oregon as well and divorced her second husband, later marrying a third.
At age 14, Love was arrested for shoplifting a t-shirt and was sent to Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility
, where it was noted her academic ability was above average for the institution, yet she caused problems because of her "negative, boisterous" behavior. Oregon's Children's Services Division noted that "Courtney has been in search of the family life she has always been deprived of for so many years", and has "rejected substitutes as unworthy". She was moved to over 20 different facilities and foster homes between 1978 and 1980. At age 16, Love moved to Portland
, eventually working as an exotic dancer, and briefly as a DJ at Portland's community radio station, KBOO
. Love has said that she "didn't have a lot of social skills" as a teenager, and was raised by her friends and drag queens at gay clubs
in Portland. Love also took job opportunities working at dance halls in Japan and Taiwan. She wrote an article under the name "Courtney Michelle" in punk-zine Maximumrocknroll: "I wrote three or four of these missives from Portland, all about Poison Idea
and Rancid Vat. But of course being me, I wrote something controversial and got a cross burned on my lawn. I wrote that Tom 'Pig' was a neo-fascist or something."
In 1981, a social worker discovered a trust fund established for Love by her mother's adoptive parents, and she gained independence,, traveling to England and Ireland,, where she took two semesters at Trinity College, Dublin
and took photos for Hot Press
. She briefly moved into the Liverpool
home of musician Julian Cope
and also developed a friendship with Ian McCulloch
of Echo and the Bunnymen. Love started her first musical project in the early 1980s, an on-and-off band called Sugar Babydoll
that never reached fruition. The beginning of her musical career was a brief stint as lead singer of Faith No More
. According to Love, she showed up to a concert in San Francisco wearing a wedding gown, and "demanded" to be in the band. She was only part of the group for a short amount of time, but later maintained a friendship with Roddy Bottum
.
At age 20, in 1984, Love met Kat Bjelland
in Portland at the Satyricon nightclub
, and the two became friends, often experimenting musically with friend Jennifer Finch
, a bassist. Love and Bjelland moved to San Francisco the following year and formed a band called The Pagan Babies
, with Deidre Schletter and Janis Tanaka
, but the band dissolved in the summer of 1985 after recording one demo, largely due to fighting and troubles involving drug abuse. Love briefly played bass in Kat Bjelland's band Babes In Toyland
in Minneapolis for a short time but was kicked out of this group as well. Love stayed in Minneapolis and got a gig as a promoter for rock shows, promoting concerts by bands such as The Butthole Surfers, but left for Los Angeles soon after.
In-between relocations, Love took classes at Portland State University
, as well as San Francisco State University
and the San Francisco Art Institute
, where Love took a film class taught by George Kuchar
and starred in one of his short films. Love later starred in two Alex Cox
films in the late 1980s, but was ultimately dissatisfied with acting so returned to stripping, where she was recognized and photographed by customers at a bar in McMinnville, Oregon
. Love then retreated to Alaska for several months where she continued to strip to support herself.
, reading: "I want to start a band. My influences are Big Black
, Sonic Youth
, and Fleetwood Mac
" to which guitarist Eric Erlandson
replied. After a cycle of several bass players and drummers, Love and Erlandson recruited bassist Jill Emery and drummer Caroline Rue into the band, which they named Hole
. Hole played their first gig in November 1989 at Raji's
after three months of rehearsal, and began making singles
on the Long Beach, California
, independent label Sympathy for the Record Industry
. Their first single, titled "Retard Girl
," was issued in spring 1990. Disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer
jokingly said that Love would often "stalk him" at a restaurant chain, Denny's
, showing him the band's single and insisting that he should give it air time on his station, KROQ-FM
. One year later, the band debuted their second single, "Dicknail
" through Sub Pop Records, and began to gain a following in Los Angeles, and eventually a national club tour.
Influenced by the sounds and style of no wave
rock bands, Love got Sonic Youth
bassist Kim Gordon
to produce the band's first studio album. Hole's debut album Pretty on the Inside
(1991) was released in September 1991 on Caroline Records
, produced by Gordon and Gumball
's Don Fleming. It charted at 59 on the UK Albums Chart
in October 1991. The New Yorker
referred to it as "the most compelling album to have been released in 1991", and Spin also labelled it one of the 20 best albums of the year.
Love went on tour with Hole to promote the record in Europe and the United States. Several years after the album's release, Love made comments that though the album was "the truth", it was also an act of proving herself to her "indie peers" who had "made fun of her" for liking R.E.M.
and The Smiths
. She also referred to the creation of the album as a sort of self-exorcism. Shortly after the release of Pretty on the Inside, Love began dating Nirvana
frontman Kurt Cobain
, and they were married in 1992, giving birth to a daughter, Frances
.
, in the fall of 1993 in Atlanta and released it in 1994, just four days after Love's husband, Cobain, was found dead of a self-inflicted shotgun wound in their home. The album had a new lineup, with Kristen Pfaff
on bass and Patty Schemel on drums; Jill Emery and Caroline Rue had both left the band in 1992. Less than two months after the release of Live Through This, on June 16, Kristen Pfaff died of an apparent heroin overdose. Love soon after recruited 22-year-old bassist Melissa Auf der Maur
for the band's upcoming tour. Throughout the months preceding the tour, Love was rarely seen in public, spending her time in her homes, or visiting the Namgyal Buddhist Monastery
in New York.
The live performances for Hole's 1994 and 1995 tours became notorious because of Love's emotional state, described as "part therapy and part eulogy", with Love often altering hurtful song lyrics toward herself, dedicating songs to Cobain and Pfaff, provoking fans, throwing guitars into the audience, and breaking into screaming fits onstage. Disgruntled Nirvana fans—many of whom had been adherents to conspiracy theories alleging that Love had murdered Cobain— threw shotgun shells at her onstage on several occasions.
Live Through This was an immense commercial and critical success. Spin
and the Village Voice declared it "Album of the Year" and by November the record was certified gold. By April 1995, it went platinum. Entertainment Weekly noted the album for dealing with "life in the media spotlight, motherhood, being called Nirvana's Yoko Ono
, the idea that love and sex strip women of their dignity-these and other thoughts are on her mind, and her frazzled, occasionally venomous observations make for what amounts to a shrink session with a beat." Columnist Geoffrey Himes noted the album's reactiveness toward "the impossible situation that confronts women when they are asked to be both wild sources of pleasure and unblemished mother figures."
The album's subject matter ranged from themes of pregnancy, rape, and relationships to conformity, child abuse, and suicide. Live Through This went on to be declared one of the best albums of all time by Rolling Stone
magazine in their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
issue in 2003.
Following the success of Live Through This, Hole went on a hiatus beginning in 1996 while Love acted in several films. In 1997, the band released a compilation album, My Body, The Hand Grenade
through City Slang records, which featured material from the band's earliest recordings in 1989 up until 1995— the album featured several singles and live tracks, and was described as an anthology of the band's progression from punk rock to more mainstream alternative rock tastes.
While My Body, The Hand Grenade was being released, Hole was in the studio recording Celebrity Skin
, which featured a more pop rock
style than the band's previous albums. Released in September 1998, Celebrity Skin was noted for its pop rock-influenced style, and received positive critical reaction. Rolling Stone gave the album four out of five stars, saying, "the album teems with sonic knockouts that make you see all sorts of stars. It's accessible, fiery and intimate—often at the same time. Here is a basic guitar record that's anything but basic." Celebrity Skin went on to go multi-platinum, and topped "Best of Year" lists at Spin, the Village Voice, and other periodicals. Erlandson was still the lead guitarist, and now there were Melissa Auf der Maur's backup vocals and bass, but drummer Patty Schemel
was replaced by a session drummer during the recording. The album is noted for being the only Hole album to garner a No. 1 hit single on the Modern Rock Tracks
chart, with its title track, "Celebrity Skin
".
During the release and promotion of Celebrity Skin, Love and Fender designed a low-price Squier
brand guitar, called Vista Venus
(as Cobain did in 1994, doing the design of his Fender Jag-Stang
). The instrument featured a shape inspired by Mercury, Stratocaster
, and Rickenbacker
's solidbodies and had a single-coil and a humbucker pickup. In an early 1999 interview, Love said about the Venus: "I wanted a guitar that sounded really warm and pop, but which required just one box to go dirty (...) And something that could also be your first band guitar. I didn't want it all teched out. I wanted it real simple, with just one pickup switch. Because I think that cultural revolutions are in the hands of guitar players". She also declared, "my Venus is better than the Jag-Stang". The Squier Vista Venus model is currently discontinued, as is the Jag-Stang as of 2006.
Hole toured Australia in 1999 to support the album, then the U.S. on a tour with Marilyn Manson
. The two bands mocked each other on stage. Hole dropped off the tour, citing the obligation to pay 50% of Manson's staging costs as a reason. The singers of both bands told MTV there was no animosity and they were happy to end the tour. Hole finished the year's dates with Imperial Teen
opening.
" called Bastard during autumn 2001, enlisting Schemel, Veruca Salt
co-frontwoman Louise Post
, and bassist Gina Crosley, whom Post recommended. Though a demo was completed, the project never reached fruition. On May 24, 2002, Hole officially announced their breakup amid continuing litigation with Universal Music Group
over their record contract.
A whirlwind of legal troubles surrounded Love beginning in 2003, when public attention fell on her for various arrests and drug charges, most notably after the release of her solo album, America's Sweetheart. Love had begun composing the album with Linda Perry
in 2002. America's Sweetheart, released on Virgin Records
in February 2004, was embraced by critics with mixed reviews. Spin called it a "jaw-dropping act of artistic will and a fiery, proper follow-up to 1994’s Live Through This" and awarded it eight out of ten stars, while Rolling Stone suggested that, "for people who enjoy watching celebrities fall apart, America's Sweetheart should be more fun than an Osbournes
marathon."
The album sold 86,000 copies in its first three months, with the singles Mono
and "Hold on to Me", both of which earned competent spots on album charts. Love has publicly expressed her regret over the record several times, calling it "a crap record", reasoning that her drug issues at the time were to blame.
In 2006, Love started recording what was going to be her second solo album, How Dirty Girls Get Clean, collaborating with Linda Perry
and Billy Corgan in the writing and recording. Love had written several songs, including an anti-cocaine song entitled "Loser Dust", during her time in rehab.
Some tracks and demos from the album (initially planned for release in 2008) were leaked on the internet in 2006, and a documentary entitled The Return of Courtney Love
, detailing the making of the album, aired on the British television network in the fall of that year. A rough acoustic version of "Never Go Hungry Again", recorded during an interview for The Times
in November, was also released. Incomplete audio clips of the song "Samantha
", originating from an interview with NPR
, were also distributed on the internet in 2007.
reported that Hole would be reuniting. Former Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson
stated in Spin magazine that contractually no reunion can take place without his involvement; therefore Nobody's Daughter would remain Love's solo record, as opposed to a "Hole" record. Love responded to Erlandson's comments in a Twitter post, claiming that "he's out of his mind, Hole is my band, my name, and my Trademark".
Nobody's Daughter
was released worldwide as a Hole album in April 2010. For the new line-up, Love recruited guitarist Micko Larkin
, Shawn Dailey (bass guitar), and Stu Fisher (drums, percussion). Nobody's Daugher featured a great deal of material written and recorded for Love's aborted solo album, How Dirty Girls Get Clean, including "Pacific Coast Highway", "Letter to God", "Samantha", and "Never Go Hungry", although they were re-produced with Larkin.
The first single from Nobody's Daughter was "Skinny Little Bitch
", which was the most added song on alternative rock radio in early March 2010. Hole performed on The Late Show with David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
The album received mixed reviews, though the majority of them leant toward positive. Rolling Stone gave the album three out of five stars, saying that Love "worked hard on these songs, instead of just babbling a bunch of druggy bullshit and assuming people would buy it, the way she did on her 2004 flop, America's Sweetheart." Slant Magazine also gave the album three out of five stars, saying "It's Marianne Faithfull
's substance-ravaged voice that comes to mind most often while listening to songs like "Honey" and "For Once in Your Life." The latter track is, in fact, one of Love's most raw and vulnerable vocal performances to date. Co-penned by Linda Perry, the song offers a rare glimpse into the mind of a woman who, for the last 15 years, has been as famous for being a rock star as she's been for being a victim."
The album's subject matter was largely centered on Love's tumultuous life between 2003 and 2007, and featured a polished folk-rock sound with much more acoustic work than previous Hole albums. Love toured Europe, Japan, and the United States promoting the album in the spring and summer of 2010, ending the tour at Seattle's Bumbershoot
festival in September. In the summer of 2011, the band played at several festivals in Russia, and are continuing to tour in Australia and Brazil through 2012.
on her first two films; she gained a small part in the Sid Vicious
biopic Sid and Nancy
(1986), and was then given the leading role in his following film, Straight to Hell (1987). In 1987, Love appeared in a television show Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes
with Robbie Nevil
in a segment titled "C'est la Vie", in which she is dressed in vintage clothes discussing "bag ladies
". Nearly a decade later, in 1996, she had small parts in Basquiat and Feeling Minnesota
, before landing the co-star role of Larry Flynt
's wife, Althea, in Miloš Forman
's 1996 film The People vs. Larry Flynt
, against Columbia Pictures
' reluctance due to her low profile and "troubled" past. Love received critical acclaim, a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, and a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress
, for what film critic Roger Ebert
called "quite a performance; Love proves she is not a rock star pretending to act, but a true actress". Other roles include starring opposite Jim Carrey
in Man on the Moon (1999), and a leading role in Julie Johnson
(2001) as Lili Taylor
's lesbian lover, for which she won an Outstanding Actress award at L.A.'s Outfest
. She followed with another leading part in the thriller film Trapped (2002), alongside Kevin Bacon
and Charlize Theron
.
to create a manga
comic, Princess Ai
. The story is based in part on Love's life, and involves the main character's search for her place in the world; it was written by Stu Levy
under the name D.J. Milky, and released by his publishing company Tokyopop
.
Although Love said she would "never write a book", she did publish a memoir in 2006 titled Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love. The memoir was diary entries, poems, letters, drawings, personal photos, and lyric compositions spanning from Love's childhood up until the year 2006, shortly after her release from a six-month rehab sentence. The book was generally well-reviewed by critics, and Love did book readings in promotion for it.
In more recent years, Love has expressed a great deal of interest in fashion, coining her flamboyant outfits and accessories with the term "kook". Love attended various fashion shows in 2009 and 2010, and performed with Hole at several of the shows, including the Givenchy
fashion party in Paris. She also started a fashion blog titled What Courtney Wore Today http://whatcourtneyworetoday.com. In October 2010, Love and Michael Mouris created an animated short film detailing Love's "kooky" fashion sense, titled The Dark Night of the Soul.
In late September 2011, it was announced that Love was writing a "tell-all" memoir about her life with Kurt Cobain, her Hollywood career, and her substance abuse issues. Love signed a book deal with William Morrow and Company
, and is expected to release it in the fall of 2012.
in January 1989, where Nirvana was playing a show. Cobain passed by a booth where Love was seated with a friend, and she blurted to him, "You look like Dave Pirner
" (lead singer of Soul Asylum
). The two purportedly playfully wrestled on the floor in front of a jukebox
that night. They later became reacquainted through Jennifer Finch
, one of Love's longtime friends and former bandmates, who was dating Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl
at the time. Love told Grohl she had a crush on Cobain, and later sent him a heart-shaped box with a letter and porcelain doll head inside of it. Love and Cobain officially began dating in 1991, and were married on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii, on February 24, 1992. Love wore a satin and lace dress once owned by actress Frances Farmer
, and Cobain wore green pajamas. Six months later, on August 18, the couple's only child, a daughter named Frances Bean Cobain
, was born. In 1994, Cobain committed suicide. In speaking of her marriage with Kurt Cobain, she has been adamant about the fact that she loved him, but in more recent years has been less inclined to discuss it. In a 2010 interview with NME
, Love said she was "sick of talking about it". "I am not his spokesperson on Earth," she told the magazine. "I don't know what he'd be like now; he could be into society girls, he could be into fat girls, he could be homosexual. We don't know, he died at 27."
During their relationship and after his death, it was widely insinuated by the media that Love was something of a "groupie" and had married Cobain in order to achieve fame. Love mentioned in a 1994 interview that she felt "competitive" after having married Cobain, and discussed the media's perception of their relationship. "It's a complicated issue for me because so many people have called me a groupie since I married a rock star," said Love. "I just wish that his band was smaller. You know, when we started dating, our bands were about the same. Actually, Hole's first record [Pretty on the Inside] sold more than Nirvana's first record [Bleach]. Of course, that was before they got huge [...] I married one of the best songwriters of my generation. If my goals were minor, the professional side of my relationship with Kurt wouldn't bother me that much."
Prior to her relationship with Cobain, she married "Falling" James Moreland, vocalist of The Leaving Trains
, in Las Vegas in 1989. Moreland was a transvestite and Love later referred to their wedding as "a joke"; an annulment was filed within the first few months of the marriage. In 1991, Love also dated The Smashing Pumpkins
guitarist Billy Corgan
. Beginning in 1996, Love dated actor Edward Norton
when the two met on the set of The People vs. Larry Flynt. Her relationship with Edward was described as her "most stable". The two were together for several years and were at one point engaged, but separated in 1999. Love was also romantically linked to Trent Reznor
in 1995 and British comedian Steve Coogan
in the mid-2000s.
Love's relationship with her daughter, Frances, has also been turbulent. In 2003, Love temporarily lost custody of the 13-year-old, who went to live with Kurt Cobain's mother, Wendy O'Connor. Love regained custody of Frances in January 2005. In December 2009, it was reported that Love had "lost" custody of Frances again, though her spokesperson Keith Fink told the media: "Courtney's been clean for years and is perfectly fine. This is simply about Frances preferring to live with her grandmother at this time. Frances is 17 and a strong-willed child, and this is a decision she made on her own." In October 2011, Love dejectedly told Vanity Fair that she had no real connection to her daughter.
, using heroin after mistaking it for cocaine. She also revealed that she first tried cocaine with friend Jennifer Finch
at age 19; Finch shot an entire roll of film of them as they did lines of the drug, but Love referred to it as "[not] a very pleasant experience." According to Love, "Later that day Jennifer gulped down a bunch of Dilaudid and overdosed. I had never driven a car in my life, but I threw her in a car, and drove her to the hospital, and the doctors saved her life. After that, I was really scared of drugs."
As Love transitioned into the public eye in the 1990s, her struggle with drug abuse was subject of many media outlets, first beginning in a Vanity Fair article by Lynn Hirschberg in 1992, which alluded that Love was addicted to heroin during her pregnancy. Though Love has admitted she used heroin before she knew she was pregnant, she asserts that she stopped "damn fast": "My daughter knows I did drugs in my first trimester of pregnancy. She weighed 7lb 6oz when she was born and she was healthy. [Kurt and I] were excellent parents and I say that despite pretty much always having an edge on."
In 2004, Love's drug use came to public attention again while she promoted her solo album. On March 17, 2004, Love, clearly intoxicated, was interviewed on The Late Show with David Letterman, which ended chaotically with her standing on Letterman's desk and exposing her breasts. That same evening, Love was arrested in Manhattan for possession of a controlled substance after performing at a concert. Love protested her arrest, denying charges and describing the drugs found on her as "one expired Percocet
and one Ambien". The police, however, alleged possession of oxycodone and hydrocodone
without prescription. On August 14, 2005, Love participated in the Comedy Central Roast
of Pamela Anderson
, and her erratic behavior while onstage led many to believe that she was inebriated, despite her declaration during the show that she had been "clean and sober" for a year.
After several probation violations in early 2006, Love was sentenced to six months of lock down rehab after struggles with prescription drugs and cocaine
. She made a public statement after her release, saying: "I would just like to thank the court for allowing me these 90 days... [It] helped me deal with a very gnarly drug problem, which is behind me... I've just been playing guitar and taking care of my daughter. I want to [take this opportunity] to let the community know I'm doing great... I've been really inspired and have remained inspired."
In retrospect, Love has jokingly referred to 2004–2007 as "The Letterman Years", in reference to her public breakdown and drug-fueled behavior first surfacing during a chaotic interview with David Letterman in 2004. Love has also admitted to abusing rohypnol and opiates. In May 2011, Love made public statements that she was "tired" of her reputation as a drug addict: "I've been maligned as this drug freak for years, and I'm getting tired of it. That's not the way I live anymore. I try to work a good program. I don't do smack. I don't do crack
anymore." Love has credited Buddhism as having helped her through her addictions several times.
in the face during Lollapalooza
in 1995 after Hanna allegedly made a drug joke about daughter Frances Bean, and was sentenced to anger management classes after Hanna pressed charges. The same year, an Australian court ordered Love to "be on good behavior" for a month after she pleaded guilty to verbally abusing a flight attendant who ordered her to keep her legs down while she was resting them against a wall.
More recently, in 2003 and 2004, Love faced several court cases over alleged drug possession and unpaid bills.
In 2006, Love stated that she was planning on selling the rights to Nirvana's catalogue, eventually selling 25% of the catalogue later that year. "I'm thinking about selling off all of Kurt's publishing. All of the rights, everything. It's not a financial decision; it's an emotional one", said Love. "He was the best friend I've ever had, but Kurt and I were only married for three years, and now I need to have my own life. I'm always 'the widow' and that drives me nuts. That money has been cursed since the day it started to come in. It's not really my money."
During the same time period, Love made several public remarks insinuating that large sums of money from Cobain's estate had been siphoned off for several years, first beginning while she was battling serious drug addictions in 2003. Public statements made in 2009 later confirmed these suspicions: "It was fraud after fraud," said Love, "But nobody believed me until now." Nearly 200 credit cards were reportedly registered under Cobain's name, and investigators were able to track cars as well as real estate in New Jersey that had been purchased under his social security number. "I know who they are," Love said. "It had been going on since when I went cuckoo-bananas in 2003... I did a check on my deceased husband's social security number and he has a house in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He bought it last year. I would like to know how. He should probably get his ass back home if that is the case." Love hired private investigator
s as well as forensic accountants in order to find the identity thieves.
In March 2011, Love settled a court case against her by fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir for allegedly posting defamatory statements about the designer on Twitter
.
, I've been Episcopalian, I've tried Scientology
... and I find that Buddhism is the most amazing, transcendent path to enlightenment for me." She has practised Nichiren Buddhism
since 1990, and chants Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō daily.
Love has advocated for several causes, including stricter gun control
laws, reform of the "corrupt" record industry, and gay rights; during a 1997 award speech at VH1's Fashion Awards, Love said "I feel that keeping gay people in the closet with our actions and attitudes is cruel and tacky, and most of all, it's boring. I think we need to respect each other and ourselves, and who we are, and what we are, and not be afraid to be what we are, whether we're gay, or straight, or... insane." Love voted against California's Proposition 8 during the 2008 elections. In January 2011, while attending an Oxford Union debate, Love publicly endorsed her support of Julian Assange
and WikiLeaks
, and called it "a step in the right direction for democracy".
Love is also self-identified feminist, a theme that has not only come across in her music, but in her own persona. Love was written about in the journal Bad Subjects
for her subversive feminism and "slut/diva" image, and her "self-conscious parody of female sex roles", which is often misinterpreted because the public "only sees the 'slut' without the critique of the system that creates categories like 'slut.'"
and punk
groups/musicians as being great influences on her. Such musical acts as Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smiths
, and Joy Division
have been mentioned by Love, including songs by several of them being covered by Hole in live performances and, in some cases, studio recordings. In the early '90s, Hole as a group was greatly influenced by no wave
music— in the initial advertisement placed by Love which resulted in Hole's formation, she cited Fleetwood Mac
, Sonic Youth
, and Big Black
as her three major musical influences.
In a 1995 interview with Kurt Loder
, Love divulged that in the late 1980s, guitarist Joe Strummer
of The Clash
told her that she was "the worst guitar player he'd ever heard", but she insisted she had improved by the early 1990s: "I'm fine... I have my style... and, you know what's funny, is most of the songs [from Pretty on the Inside] are complete Bauhaus
rip-offs." During the same interview, Love said she was greatly influenced by guitarists Will Sergeant
of Echo and the Bunnymen and Johnny Marr
of The Smiths.
In terms of musical equipment, Love has used several different guitars during her career. In 1989 and the early 1990s, Love was seen several times with a Rickenbacker
onstage, and, more often, a Fender Jazzmaster
, which she played in the music video for "Miss World
"; Love's Jazzmaster is now on display at the Hard Rock Cafe
in New York City. In the later '90s, Love played several Fender Stratocaster
s, as well as her own line of Squier Venus
guitars. Most recently, in 2010, Love played a Rickenbacker 360
while touring.
, conformity, elitism
, pregnancy, prostitution, and death.
Her later work was more introspective in its lyrics as opposed to aggressive; Hole's Celebrity Skin and Love's solo album, America's Sweetheart, focused more on celebrity life, Hollywood, and drug addiction, while also carrying on past themes of vanity and body image, and Nobody's Daughter was lyrically reflective of Love's past relationships and her struggle to sobriety, with the majority of its lyrics having been written while Love was in rehab in 2006.
Although Hole's sound changed over the course of the band's career, the pretty/ugly dynamic has often been noted as a consistent theme in Love's music, most prominently in Hole's first two studio albums. In conjunction with the extremes between beauty and ugliness, Love's musical style has also been remarked for its layering of harsh and abrasive riffs which often bury more sophisticated musical arrangements.
and female-driven musical acts. In a 1996 New York Magazine piece on women in rock music, it was noted that Love "had the ambition most people would associate with a male rock star... one thing you have to admire her for is that she refuses— just refuses— to be overlooked in any way." In a 1994 interview, Pamela Des Barres
likened Love to "Iggy Pop
in a shredded antique wedding dress," or "a female Lou Reed
who screams like Exene." Writer Charles Cross
said of her, "[Her work] is not always great art, but it's always interesting art. She is certainly capable of taking her clothes off, crowdsurfing, grabbing some kid and pulling them onstage— and rarely does it seem like artifice."
Love has been parodied and referred to in several popular television shows, most notably Family Guy
and South Park
, as well as a Simpsons
episode, where a cartoonized version of her was featured on a Wheaties
cereal box. In January 2007, Molly Shannon
performed a Saturday Night Live
comedy sketch parodying Love's sobriety.
She has also been referred to several times in the music world: musician Lois Maffeo
had a short-lived band named Courtney Love, which she released several singles with. Love was also mentioned in the song "You Only Get What You Give" by the New Radicals
, and punk band Nerf Herder
wrote a song titled "Courtney" as an ode to her.
Love has been cited as a gay icon by several LGBT
publications, such as The Advocate
, probably due to her perseverance and endurance through adverse situations in her life. Love's devoted gay fanbase was later written about in a New York Press article when Hole released their fourth album in 2010. In the article, John Russel writes:
In 2004, Spin magazine ranked Love No. 18 in their list of "The 50 Greatest Rock Frontmen Of All Time", calling her "a great band leader because onstage or off, she always makes sure we're paying attention". In January 2002, Love ranked at No. 14 in Q Magazines list of "100 Women Who Rock the World". The Biography Channel
called Love "outspoken, brash, and sometimes out of control", and "one of alternative rock's most fascinating figures".
Courtney Love
Hole (band)
Hole is an American alternative rock band that originally formed in Los Angeles in 1989. The band is fronted by vocalist/songwriter and rhythm guitarist Courtney Love, who co-founded Hole with former songwriter/lead guitarist Eric Erlandson...
, which she formed in 1989, and is an actress who has moved from bit parts in Alex Cox
Alex Cox
Alexander Cox is a British film director, screenwriter, nonfiction author and sometime actor, notable for his idiosyncratic style and approach to scripts...
films to significant and acclaimed roles in The People vs. Larry Flynt
The People vs. Larry Flynt
The People vs. Larry Flynt is a 1996 American biographical drama film directed by Miloš Forman about the rise of pornographic magazine publisher and editor Larry Flynt, and his subsequent clash with the law. The film stars Woody Harrelson, Courtney Love, and Edward Norton.The film was written by...
(1996) and Man on the Moon (1999). She was married to Kurt Cobain
Kurt Cobain
Kurt Donald Cobain was an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the grunge band Nirvana...
, frontman of the grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
band Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
, with whom she has a daughter, Frances Bean Cobain
Frances Bean Cobain
Frances Bean Cobain is the daughter of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and Hole singer Courtney Love.-Childhood and youth:...
. In the early 1990s, she also became known for popularising the fashion style "kinderwhore
Kinderwhore
Kinderwhore was an image used by a handful of mostly female punk rock bands in the US during the early to mid 1990s.The kinderwhore look consisted of torn, ripped tight or low-cut babydoll dresses or nighties, heavy makeup, and leather boots or Mary–Jane shoes of various colors...
", characterized by torn babydoll
Babydoll
A babydoll is a short, sometimes sleeveless, loose fitting nightgown or negligee intended as nightwear for women. It sometimes has formed cups called a bralette for cleavage with an attached loose fitting skirt falling in length usually between the upper thigh and the belly button...
dresses and smeared red lipstick. Throughout her career, Love's wild stage antics and subversive feminist attitude have polarized audiences and critics, with Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
once calling her "the most controversial woman in the history of rock."
Love was born in San Francisco, California, to Linda Carroll
Linda Carroll
Linda Carroll is an American author and the mother of Courtney Love.Carroll was adopted into an Italian Catholic family. She graduated from high school in 1961 and gave birth to Love in 1964. After finishing her bachelors degree in Oregon in the 1970s, she moved to New Zealand...
, a psychotherapist, and Hank Harrison, briefly road manager for The Grateful Dead. She had a disturbed upbringing, and as a boisterous teenager was sent to a youth correctional facility after being caught stealing. Later, she wrote for punk-zine Maximumrocknroll, and became a part-time exotic dancer, which enabled her to travel to Japan and Taiwan. A trust fund gave her some independence, and allowed her to briefly study at Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
, and to live in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
.
Her first musical project was in the early 1980s with an on-and-off band called Sugar Babydoll
Sugar Babydoll
Sugar Babydoll was a continuous, on-and-off musical project initially formed in Portland, Oregon by Courtney Love in 1981. The group, which in its latter stages included guitarist/vocalist Kat Bjelland and bassist Jennifer Finch, was a precursor to the Pagan Babies, formed by Love and Bjelland in...
, and then she had a brief stint as lead singer of Faith No More
Faith No More
Faith No More is an American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed originally as Faith No Man in 1981 by bassist Billy Gould, keyboardist Wade Worthington, vocalist Michael Morris and drummer Mike Bordin. A year later when Worthington was replaced by keyboardist Roddy Bottum, and Mike...
. She started her career as an actress with minor roles in Alex Cox films, most notably Sid and Nancy
Sid and Nancy
Sid and Nancy is a 1986 British biopic directed by Alex Cox. The film portrays the life of Sid Vicious , bassist of the seminal punk rock band the Sex Pistols, and his relationship with girlfriend Nancy Spungen .-Plot:The film opens with several police officers dragging Sid Vicious out of the Hotel...
(1986), but turned her focus to music and moved to Los Angeles in 1989 where she formed Hole with guitarist Eric Erlandson
Eric Erlandson
Eric Erlandson is an American musician known as the co-founder, former songwriter and lead guitarist of alternative rock band Hole.-Early life and career:...
. Originally influenced by noise rock
Noise rock
Noise rock describes a style of post-punk rock music that became prominent in the 1980s. Noise rock makes use of the traditional instrumentation and iconography of rock, but incorporates atonality and especially dissonance, and also frequently discards usual songwriting conventions.-Style:Noise...
and no wave
No Wave
No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City. The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre...
music, the band went on to release several successful albums in the 1990s, most notably Live Through This
Live Through This
Live Through This is the second studio album by American alternative rock band Hole. It was released by Geffen Records on April 12, 1994, just four days after frontwoman Courtney Love's husband, Kurt Cobain, was found dead in their home....
(1994) and Celebrity Skin
Celebrity Skin
Celebrity Skin is the third studio album by American alternative rock band Hole, released worldwide by Geffen Records on September 7, 1998 and one day later in the United States...
(1998). Love received intense media attention over her 1992 marriage to Kurt Cobain, before and after his 1994 suicide
Death of Kurt Cobain
Kurt Cobain was found dead at his home located at 171 Lake Washington Boulevard in Seattle, Washington, United States on April 8, 1994. Cobain, the lead singer of the American grunge band Nirvana, had checked out of a drug rehabilitation facility and been reported suicidal by his wife Courtney Love...
. She would later gain recognition as an actress for her award-nominated performance in The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), and she continued to occasionally star in films. Love had a brief solo career, releasing America's Sweetheart (2004), and was the subject of much media attention for various drug and legal issues in the following year. In 2006, Love was sentenced to six months of lock-down rehab and achieved sobriety thereafter. In 2009, Love re-emerged and reformed Hole with new members, releasing a fourth album, Nobody's Daughter
Nobody's Daughter
Nobody's Daughter is the fourth studio album by alternative rock band Hole, released worldwide on April 27, 2010 through Mercury Records. The album was originally conceived by Hole frontwoman Courtney Love as a solo project titled How Dirty Girls Get Clean, following her poorly-received solo debut...
(2010).
Early life: 1964–1988
Courtney Michelle Harrison was born in 1964 in San Francisco, California, to Linda CarrollLinda Carroll
Linda Carroll is an American author and the mother of Courtney Love.Carroll was adopted into an Italian Catholic family. She graduated from high school in 1961 and gave birth to Love in 1964. After finishing her bachelors degree in Oregon in the 1970s, she moved to New Zealand...
, a psychotherapist, and Hank Harrison, a publisher who had some association with the Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
- Love would later tell people that at five years old she was included in a group picture on the back of the band's third album, Aoxomoxoa
Aoxomoxoa
Aoxomoxoa is the third studio album by the Grateful Dead. It was originally titled Earthquake Country. Many Deadheads consider this era of the Dead to be the experimental apex of the band's history. It is also the first album with Tom Constanten as an official member of the band...
(1969). Her parents divorced in 1969, with custody being awarded to Carroll after a child custody hearing during which she alleged that Harrison had fed LSD to Love when she was four years old, which he denied. Carroll then remarried, eventually giving birth to two more daughters and adopting a son. Love moved with her family to Marcola, Oregon
Marcola, Oregon
Marcola is an unincorporated community in Lane County, Oregon, United States, northeast of Springfield on the Mohawk River.-History:The post office at this location was established in 1876 and originally called "Isabel" for early settler Isabel Applegate. About 1900, a railroad was built through...
in 1970. In 1972, Carroll relocated to New Zealand with her family, but sent Love back to the United States after she was kicked out of her boarding school. Carroll eventually returned to Oregon as well and divorced her second husband, later marrying a third.
At age 14, Love was arrested for shoplifting a t-shirt and was sent to Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility
Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility
Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility is a state-run juvenile correctional facility located in Salem, Oregon, United States. Hillcrest is run by the Oregon Youth Authority , Oregon's juvenile corrections agency....
, where it was noted her academic ability was above average for the institution, yet she caused problems because of her "negative, boisterous" behavior. Oregon's Children's Services Division noted that "Courtney has been in search of the family life she has always been deprived of for so many years", and has "rejected substitutes as unworthy". She was moved to over 20 different facilities and foster homes between 1978 and 1980. At age 16, Love moved to Portland
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, eventually working as an exotic dancer, and briefly as a DJ at Portland's community radio station, KBOO
KBOO
KBOO is a non-profit organization, listener-funded FM Community radio station broadcasting from Portland, Oregon. The station's mission is to serve groups in its listening area who are underrepresented on other local radio stations and to provide access to the airwaves for people who have...
. Love has said that she "didn't have a lot of social skills" as a teenager, and was raised by her friends and drag queens at gay clubs
Gay bar
A gay bar is a drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively or predominantly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender clientele; the term gay is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBT and queer communities...
in Portland. Love also took job opportunities working at dance halls in Japan and Taiwan. She wrote an article under the name "Courtney Michelle" in punk-zine Maximumrocknroll: "I wrote three or four of these missives from Portland, all about Poison Idea
Poison Idea
Poison Idea was an American hardcore punk band formed in Portland, Oregon in 1980. The band originally dissolved in 1993, but has been playing intermittently since 1998.-Formation, 1980's and 90's:...
and Rancid Vat. But of course being me, I wrote something controversial and got a cross burned on my lawn. I wrote that Tom 'Pig' was a neo-fascist or something."
In 1981, a social worker discovered a trust fund established for Love by her mother's adoptive parents, and she gained independence,, traveling to England and Ireland,, where she took two semesters at Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
and took photos for Hot Press
Hot Press
Hot Press is a fortnightly music and political magazine based in Dublin, Ireland founded in 1977. The magazine has been edited since its inception by Niall Stokes. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, it had a circulation of 19,215 during 2007...
. She briefly moved into the Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
home of musician Julian Cope
Julian Cope
Julian Cope is a British rock musician, author, antiquary, musicologist, poet and cultural commentator...
and also developed a friendship with Ian McCulloch
Ian McCulloch (singer)
Ian Stephen McCulloch is an English singer, born in Liverpool, and is best known as the frontman for the rock group Echo & the Bunnymen.-Career:...
of Echo and the Bunnymen. Love started her first musical project in the early 1980s, an on-and-off band called Sugar Babydoll
Sugar Babydoll
Sugar Babydoll was a continuous, on-and-off musical project initially formed in Portland, Oregon by Courtney Love in 1981. The group, which in its latter stages included guitarist/vocalist Kat Bjelland and bassist Jennifer Finch, was a precursor to the Pagan Babies, formed by Love and Bjelland in...
that never reached fruition. The beginning of her musical career was a brief stint as lead singer of Faith No More
Faith No More
Faith No More is an American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed originally as Faith No Man in 1981 by bassist Billy Gould, keyboardist Wade Worthington, vocalist Michael Morris and drummer Mike Bordin. A year later when Worthington was replaced by keyboardist Roddy Bottum, and Mike...
. According to Love, she showed up to a concert in San Francisco wearing a wedding gown, and "demanded" to be in the band. She was only part of the group for a short amount of time, but later maintained a friendship with Roddy Bottum
Roddy Bottum
Roddy Bottum , is an American musician, best known as the keyboardist for the San Francisco rock band Faith No More...
.
At age 20, in 1984, Love met Kat Bjelland
Kat Bjelland
Katherine "Kat" Bjelland is an American musician who is currently the lead singer-guitarist of the band Katastrophy Wife, and is the former lead singer and guitarist of the punk rock band Babes in Toyland....
in Portland at the Satyricon nightclub
Satyricon nightclub
Satyricon Nightclub was a nightclub in the Old Town neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, United States, best known for providing a place for local and touring alternative rock bands to play. Located at 125 N.W...
, and the two became friends, often experimenting musically with friend Jennifer Finch
Jennifer Finch
Jennifer Finch , born August 5, 1966, is an American photographer and musician, notable for her involvement in the all-female punk rock group L7.-Music:...
, a bassist. Love and Bjelland moved to San Francisco the following year and formed a band called The Pagan Babies
Pagan Babies (band)
The Pagan Babies were a short-lived American rock band from San Francisco, California, formed by Kat Bjelland and Courtney Love circa late 1985...
, with Deidre Schletter and Janis Tanaka
Janis Tanaka
Janis Tanaka is a bass player who has worked as a session musician and on tour with a number of well-known artists including Pink, Fireball Ministry, Hammers of Misfortune, Pagan Babies, Stone Fox and L7....
, but the band dissolved in the summer of 1985 after recording one demo, largely due to fighting and troubles involving drug abuse. Love briefly played bass in Kat Bjelland's band Babes In Toyland
Babes in Toyland (band)
Babes in Toyland was an American alternative rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1987. The band was formed by Oregon native Kat Bjelland , with Lori Barbero and Michelle Leon , who was later replaced by Maureen Herman in 1992...
in Minneapolis for a short time but was kicked out of this group as well. Love stayed in Minneapolis and got a gig as a promoter for rock shows, promoting concerts by bands such as The Butthole Surfers, but left for Los Angeles soon after.
In-between relocations, Love took classes at Portland State University
Portland State University
Portland State University is a public state urban university located in downtown Portland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1946, it has the largest overall enrollment of any university in the state of Oregon, including undergraduate and graduate students. It is also the only public university in...
, as well as San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers over 100 areas of study from nine academic colleges...
and the San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute is a school of higher education in contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. The private, non-profit institution is accredited by WASC and is a member of the...
, where Love took a film class taught by George Kuchar
George Kuchar
George Kuchar was an American underground film director, known for his "low-fi" aesthetic.-Early life and career:...
and starred in one of his short films. Love later starred in two Alex Cox
Alex Cox
Alexander Cox is a British film director, screenwriter, nonfiction author and sometime actor, notable for his idiosyncratic style and approach to scripts...
films in the late 1980s, but was ultimately dissatisfied with acting so returned to stripping, where she was recognized and photographed by customers at a bar in McMinnville, Oregon
McMinnville, Oregon
McMinnville is the county seat and largest city of Yamhill County, Oregon, United States. According to Oregon Geographic Names, it was named by its founder, William T. Newby , an early immigrant on the Oregon Trail, for his hometown of McMinnville, Tennessee...
. Love then retreated to Alaska for several months where she continued to strip to support herself.
Holes formation
In 1989, Love taught herself to play guitar and moved to Los Angeles. She placed an ad in FlipsideFlipside (fanzine)
Flipside was a punk rock fanzine published in Los Angeles, California from 1977 to 2000.As one of the first and longest running US punk rock fanzines, this publication extensively chronicled the world of independent and underground music during this era. Known for its highly opinionated cast of...
, reading: "I want to start a band. My influences are Big Black
Big Black
Big Black was an American punk rock band from Evanston, Illinois, active from 1981 to 1987. Founded by singer and guitarist Steve Albini, the band's initial lineup also included guitarist Santiago Durango and bassist Jeff Pezzati, both of Naked Raygun...
, Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
, and Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac are a British–American rock band formed in 1967 in London.The only original member present in the band is its eponymous drummer, Mick Fleetwood...
" to which guitarist Eric Erlandson
Eric Erlandson
Eric Erlandson is an American musician known as the co-founder, former songwriter and lead guitarist of alternative rock band Hole.-Early life and career:...
replied. After a cycle of several bass players and drummers, Love and Erlandson recruited bassist Jill Emery and drummer Caroline Rue into the band, which they named Hole
Hole (band)
Hole is an American alternative rock band that originally formed in Los Angeles in 1989. The band is fronted by vocalist/songwriter and rhythm guitarist Courtney Love, who co-founded Hole with former songwriter/lead guitarist Eric Erlandson...
. Hole played their first gig in November 1989 at Raji's
Raji's
Raji's was a rock and roll nightclub in central Hollywood, open in the 1980s and early 1990s. It was located in the Hastings Hotel building. The space had previously been a Greek restaurant called The King's Palace....
after three months of rehearsal, and began making singles
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
on the Long Beach, California
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
, independent label Sympathy for the Record Industry
Sympathy for the Record Industry
Sympathy for the Record Industry is a mainly independent garage rock and punk label formed in 1988 by record industry anti-mogul Long Gone John...
. Their first single, titled "Retard Girl
Retard Girl
"Retard Girl" is a song by American alternative rock band Hole, written by vocalist and rhythm guitarist Courtney Love. The song was released as the band's debut single in April 1990 on 7" vinyl by Sympathy for the Record Industry. The single was produced by Love's then-husband, James Moreland,...
," was issued in spring 1990. Disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer
Rodney Bingenheimer
Rodney Bingenheimer, born December 15, 1947, is a radio disc jockey on the long-running Los Angeles rock station KROQ who is notable for helping numerous iconic bands become successful in the American market. His contribution to the music business has been described as important...
jokingly said that Love would often "stalk him" at a restaurant chain, Denny's
Denny's
Denny's is a full-service coffee shop/family restaurant chain. It operates over 1,500 restaurants in the United States , Canada, Curaçao, Costa Rica, Honduras, Jamaica, Japan , Mexico, New Zealand, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.Denny's is known for always being...
, showing him the band's single and insisting that he should give it air time on his station, KROQ-FM
KROQ-FM
KROQ-FM — branded 106.7 KROQ — is a commercial modern rock radio station licensed to Pasadena, California serving the Greater Los Angeles. The call sign is pronounced "kay rock." It is the flagship station of Loveline hosted by Dr...
. One year later, the band debuted their second single, "Dicknail
Dicknail
"Dicknail" is a song by American alternative rock band Hole, written by vocalist/rhythm guitarist Courtney Love and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson. The song was released as the band's second single in March 1991; however, like the band's first single, "Retard Girl", it was only released on 7" vinyl....
" through Sub Pop Records, and began to gain a following in Los Angeles, and eventually a national club tour.
Influenced by the sounds and style of no wave
No Wave
No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City. The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre...
rock bands, Love got Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
bassist Kim Gordon
Kim Gordon
Kim Althea Gordon is an American musician, vocalist, artist, record producer, video director and actress. She has sung and played bass and guitar in the alternative rock band Sonic Youth, and in Free Kitten with Julia Cafritz...
to produce the band's first studio album. Hole's debut album Pretty on the Inside
Pretty on the Inside
Pretty on the Inside is the debut studio album by American alternative rock band Hole. Released August 23, 1991 on Caroline Records, it was Hole's first major label release after their formation in 1989 by vocalist/rhythm guitarist Courtney Love and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson...
(1991) was released in September 1991 on Caroline Records
Caroline Records
Caroline Records started out as a subsidiary of Richard Branson's Virgin Records label during the early to mid 1970s. The label originally specialized in putting out budget price LPs by mainly progressive rock and jazz artists generally not considered to have a great deal of 'mainstream' or...
, produced by Gordon and Gumball
Gumball (band)
Gumball was an American rock band formed in New York City in 1990. The original lineup consisted of Don Fleming , Eric Vermillion , and Jay Spiegel . In 1992, a fourth member was added, Malcolm Riviera who had previously played with Fleming and Spiegel in the Velvet Monkeys.-History:After Fleming...
's Don Fleming. It charted at 59 on the UK Albums Chart
UK Albums Chart
The UK Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales in the United Kingdom. It is compiled every week by The Official Charts Company and broadcast on a Sunday on BBC Radio 1 , and published in Music Week magazine and on the OCC website .To qualify for the UK albums chart...
in October 1991. The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
referred to it as "the most compelling album to have been released in 1991", and Spin also labelled it one of the 20 best albums of the year.
Love went on tour with Hole to promote the record in Europe and the United States. Several years after the album's release, Love made comments that though the album was "the truth", it was also an act of proving herself to her "indie peers" who had "made fun of her" for liking R.E.M.
R.E.M.
R.E.M. was an American rock band formed in Athens, Georgia, in 1980 by singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry. One of the first popular alternative rock bands, R.E.M. gained early attention due to Buck's ringing, arpeggiated guitar style and Stipe's...
and The Smiths
The Smiths
The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...
. She also referred to the creation of the album as a sort of self-exorcism. Shortly after the release of Pretty on the Inside, Love began dating Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
frontman Kurt Cobain
Kurt Cobain
Kurt Donald Cobain was an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the grunge band Nirvana...
, and they were married in 1992, giving birth to a daughter, Frances
Frances Bean Cobain
Frances Bean Cobain is the daughter of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and Hole singer Courtney Love.-Childhood and youth:...
.
Breakthrough and commercial success
Hole recorded their second album, Live Through ThisLive Through This
Live Through This is the second studio album by American alternative rock band Hole. It was released by Geffen Records on April 12, 1994, just four days after frontwoman Courtney Love's husband, Kurt Cobain, was found dead in their home....
, in the fall of 1993 in Atlanta and released it in 1994, just four days after Love's husband, Cobain, was found dead of a self-inflicted shotgun wound in their home. The album had a new lineup, with Kristen Pfaff
Kristen Pfaff
Kristen Marie Pfaff was an American bass guitarist, best known for her work with Hole.-Early life and career:Pfaff was born and raised in Buffalo, New York, attending Buffalo Academy of the Sacred Heart. She spent a short time in Europe and briefly attended Boston College before ultimately...
on bass and Patty Schemel on drums; Jill Emery and Caroline Rue had both left the band in 1992. Less than two months after the release of Live Through This, on June 16, Kristen Pfaff died of an apparent heroin overdose. Love soon after recruited 22-year-old bassist Melissa Auf der Maur
Melissa Auf der Maur
Melissa Auf der Maur is a Canadian rock musician from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Her career has included 5 years as bassist with the band Hole and she later toured with The Smashing Pumpkins for their 2000 tour. Her second solo album, Out of Our Minds, was released on March 30, 2010. She is also a...
for the band's upcoming tour. Throughout the months preceding the tour, Love was rarely seen in public, spending her time in her homes, or visiting the Namgyal Buddhist Monastery
Namgyal Monastery Institute of Buddhist Studies
Namgyal Monastery Institute of Buddhist Studies incorporates two institutions: the North American Seat of Namgyal Monastery; and a Tibetan Buddhist theological seminary affiliated with it. The two institutions share a dharma center in Ithaca, New York...
in New York.
The live performances for Hole's 1994 and 1995 tours became notorious because of Love's emotional state, described as "part therapy and part eulogy", with Love often altering hurtful song lyrics toward herself, dedicating songs to Cobain and Pfaff, provoking fans, throwing guitars into the audience, and breaking into screaming fits onstage. Disgruntled Nirvana fans—many of whom had been adherents to conspiracy theories alleging that Love had murdered Cobain— threw shotgun shells at her onstage on several occasions.
Live Through This was an immense commercial and critical success. Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
and the Village Voice declared it "Album of the Year" and by November the record was certified gold. By April 1995, it went platinum. Entertainment Weekly noted the album for dealing with "life in the media spotlight, motherhood, being called Nirvana's Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
, the idea that love and sex strip women of their dignity-these and other thoughts are on her mind, and her frazzled, occasionally venomous observations make for what amounts to a shrink session with a beat." Columnist Geoffrey Himes noted the album's reactiveness toward "the impossible situation that confronts women when they are asked to be both wild sources of pleasure and unblemished mother figures."
The album's subject matter ranged from themes of pregnancy, rape, and relationships to conformity, child abuse, and suicide. Live Through This went on to be declared one of the best albums of all time by Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine in their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is the title of a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005.Related news articles:...
issue in 2003.
Following the success of Live Through This, Hole went on a hiatus beginning in 1996 while Love acted in several films. In 1997, the band released a compilation album, My Body, The Hand Grenade
My Body, the Hand Grenade
My Body, the Hand Grenade is a compilation album by alternative rock band Hole that includes b-sides, demo recordings, live songs, and other rarities and unreleased tracks by the band...
through City Slang records, which featured material from the band's earliest recordings in 1989 up until 1995— the album featured several singles and live tracks, and was described as an anthology of the band's progression from punk rock to more mainstream alternative rock tastes.
While My Body, The Hand Grenade was being released, Hole was in the studio recording Celebrity Skin
Celebrity Skin
Celebrity Skin is the third studio album by American alternative rock band Hole, released worldwide by Geffen Records on September 7, 1998 and one day later in the United States...
, which featured a more pop rock
Pop rock
Pop rock is a music genre which mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop music...
style than the band's previous albums. Released in September 1998, Celebrity Skin was noted for its pop rock-influenced style, and received positive critical reaction. Rolling Stone gave the album four out of five stars, saying, "the album teems with sonic knockouts that make you see all sorts of stars. It's accessible, fiery and intimate—often at the same time. Here is a basic guitar record that's anything but basic." Celebrity Skin went on to go multi-platinum, and topped "Best of Year" lists at Spin, the Village Voice, and other periodicals. Erlandson was still the lead guitarist, and now there were Melissa Auf der Maur's backup vocals and bass, but drummer Patty Schemel
Patty Schemel
Patricia Theresa Schemel is an American drummer, most notably known as the drummer of the alternative rock band Hole from 1992 until 1998.-Early music career:Schemel learned to play drums after her father bought her a drum kit at age 11...
was replaced by a session drummer during the recording. The album is noted for being the only Hole album to garner a No. 1 hit single on the Modern Rock Tracks
Modern Rock Tracks
Alternative Songs is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in Billboard magazine since September 10, 1988. It lists the 40 most-played songs on modern rock radio stations, most of which are alternative rock songs...
chart, with its title track, "Celebrity Skin
Celebrity Skin (song)
"Celebrity Skin" is the tenth single by the American alternative rock band Hole, released on September 1, 1998 by Geffen Records. It is the debut single from their third studio album Celebrity Skin and is Hole's most commercially successful single, being the only one to reach #1 on the Modern Rock...
".
During the release and promotion of Celebrity Skin, Love and Fender designed a low-price Squier
Squier
Squier is a musical instrument brand name owned by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation.-History:Fender, under the ownership of CBS, acquired the Squier brand name in 1965 when it bought a USA based string making firm , but it lay dormant for many years...
brand guitar, called Vista Venus
Squier Venus
The Squier Venus is a signature series guitar released in 1997 and co-designed by Courtney Love in conjunction with Fender's Squier brand, under the Vista series...
(as Cobain did in 1994, doing the design of his Fender Jag-Stang
Fender Jag-Stang
The Fender Jag-Stang is an electric guitar designed by Kurt Cobain, of the band Nirvana, intended as a hybrid of two Fender electric guitars: the Jaguar and the Mustang. Cobain suggested his idea for an instrument to Fender, resulting in two left-handed prototypes built by former Custom Shop Master...
). The instrument featured a shape inspired by Mercury, Stratocaster
Fender Stratocaster
The Fender Stratocaster, often referred to as "Strat", is a model of electric guitar designed by Leo Fender, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares in 1954, and manufactured continuously by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation to the present. It is a double-cutaway guitar, with an extended top...
, and Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker International Corporation, also known as Rickenbacker, is an electric and bass guitar manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California...
's solidbodies and had a single-coil and a humbucker pickup. In an early 1999 interview, Love said about the Venus: "I wanted a guitar that sounded really warm and pop, but which required just one box to go dirty (...) And something that could also be your first band guitar. I didn't want it all teched out. I wanted it real simple, with just one pickup switch. Because I think that cultural revolutions are in the hands of guitar players". She also declared, "my Venus is better than the Jag-Stang". The Squier Vista Venus model is currently discontinued, as is the Jag-Stang as of 2006.
Hole toured Australia in 1999 to support the album, then the U.S. on a tour with Marilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson (band)
Marilyn Manson is an American metal band from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Formed in 1989 by Brian Warner and Scott Putesky, the group was originally named Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids with their uniquely theatrical performances gathering a local cult following in the early '90s. This attention...
. The two bands mocked each other on stage. Hole dropped off the tour, citing the obligation to pay 50% of Manson's staging costs as a reason. The singers of both bands told MTV there was no animosity and they were happy to end the tour. Hole finished the year's dates with Imperial Teen
Imperial Teen
Imperial Teen is a San Francisco-based indie pop group made up of Roddy Bottum primarily on guitar/vocals, Will Schwartz primarily on guitar/vocals, Lynn Truell primarily on drums and backing vocals, and Jone Stebbins primarily on bass and backing...
opening.
Solo career
With Hole in disarray, Love began a "punk rock femme supergroupSupergroup (music)
In the late 1960s, the term supergroup was coined to describe "a rock music group whose performers are already famous from having performed individually or in other groups"....
" called Bastard during autumn 2001, enlisting Schemel, Veruca Salt
Veruca Salt (band)
Veruca Salt is an alternative rock band founded in 1993 in Chicago, Illinois. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included vocalist-guitarist Louise Post. Guitarist Stephen Fitzpatrick has been with the band since 1999 and drummer Kellii Scott has worked with the group on and off since 1999...
co-frontwoman Louise Post
Louise Post
Louise Lightner Post is the lead vocalist and guitarist for alternative rock group Veruca Salt. She is a graduate of Barnard College, holding a Bachelor of Arts degree in English.-Musical career:...
, and bassist Gina Crosley, whom Post recommended. Though a demo was completed, the project never reached fruition. On May 24, 2002, Hole officially announced their breakup amid continuing litigation with Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...
over their record contract.
A whirlwind of legal troubles surrounded Love beginning in 2003, when public attention fell on her for various arrests and drug charges, most notably after the release of her solo album, America's Sweetheart. Love had begun composing the album with Linda Perry
Linda Perry
Linda Perry is an American rock musician, songwriter, and record producer. Once best known as the lead singer and primary songwriter of 4 Non Blondes, Perry has founded two record labels and has become a major songwriter and producer...
in 2002. America's Sweetheart, released on Virgin Records
Virgin Records
Virgin Records is a British record label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, Simon Draper, and Nik Powell in 1972. The company grew to be a worldwide music phenomenon, with platinum performers such as Roy Orbison, Devo, Genesis, Keith Richards, Janet Jackson, Culture Club, Lenny...
in February 2004, was embraced by critics with mixed reviews. Spin called it a "jaw-dropping act of artistic will and a fiery, proper follow-up to 1994’s Live Through This" and awarded it eight out of ten stars, while Rolling Stone suggested that, "for people who enjoy watching celebrities fall apart, America's Sweetheart should be more fun than an Osbournes
The Osbournes
The Osbournes is an American reality television program featuring the domestic life of heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne and his family. The series premiered on MTV on March 5, 2002, and in its first season, was cited as the most-viewed series ever on MTV...
marathon."
The album sold 86,000 copies in its first three months, with the singles Mono
Mono (Courtney Love song)
"Mono" is the debut single released by Courtney Love, as a solo artist. Released the week after its parent album, America's Sweetheart, the single was overshadowed by issues Love was undergoing in her personal life - namely her drug addiction and legal problems - and was a subsequent commercial...
and "Hold on to Me", both of which earned competent spots on album charts. Love has publicly expressed her regret over the record several times, calling it "a crap record", reasoning that her drug issues at the time were to blame.
In 2006, Love started recording what was going to be her second solo album, How Dirty Girls Get Clean, collaborating with Linda Perry
Linda Perry
Linda Perry is an American rock musician, songwriter, and record producer. Once best known as the lead singer and primary songwriter of 4 Non Blondes, Perry has founded two record labels and has become a major songwriter and producer...
and Billy Corgan in the writing and recording. Love had written several songs, including an anti-cocaine song entitled "Loser Dust", during her time in rehab.
Some tracks and demos from the album (initially planned for release in 2008) were leaked on the internet in 2006, and a documentary entitled The Return of Courtney Love
The Return of Courtney Love
The Return of Courtney Love is a 2006 documentary film by Will Yapp documenting the progression of musician Courtney Love's second studio album, How Dirty Girls Get Clean, as well as her recovery from drug addiction...
, detailing the making of the album, aired on the British television network in the fall of that year. A rough acoustic version of "Never Go Hungry Again", recorded during an interview for The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
in November, was also released. Incomplete audio clips of the song "Samantha
Samantha (Hole song)
"Samantha" is a song by alternative rock band Hole, written by vocalist Courtney Love, The Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and music producer Linda Perry. The song was featured on the band's fourth studio album, Nobody's Daughter, in 2010...
", originating from an interview with NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
, were also distributed on the internet in 2007.
Hole reformation
On June 17, 2009, NMENME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
reported that Hole would be reuniting. Former Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson
Eric Erlandson
Eric Erlandson is an American musician known as the co-founder, former songwriter and lead guitarist of alternative rock band Hole.-Early life and career:...
stated in Spin magazine that contractually no reunion can take place without his involvement; therefore Nobody's Daughter would remain Love's solo record, as opposed to a "Hole" record. Love responded to Erlandson's comments in a Twitter post, claiming that "he's out of his mind, Hole is my band, my name, and my Trademark".
Nobody's Daughter
Nobody's Daughter
Nobody's Daughter is the fourth studio album by alternative rock band Hole, released worldwide on April 27, 2010 through Mercury Records. The album was originally conceived by Hole frontwoman Courtney Love as a solo project titled How Dirty Girls Get Clean, following her poorly-received solo debut...
was released worldwide as a Hole album in April 2010. For the new line-up, Love recruited guitarist Micko Larkin
Micko Larkin
Michael Joseph "Micko" Larkin is an English musician of Irish background, most notable as the lead guitarist of the indie rock band Larrikin Love and more recently, Hole.-Early life and career :...
, Shawn Dailey (bass guitar), and Stu Fisher (drums, percussion). Nobody's Daugher featured a great deal of material written and recorded for Love's aborted solo album, How Dirty Girls Get Clean, including "Pacific Coast Highway", "Letter to God", "Samantha", and "Never Go Hungry", although they were re-produced with Larkin.
The first single from Nobody's Daughter was "Skinny Little Bitch
Skinny Little Bitch
"Skinny Little Bitch" is the fourteenth single from alternative rock group Hole. It is their first single in ten years and lead single from fourth studio album Nobody's Daughter. The single also marks the first release by Hole not to feature founding member Eric Erlandson...
", which was the most added song on alternative rock radio in early March 2010. Hole performed on The Late Show with David Letterman and Jimmy Kimmel Live!.
The album received mixed reviews, though the majority of them leant toward positive. Rolling Stone gave the album three out of five stars, saying that Love "worked hard on these songs, instead of just babbling a bunch of druggy bullshit and assuming people would buy it, the way she did on her 2004 flop, America's Sweetheart." Slant Magazine also gave the album three out of five stars, saying "It's Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Evelyn Faithfull is an award-winning English singer, songwriter and actress whose career has spanned five decades....
's substance-ravaged voice that comes to mind most often while listening to songs like "Honey" and "For Once in Your Life." The latter track is, in fact, one of Love's most raw and vulnerable vocal performances to date. Co-penned by Linda Perry, the song offers a rare glimpse into the mind of a woman who, for the last 15 years, has been as famous for being a rock star as she's been for being a victim."
The album's subject matter was largely centered on Love's tumultuous life between 2003 and 2007, and featured a polished folk-rock sound with much more acoustic work than previous Hole albums. Love toured Europe, Japan, and the United States promoting the album in the spring and summer of 2010, ending the tour at Seattle's Bumbershoot
Bumbershoot
Bumbershoot is an annual international music and arts festival held in Seattle, Washington. One of North America's largest such festivals, it takes place every Labor Day weekend at the 74-acre Seattle Center, which was built for the 1962 World's Fair. Seattle Center includes indoor theaters,...
festival in September. In the summer of 2011, the band played at several festivals in Russia, and are continuing to tour in Australia and Brazil through 2012.
Acting career
Love worked with director Alex CoxAlex Cox
Alexander Cox is a British film director, screenwriter, nonfiction author and sometime actor, notable for his idiosyncratic style and approach to scripts...
on her first two films; she gained a small part in the Sid Vicious
Sid Vicious
Sid Vicious was an English musician best known as the bassist of the influential punk rock group Sex Pistols...
biopic Sid and Nancy
Sid and Nancy
Sid and Nancy is a 1986 British biopic directed by Alex Cox. The film portrays the life of Sid Vicious , bassist of the seminal punk rock band the Sex Pistols, and his relationship with girlfriend Nancy Spungen .-Plot:The film opens with several police officers dragging Sid Vicious out of the Hotel...
(1986), and was then given the leading role in his following film, Straight to Hell (1987). In 1987, Love appeared in a television show Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes
Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes
Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes is an American talk show hosted by artist Andy Warhol, that aired on MTV from 1985 to 1987. One of the network's earliest series, it was made up of interviews of up and coming musicians such as Courtney Love....
with Robbie Nevil
Robbie Nevil
Robert S. "Robbie" Nevil is an American pop singer, songwriter, producer and guitarist. He is best known for his 1986 Billboard Hot 100 #2 hit, "C'est La Vie".-Life and career:...
in a segment titled "C'est la Vie", in which she is dressed in vintage clothes discussing "bag ladies
Bag Lady
"Bag Lady" is the first single from singer Erykah Badu's 2000 album Mama's Gun. The song is about a woman trying to begin anew in a relationship, but who has too much emotional "baggage" and can't get close to people. The message of the song is to "pack light" and have hope for the future...
". Nearly a decade later, in 1996, she had small parts in Basquiat and Feeling Minnesota
Feeling Minnesota
Feeling Minnesota is a 1996 American romantic comedy film, starring Keanu Reeves, Vincent D'Onofrio, Cameron Diaz, Tuesday Weld and Courtney Love.-Plot summary:...
, before landing the co-star role of Larry Flynt
Larry Flynt
Larry Claxton Flynt, Jr. is an American publisher and the president of Larry Flynt Publications . In 2003, Arena magazine listed him as the number one on the "50 Powerful People in Porn" list....
's wife, Althea, in Miloš Forman
Miloš Forman
Jan Tomáš Forman , better known as Miloš Forman , is a Czech-American director, screenwriter, professor, and an emigrant from Czechoslovakia. Two of his films, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus, are among the most celebrated in the history of film, both gaining him the Academy Award for...
's 1996 film The People vs. Larry Flynt
The People vs. Larry Flynt
The People vs. Larry Flynt is a 1996 American biographical drama film directed by Miloš Forman about the rise of pornographic magazine publisher and editor Larry Flynt, and his subsequent clash with the law. The film stars Woody Harrelson, Courtney Love, and Edward Norton.The film was written by...
, against Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
' reluctance due to her low profile and "troubled" past. Love received critical acclaim, a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress, and a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress
New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress
The New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress is an award given by the New York Film Critics Circle, honoring the finest achievements in filmmaking....
, for what film critic Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
called "quite a performance; Love proves she is not a rock star pretending to act, but a true actress". Other roles include starring opposite Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey
James Eugene "Jim" Carrey is a Canadian-American actor and comedian. He has received two Golden Globe Awards and has also been nominated on four occasions. Carrey began comedy in 1979, performing at Yuk Yuk's in Toronto, Ontario...
in Man on the Moon (1999), and a leading role in Julie Johnson
Julie Johnson
Julie Johnson is a 2001 drama film directed and written by Wendy Hammond and Bob Gosse. It was shown at several film festivals worldwide between 2001 and 2004.-Plot:...
(2001) as Lili Taylor
Lili Taylor
Lili Anne Taylor is an American actress notable for her appearances in such award-winning indie films as Mystic Pizza, Say Anything..., Short Cuts and I Shot Andy Warhol, and the acclaimed TV show Six Feet Under....
's lesbian lover, for which she won an Outstanding Actress award at L.A.'s Outfest
Outfest
Outfest is an LGBT-oriented film showcase and festival in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1982 as the "Gay and Lesbian Media Festival and Conference", the name was changed to Outfest in 1994.-Programs:...
. She followed with another leading part in the thriller film Trapped (2002), alongside Kevin Bacon
Kevin Bacon
Kevin Norwood Bacon is an American film and theater actor whose notable roles include Animal House, Diner, Footloose, Flatliners, Wild Things, A Few Good Men, JFK, Apollo 13, Mystic River, The Woodsman, Trapped, Friday the 13th, Hollow Man, Tremors, Death Sentence, Frost/Nixon, Crazy, Stupid, Love....
and Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron
Charlize Theron is a South African actress, film producer and former fashion model.She rose to fame in the late 1990s following her roles in 2 Days in the Valley, Mighty Joe Young, The Devil's Advocate and The Cider House Rules...
.
Other projects
In 2004, Love collaborated with illustrators Misaho Kujiradou and Ai YazawaAi Yazawa
is a Japanese manga author. Her pen name comes from Japanese singer Eikichi Yazawa, of whom she is a fan.-Biography:Yazawa started her manga publishing life in 1985. She studied in a fashion school but later dropped out. Throughout her 15 years of publishing, she wrote over 10 series in Ribon...
to create a manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
comic, Princess Ai
Princess Ai
is a manga co-created by Courtney Love, Ai Yazawa, Misaho Kujiradou, and DJ Milky , and is published in English by Tokyopop.The story deals with an amnesiac girl named Ai who was torn from her homeland, and awakens in present-day Tokyo...
. The story is based in part on Love's life, and involves the main character's search for her place in the world; it was written by Stu Levy
Stu Levy
Stuart J. "Stu" Levy is the founder, CEO and Chief Creative Officer of the manga media company Tokyopop. Levy also produces, directs, and writes for graphic novels, film and television....
under the name D.J. Milky, and released by his publishing company Tokyopop
Tokyopop
Tokyopop, styled TOKYOPOP, and formerly known as Mixx, is a distributor, licensor, and publisher of anime, manga, manhwa, and Western manga-style works. The existing German publishing division produces German translations of licensed Japanese properties and original English-language manga, as well...
.
Although Love said she would "never write a book", she did publish a memoir in 2006 titled Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love. The memoir was diary entries, poems, letters, drawings, personal photos, and lyric compositions spanning from Love's childhood up until the year 2006, shortly after her release from a six-month rehab sentence. The book was generally well-reviewed by critics, and Love did book readings in promotion for it.
In more recent years, Love has expressed a great deal of interest in fashion, coining her flamboyant outfits and accessories with the term "kook". Love attended various fashion shows in 2009 and 2010, and performed with Hole at several of the shows, including the Givenchy
Givenchy
Givenchy is a French brand of clothing, accessories, perfumes and cosmetics with Parfums Givenchy.The house of Givenchy was founded in 1952 by designer Hubert de Givenchy and is a member of Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture et du Pret-a-Porter...
fashion party in Paris. She also started a fashion blog titled What Courtney Wore Today http://whatcourtneyworetoday.com. In October 2010, Love and Michael Mouris created an animated short film detailing Love's "kooky" fashion sense, titled The Dark Night of the Soul.
In late September 2011, it was announced that Love was writing a "tell-all" memoir about her life with Kurt Cobain, her Hollywood career, and her substance abuse issues. Love signed a book deal with William Morrow and Company
William Morrow and Company
William Morrow and Company is an American publishing company founded by William Morrow in 1926. The company was acquired by Scott Foresman in 1967, and sold to Hearst Corporation in 1981. It was sold along to the News Corporation in 1999...
, and is expected to release it in the fall of 2012.
Relationships
Love's most prolific relationship was with fellow rock musician Kurt Cobain. The two first encountered one another at the Satyricon nightclubSatyricon nightclub
Satyricon Nightclub was a nightclub in the Old Town neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, United States, best known for providing a place for local and touring alternative rock bands to play. Located at 125 N.W...
in January 1989, where Nirvana was playing a show. Cobain passed by a booth where Love was seated with a friend, and she blurted to him, "You look like Dave Pirner
Dave Pirner
David Anthony "Dave" Pirner is an American songwriter, singer, and producer best known for being the lead vocalist and frontman for the alternative rock/grunge band, Soul Asylum.-Biography:...
" (lead singer of Soul Asylum
Soul Asylum
Soul Asylum is an American alternative rock band that formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1983.The band originally formed in 1981 under the name Loud Fast Rules, with the original line-up consisting of Dan Murphy, Dave Pirner, Karl Mueller and Pat Morley. The latter was replaced by Grant Young in...
). The two purportedly playfully wrestled on the floor in front of a jukebox
Jukebox
A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media...
that night. They later became reacquainted through Jennifer Finch
Jennifer Finch
Jennifer Finch , born August 5, 1966, is an American photographer and musician, notable for her involvement in the all-female punk rock group L7.-Music:...
, one of Love's longtime friends and former bandmates, who was dating Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl
Dave Grohl
David Eric "Dave" Grohl is an American rock musician, multi-instrumentalist, and singer-songwriter who is the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter for Foo Fighters; the former drummer for Nirvana and Scream; and the current drummer for Them Crooked Vultures...
at the time. Love told Grohl she had a crush on Cobain, and later sent him a heart-shaped box with a letter and porcelain doll head inside of it. Love and Cobain officially began dating in 1991, and were married on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, Hawaii, on February 24, 1992. Love wore a satin and lace dress once owned by actress Frances Farmer
Frances Farmer
Frances Elena Farmer was an American actress of stage and screen. She is perhaps better known for sensationalized and fictional accounts of her life, and especially her involuntary commitment to a mental hospital...
, and Cobain wore green pajamas. Six months later, on August 18, the couple's only child, a daughter named Frances Bean Cobain
Frances Bean Cobain
Frances Bean Cobain is the daughter of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain and Hole singer Courtney Love.-Childhood and youth:...
, was born. In 1994, Cobain committed suicide. In speaking of her marriage with Kurt Cobain, she has been adamant about the fact that she loved him, but in more recent years has been less inclined to discuss it. In a 2010 interview with NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
, Love said she was "sick of talking about it". "I am not his spokesperson on Earth," she told the magazine. "I don't know what he'd be like now; he could be into society girls, he could be into fat girls, he could be homosexual. We don't know, he died at 27."
During their relationship and after his death, it was widely insinuated by the media that Love was something of a "groupie" and had married Cobain in order to achieve fame. Love mentioned in a 1994 interview that she felt "competitive" after having married Cobain, and discussed the media's perception of their relationship. "It's a complicated issue for me because so many people have called me a groupie since I married a rock star," said Love. "I just wish that his band was smaller. You know, when we started dating, our bands were about the same. Actually, Hole's first record [Pretty on the Inside] sold more than Nirvana's first record [Bleach]. Of course, that was before they got huge [...] I married one of the best songwriters of my generation. If my goals were minor, the professional side of my relationship with Kurt wouldn't bother me that much."
Prior to her relationship with Cobain, she married "Falling" James Moreland, vocalist of The Leaving Trains
The Leaving Trains
The Leaving Trains were an American indie rock band from Los Angeles, California. The Leaving Trains were founded in 1980 by Falling James Moreland, a frontman who became known for his chaotic performances and penchant for cross-dressing...
, in Las Vegas in 1989. Moreland was a transvestite and Love later referred to their wedding as "a joke"; an annulment was filed within the first few months of the marriage. In 1991, Love also dated The Smashing Pumpkins
The Smashing Pumpkins
The Smashing Pumpkins are an American alternative rock band that formed in Chicago, Illinois in 1988. Formed by Billy Corgan frontman and James Iha , the band has included Jimmy Chamberlin , D'arcy Wretzky , and currently includes Jeff Schroeder Mike Byrne , and Nicole Fiorentino The Smashing...
guitarist Billy Corgan
Billy Corgan
William Patrick "Billy" Corgan, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional poet best known as the frontman and sole permanent member of The Smashing Pumpkins. Formed by Corgan and guitarist James Iha in Chicago, Illinois in 1987, the band quickly gained steam with the...
. Beginning in 1996, Love dated actor Edward Norton
Edward Norton
Edward Harrison Norton is an American actor, screenwriter, film director and producer. In 1996, his supporting role in the courtroom drama Primal Fear garnered him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor...
when the two met on the set of The People vs. Larry Flynt. Her relationship with Edward was described as her "most stable". The two were together for several years and were at one point engaged, but separated in 1999. Love was also romantically linked to Trent Reznor
Trent Reznor
Michael Trent Reznor is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, record producer, and leader of industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails. Reznor is also a member of How to Destroy Angels alongside his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, and Atticus Ross. He was previously associated with bands Option 30,...
in 1995 and British comedian Steve Coogan
Steve Coogan
Stephen John "Steve" Coogan is a British comedian, actor, writer and producer. Born in Manchester, he began his career as a standup comedian and impressionist, working as a voice artist throughout the 1980s on satirical puppet show Spitting Image. In the early nineties, Coogan began creating...
in the mid-2000s.
Love's relationship with her daughter, Frances, has also been turbulent. In 2003, Love temporarily lost custody of the 13-year-old, who went to live with Kurt Cobain's mother, Wendy O'Connor. Love regained custody of Frances in January 2005. In December 2009, it was reported that Love had "lost" custody of Frances again, though her spokesperson Keith Fink told the media: "Courtney's been clean for years and is perfectly fine. This is simply about Frances preferring to live with her grandmother at this time. Frances is 17 and a strong-willed child, and this is a decision she made on her own." In October 2011, Love dejectedly told Vanity Fair that she had no real connection to her daughter.
Substance abuse
Love has struggled with substance abuse problems for a great deal of her life. Love admitted to trying marijuana in her teenage years, but was first introduced to heavier drugs at age 16 while living in TaiwanTaiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, using heroin after mistaking it for cocaine. She also revealed that she first tried cocaine with friend Jennifer Finch
Jennifer Finch
Jennifer Finch , born August 5, 1966, is an American photographer and musician, notable for her involvement in the all-female punk rock group L7.-Music:...
at age 19; Finch shot an entire roll of film of them as they did lines of the drug, but Love referred to it as "[not] a very pleasant experience." According to Love, "Later that day Jennifer gulped down a bunch of Dilaudid and overdosed. I had never driven a car in my life, but I threw her in a car, and drove her to the hospital, and the doctors saved her life. After that, I was really scared of drugs."
As Love transitioned into the public eye in the 1990s, her struggle with drug abuse was subject of many media outlets, first beginning in a Vanity Fair article by Lynn Hirschberg in 1992, which alluded that Love was addicted to heroin during her pregnancy. Though Love has admitted she used heroin before she knew she was pregnant, she asserts that she stopped "damn fast": "My daughter knows I did drugs in my first trimester of pregnancy. She weighed 7lb 6oz when she was born and she was healthy. [Kurt and I] were excellent parents and I say that despite pretty much always having an edge on."
In 2004, Love's drug use came to public attention again while she promoted her solo album. On March 17, 2004, Love, clearly intoxicated, was interviewed on The Late Show with David Letterman, which ended chaotically with her standing on Letterman's desk and exposing her breasts. That same evening, Love was arrested in Manhattan for possession of a controlled substance after performing at a concert. Love protested her arrest, denying charges and describing the drugs found on her as "one expired Percocet
Percocet
The combination oxycodone/paracetamol is a narcotic pain reliever used to treat moderate to severe acute pain, marketed by Endo Pharmaceuticals.-History:The U.S...
and one Ambien". The police, however, alleged possession of oxycodone and hydrocodone
Hydrocodone
Hydrocodone or dihydrocodeinone is a semi-synthetic opioid derived from either of two naturally occurring opiates: codeine and thebaine. It is an orally active narcotic analgesic and antitussive...
without prescription. On August 14, 2005, Love participated in the Comedy Central Roast
Comedy Central Roast
The Comedy Central Roasts are a series of celebrity roast specials which air on the Comedy Central cable network.-History:Between 1998 and 2001, Comedy Central produced and televised the annual roasts of the New York Friars' Club. After the original five-year agreement expired, the network began...
of Pamela Anderson
Pamela Anderson
Pamela Denise Anderson is a Canadian-American actress, model, producer, author, activist, and former showgirl, known for her roles on the television series Home Improvement, Baywatch, and V.I.P. She was chosen as a Playmate of the Month for Playboy magazine in February 1990...
, and her erratic behavior while onstage led many to believe that she was inebriated, despite her declaration during the show that she had been "clean and sober" for a year.
After several probation violations in early 2006, Love was sentenced to six months of lock down rehab after struggles with prescription drugs and cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
. She made a public statement after her release, saying: "I would just like to thank the court for allowing me these 90 days... [It] helped me deal with a very gnarly drug problem, which is behind me... I've just been playing guitar and taking care of my daughter. I want to [take this opportunity] to let the community know I'm doing great... I've been really inspired and have remained inspired."
In retrospect, Love has jokingly referred to 2004–2007 as "The Letterman Years", in reference to her public breakdown and drug-fueled behavior first surfacing during a chaotic interview with David Letterman in 2004. Love has also admitted to abusing rohypnol and opiates. In May 2011, Love made public statements that she was "tired" of her reputation as a drug addict: "I've been maligned as this drug freak for years, and I'm getting tired of it. That's not the way I live anymore. I try to work a good program. I don't do smack. I don't do crack
Crack cocaine
Crack cocaine is the freebase form of cocaine that can be smoked. It may also be termed rock, hard, iron, cavvy, base, or just crack; it is the most addictive form of cocaine. Crack rocks offer a short but intense high to smokers...
anymore." Love has credited Buddhism as having helped her through her addictions several times.
Legal issues
Love has dealt with many legal issues throughout her career. She punched Kathleen HannaKathleen Hanna
Kathleen Hanna is an American musician, feminist activist, and punk zine writer. In the early- to mid-1990s she was the lead singer and songwriter of Bikini Kill, before fronting Le Tigre in the late 1990s and early 2000s...
in the face during Lollapalooza
Lollapalooza
Lollapalooza is an annual music festival featuring popular alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock and hip hop bands, dance and comedy performances, and craft booths. It has also provided a platform for non-profit and political groups. The music festival hosts more than 160,000 people over a...
in 1995 after Hanna allegedly made a drug joke about daughter Frances Bean, and was sentenced to anger management classes after Hanna pressed charges. The same year, an Australian court ordered Love to "be on good behavior" for a month after she pleaded guilty to verbally abusing a flight attendant who ordered her to keep her legs down while she was resting them against a wall.
More recently, in 2003 and 2004, Love faced several court cases over alleged drug possession and unpaid bills.
In 2006, Love stated that she was planning on selling the rights to Nirvana's catalogue, eventually selling 25% of the catalogue later that year. "I'm thinking about selling off all of Kurt's publishing. All of the rights, everything. It's not a financial decision; it's an emotional one", said Love. "He was the best friend I've ever had, but Kurt and I were only married for three years, and now I need to have my own life. I'm always 'the widow' and that drives me nuts. That money has been cursed since the day it started to come in. It's not really my money."
During the same time period, Love made several public remarks insinuating that large sums of money from Cobain's estate had been siphoned off for several years, first beginning while she was battling serious drug addictions in 2003. Public statements made in 2009 later confirmed these suspicions: "It was fraud after fraud," said Love, "But nobody believed me until now." Nearly 200 credit cards were reportedly registered under Cobain's name, and investigators were able to track cars as well as real estate in New Jersey that had been purchased under his social security number. "I know who they are," Love said. "It had been going on since when I went cuckoo-bananas in 2003... I did a check on my deceased husband's social security number and he has a house in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He bought it last year. I would like to know how. He should probably get his ass back home if that is the case." Love hired private investigator
Private investigator
A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...
s as well as forensic accountants in order to find the identity thieves.
In March 2011, Love settled a court case against her by fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir for allegedly posting defamatory statements about the designer on Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
.
Beliefs
Love has explored a number of different religions, saying: "I have tried it all— I've been a Christian, I've been a Catholic, I've been totally New AgeNew Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
, I've been Episcopalian, I've tried Scientology
Scientology
Scientology is a body of beliefs and related practices created by science fiction and fantasy author L. Ron Hubbard , starting in 1952, as a successor to his earlier self-help system, Dianetics...
... and I find that Buddhism is the most amazing, transcendent path to enlightenment for me." She has practised Nichiren Buddhism
Nichiren Buddhism
Nichiren Buddhism is a branch of Mahāyāna Buddhism based on the teachings of the 13th century Japanese monk Nichiren...
since 1990, and chants Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō daily.
Love has advocated for several causes, including stricter gun control
Gun control
Gun control is any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of guns or other firearms by private citizens...
laws, reform of the "corrupt" record industry, and gay rights; during a 1997 award speech at VH1's Fashion Awards, Love said "I feel that keeping gay people in the closet with our actions and attitudes is cruel and tacky, and most of all, it's boring. I think we need to respect each other and ourselves, and who we are, and what we are, and not be afraid to be what we are, whether we're gay, or straight, or... insane." Love voted against California's Proposition 8 during the 2008 elections. In January 2011, while attending an Oxford Union debate, Love publicly endorsed her support of Julian Assange
Julian Assange
Julian Paul Assange is an Australian publisher, journalist, writer, computer programmer and Internet activist. He is the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, a whistleblower website and conduit for worldwide news leaks with the stated purpose of creating open governments.WikiLeaks has published material...
and WikiLeaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
, and called it "a step in the right direction for democracy".
Love is also self-identified feminist, a theme that has not only come across in her music, but in her own persona. Love was written about in the journal Bad Subjects
Bad Subjects
Bad Subjects is a research collaborative that operate generally out of California, United States under the name "Bad Subjects" as part of the open access electronic publishing cooperative EServer.org...
for her subversive feminism and "slut/diva" image, and her "self-conscious parody of female sex roles", which is often misinterpreted because the public "only sees the 'slut' without the critique of the system that creates categories like 'slut.'"
Music and influences
Love has often cited new waveNew Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
and punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
groups/musicians as being great influences on her. Such musical acts as Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smiths
The Smiths
The Smiths were an English alternative rock band, formed in Manchester in 1982. Based on the song writing partnership of Morrissey and Johnny Marr , the band also included Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce...
, and Joy Division
Joy Division
Joy Division were an English rock band formed in 1976 in Salford, Greater Manchester. Originally named Warsaw, the band primarily consisted of Ian Curtis , Bernard Sumner , Peter Hook and Stephen Morris .Joy Division rapidly evolved from their initial punk rock influences...
have been mentioned by Love, including songs by several of them being covered by Hole in live performances and, in some cases, studio recordings. In the early '90s, Hole as a group was greatly influenced by no wave
No Wave
No Wave was a short-lived but influential underground music, film, performance art, video, and contemporary art scene that had its beginnings during the mid-1970s in New York City. The term No Wave is in part satirical word play rejecting the commercial elements of the then-popular New Wave genre...
music— in the initial advertisement placed by Love which resulted in Hole's formation, she cited Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac are a British–American rock band formed in 1967 in London.The only original member present in the band is its eponymous drummer, Mick Fleetwood...
, Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
, and Big Black
Big Black
Big Black was an American punk rock band from Evanston, Illinois, active from 1981 to 1987. Founded by singer and guitarist Steve Albini, the band's initial lineup also included guitarist Santiago Durango and bassist Jeff Pezzati, both of Naked Raygun...
as her three major musical influences.
In a 1995 interview with Kurt Loder
Kurt Loder
Kurt Loder is an American film critic, author, columnist, and television personality. He served in the 1980s as editor at Rolling Stone, during a tenure that Reason later called "legendary". He has contributed to articles in Reason, Esquire, Details, New York, and Time. He has also made cameos on...
, Love divulged that in the late 1980s, guitarist Joe Strummer
Joe Strummer
John Graham Mellor , best remembered by his stage name Joe Strummer, was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist and lead vocalist of the British punk rock band The Clash. His musical experience included his membership in The 101ers, Latino Rockabilly War, The Mescaleros and The Pogues, in...
of The Clash
The Clash
The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...
told her that she was "the worst guitar player he'd ever heard", but she insisted she had improved by the early 1990s: "I'm fine... I have my style... and, you know what's funny, is most of the songs [from Pretty on the Inside] are complete Bauhaus
Bauhaus (band)
Bauhaus was an English rock band formed in Northampton in 1978. The group consisted of Peter Murphy , Daniel Ash , Kevin Haskins and David J . The band was originally Bauhaus 1919 before they dropped the numerical portion within a year of formation...
rip-offs." During the same interview, Love said she was greatly influenced by guitarists Will Sergeant
Will Sergeant
Will Sergeant is an English guitarist, best known for being a member of Echo & the Bunnymen. Born in the centre of Liverpool, he grew up in the suburb of Melling and attended nearby Deyes High School...
of Echo and the Bunnymen and Johnny Marr
Johnny Marr
Johnny Marr is an English musician and songwriter. Marr rose to fame in the 1980s as the guitarist in The Smiths, with whom he formed a prolific songwriting partnership with Morrissey. Marr has been a member of Electronic, The The, and Modest Mouse...
of The Smiths.
In terms of musical equipment, Love has used several different guitars during her career. In 1989 and the early 1990s, Love was seen several times with a Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker
Rickenbacker International Corporation, also known as Rickenbacker, is an electric and bass guitar manufacturer based in Santa Ana, California...
onstage, and, more often, a Fender Jazzmaster
Fender Jazzmaster
The Fender Jazzmaster is an electric guitar designed as an upmarket sibling to the Fender Stratocaster. First introduced at the 1958 NAMM Show, it was initially marketed at jazz guitarists, but found favor among surf rock guitarists in the early 1960s...
, which she played in the music video for "Miss World
Miss World (song)
"Miss World" is a song by American alternative rock band Hole, written by frontwoman Courtney Love and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson. The song was released as the band's fifth single and the first from their second studio album, Live Through This, in March 1994.-Origin and recording:Erlandson and...
"; Love's Jazzmaster is now on display at the Hard Rock Cafe
Hard Rock Cafe
Hard Rock Cafe is a chain of theme restaurants founded in 1971 by Americans Peter Morton & Isaac Tigrett. In 1979, the cafe began covering its walls with rock and roll memorabilia, a tradition which expanded to others in the chain. In 2006, Hard Rock was sold to the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and...
in New York City. In the later '90s, Love played several Fender Stratocaster
Fender Stratocaster
The Fender Stratocaster, often referred to as "Strat", is a model of electric guitar designed by Leo Fender, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares in 1954, and manufactured continuously by the Fender Musical Instruments Corporation to the present. It is a double-cutaway guitar, with an extended top...
s, as well as her own line of Squier Venus
Squier Venus
The Squier Venus is a signature series guitar released in 1997 and co-designed by Courtney Love in conjunction with Fender's Squier brand, under the Vista series...
guitars. Most recently, in 2010, Love played a Rickenbacker 360
Rickenbacker 360
The Rickenbacker 360 is an electric, semi-acoustic guitar made by Rickenbacker, and part of the Rickenbacker 300 Series. The instrument incorporates many features standard on Rickenbacker guitars, including a three-ply maple/walnut neck, shallow headstock angle, a thick rosewood fretboard finished...
while touring.
Writing style
Love's song lyrics are often told from a female's point of view, and her earlier work, particularly on Hole's first two albums, was noted for being aggressive and highly critical toward cultural definitions of women and their roles in society. Common themes and references present in Love's earlier lyrics (particularly those on Pretty on the Inside and Live Through This) include body image, rape, suicide, misogynyMisogyny
Misogyny is the hatred or dislike of women or girls. Philogyny, meaning fondness, love or admiration towards women, is the antonym of misogyny. The term misandry is the term for men that is parallel to misogyny...
, conformity, elitism
Elitism
Elitism is the belief or attitude that some individuals, who form an elite — a select group of people with intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes — are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most...
, pregnancy, prostitution, and death.
Her later work was more introspective in its lyrics as opposed to aggressive; Hole's Celebrity Skin and Love's solo album, America's Sweetheart, focused more on celebrity life, Hollywood, and drug addiction, while also carrying on past themes of vanity and body image, and Nobody's Daughter was lyrically reflective of Love's past relationships and her struggle to sobriety, with the majority of its lyrics having been written while Love was in rehab in 2006.
Although Hole's sound changed over the course of the band's career, the pretty/ugly dynamic has often been noted as a consistent theme in Love's music, most prominently in Hole's first two studio albums. In conjunction with the extremes between beauty and ugliness, Love's musical style has also been remarked for its layering of harsh and abrasive riffs which often bury more sophisticated musical arrangements.
Legacy
Once labelled by Rolling Stone as "the most controversial woman in the history of rock", Love's sometimes outrageous behavior has given her a lasting place in pop culture, as well as a polarizing reputation in the media. She has also been influential in the music world, particularly in the area of alternative rockAlternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
and female-driven musical acts. In a 1996 New York Magazine piece on women in rock music, it was noted that Love "had the ambition most people would associate with a male rock star... one thing you have to admire her for is that she refuses— just refuses— to be overlooked in any way." In a 1994 interview, Pamela Des Barres
Pamela Des Barres
Pamela Des Barres aka Miss Pamela is a former rock 'n' roll groupie, author, and magazine writer.- Early life :...
likened Love to "Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...
in a shredded antique wedding dress," or "a female Lou Reed
Lou Reed
Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...
who screams like Exene." Writer Charles Cross
Charles R. Cross
Charles R. Cross is a journalist and author of seven books based in Seattle. He was the Editor of The Rocket Magazine in Seattle for fifteen years during the height of the Seattle music mania. He is also the founder of Backstreets Magazine, a periodical for fans of Bruce Springsteen, and editor of...
said of her, "[Her work] is not always great art, but it's always interesting art. She is certainly capable of taking her clothes off, crowdsurfing, grabbing some kid and pulling them onstage— and rarely does it seem like artifice."
Love has been parodied and referred to in several popular television shows, most notably Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
and South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
, as well as a Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
episode, where a cartoonized version of her was featured on a Wheaties
Wheaties
Wheaties is a brand of General Mills breakfast cereal. It is well known for featuring prominent athletes on the exterior of the package, and has become a major cultural icon...
cereal box. In January 2007, Molly Shannon
Molly Shannon
Molly Helen Shannon is an American comic actress best known for her work as a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1995–2001 and for starring in the films Superstar and Year of the Dog. More recently, she starred in NBC's Kath & Kim from 2008–2009 and on the TBS animated series Neighbors from...
performed a Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live
Saturday Night Live is a live American late-night television sketch comedy and variety show developed by Lorne Michaels and Dick Ebersol. The show premiered on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title of NBC's Saturday Night.The show's sketches often parody contemporary American culture...
comedy sketch parodying Love's sobriety.
She has also been referred to several times in the music world: musician Lois Maffeo
Lois Maffeo
Courtney Love is an American musician and writer who lives in Olympia, Washington. Although never achieving mainstream success, she has been closely involved with and influenced many independent musicians, especially in the 90s Olympia, Seattle and DC based musician.-as Lois Maffeo:albums*The...
had a short-lived band named Courtney Love, which she released several singles with. Love was also mentioned in the song "You Only Get What You Give" by the New Radicals
New Radicals
New Radicals were an American pop rock band active in the late 1990s, centered on frontman Gregg Alexander, who wrote and produced all of their songs and was the sole constant member...
, and punk band Nerf Herder
Nerf Herder
Nerf Herder is a punk rock band from Santa Barbara formed in 1994 by Parry Gripp , Charlie Dennis and Steve Sherlock . They describe themselves as a "geek rock" band, and are known for simplistic modern punk-style songs with frequently humorous, juvenile and pop-culture-referencing lyrics...
wrote a song titled "Courtney" as an ode to her.
Love has been cited as a gay icon by several LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
publications, such as The Advocate
The Advocate
The Advocate is an American LGBT-interest magazine, printed monthly and available by subscription. The Advocate brand also includes a web site. Both magazine and web site have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to LGBT people...
, probably due to her perseverance and endurance through adverse situations in her life. Love's devoted gay fanbase was later written about in a New York Press article when Hole released their fourth album in 2010. In the article, John Russel writes:
In 2004, Spin magazine ranked Love No. 18 in their list of "The 50 Greatest Rock Frontmen Of All Time", calling her "a great band leader because onstage or off, she always makes sure we're paying attention". In January 2002, Love ranked at No. 14 in Q Magazines list of "100 Women Who Rock the World". The Biography Channel
The Biography Channel
The Biography Channel is an American digital cable television channel owned by A&E and based on the television series of the same name. A version of the channel also airs on ONO and Telefónica in Spain and on Sky Digital and cable television in the United Kingdom, a version of the channel also...
called Love "outspoken, brash, and sometimes out of control", and "one of alternative rock's most fascinating figures".
Discography
Hole- Pretty on the InsidePretty on the InsidePretty on the Inside is the debut studio album by American alternative rock band Hole. Released August 23, 1991 on Caroline Records, it was Hole's first major label release after their formation in 1989 by vocalist/rhythm guitarist Courtney Love and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson...
(1991) - Live Through ThisLive Through ThisLive Through This is the second studio album by American alternative rock band Hole. It was released by Geffen Records on April 12, 1994, just four days after frontwoman Courtney Love's husband, Kurt Cobain, was found dead in their home....
(1994) - Celebrity SkinCelebrity SkinCelebrity Skin is the third studio album by American alternative rock band Hole, released worldwide by Geffen Records on September 7, 1998 and one day later in the United States...
(1998) - Nobody's DaughterNobody's DaughterNobody's Daughter is the fourth studio album by alternative rock band Hole, released worldwide on April 27, 2010 through Mercury Records. The album was originally conceived by Hole frontwoman Courtney Love as a solo project titled How Dirty Girls Get Clean, following her poorly-received solo debut...
(2010)
Courtney Love
- America's Sweetheart (2004)
Filmography
| Year | Film | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 | Sid and Nancy Sid and Nancy Sid and Nancy is a 1986 British biopic directed by Alex Cox. The film portrays the life of Sid Vicious , bassist of the seminal punk rock band the Sex Pistols, and his relationship with girlfriend Nancy Spungen .-Plot:The film opens with several police officers dragging Sid Vicious out of the Hotel... |
Gretchen | |
| 1987 | Straight to Hell | Velma | |
| 1988 | Tapeheads Tapeheads Tapeheads is a 1988 comedy film directed by Bill Fishman. The film stars John Cusack, Tim Robbins, Sam Moore, and Junior Walker. The movie was produced by Michael Nesmith, who is seen briefly in the film as a bottled water delivery man.-Plot:... |
Norman's Spanker | uncredited role |
| 1995 | Not Bad for a Girl Not Bad for a Girl Not Bad for a Girl is a rockumentary on women musicians of the 90's from the indie rock music genre grunge and Riot Grrrl and celebrates madness, creativity, and gender play. Tina Silvey was the executive producer. Silvey Co... |
Herself | documentary |
| 1996 | Basquiat | Big Pink | |
| Feeling Minnesota Feeling Minnesota Feeling Minnesota is a 1996 American romantic comedy film, starring Keanu Reeves, Vincent D'Onofrio, Cameron Diaz, Tuesday Weld and Courtney Love.-Plot summary:... |
Rhonda | ||
| The People vs. Larry Flynt The People vs. Larry Flynt The People vs. Larry Flynt is a 1996 American biographical drama film directed by Miloš Forman about the rise of pornographic magazine publisher and editor Larry Flynt, and his subsequent clash with the law. The film stars Woody Harrelson, Courtney Love, and Edward Norton.The film was written by... |
Althea Flynt | Nominated: Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress |
|
| 1999 | 200 Cigarettes 200 Cigarettes 200 Cigarettes is a 1999 comedy-drama film starring Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, Dave Chappelle, Guillermo Díaz, Angela Featherstone, Janeane Garofalo, Gaby Hoffman, Kate Hudson, Courtney Love, Jay Mohr, Martha Plimpton, Christina Ricci and Paul Rudd. The film also features paintings by Sally... |
Lucy | |
| Man on the Moon | Lynne Margulies | ||
| Clara Bow: Discovering the "It" Girl | Herself | voice-over narration | |
| 2000 | Beat Beat (2000 film) Beat is 2000 American drama film written and directed by Gary Walkow, concerning the period of writer William S. Burroughs's life that he spent with his wife, the late Joan Vollmer, leading up to her accidental murder in 1951.... |
Joan Vollmer Burroughs | |
| 2001 | Julie Johnson Julie Johnson Julie Johnson is a 2001 drama film directed and written by Wendy Hammond and Bob Gosse. It was shown at several film festivals worldwide between 2001 and 2004.-Plot:... |
Claire | L.A. Outfest's Outstanding Actress in a Feature Film |
| 2002 | Trapped | Cheryl | |
| 2003 | Mayor of the Sunset Strip Mayor of the Sunset Strip Mayor of the Sunset Strip is a 2004 documentary film on the life of Rodney Bingenheimer directed by George Hickenlooper, and produced by Chris Carter.-Interviews:... |
Herself | documentary |
| 2011 | Hit So Hard | Herself | documentary |
External links
- Official Hole website
- What Courtney Wore Today, a personal fashion blog created by Love in 2010