Album review: Hole, 'Nobody's Daughter'
Courtney Love’s latest comeback began in 2005, when she began writing songs on an acoustic guitar while in a rehab clinic. Five years later, the fourth Hole album is finally out, Love’s new claim for musical relevance after a decade of misadventure.
Too bad “Nobody’s Daughter” (Mercury/Island Def Jam) presents Love striving for competence, a dull professionalism that she once despised.
In 2004, Love billed herself, with no small irony, as “America’s Sweetheart” – the title of her first and only solo album. The album bombed, and even Love now considers it an artistic disaster. As train wrecks go, it was a doozey, a snapshot of a life besieged by drug abuse and child custody fights.
But Love teetering on train-wreck territory is part of her appeal as a rock star. She may not be much of a songwriter, but she sure does know how to own a stage, to prop a stiletto heel on a monitor and command attention. Unfortunately, “Nobody’s Daughter” presents exactly one song that embodies that energy, the howling “How Dirty Girls Get Clean.”
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