Courtney Love's New Album
By B
GRADE: A- for the album, America's Sweetheart, A+ for the lady.
The bad thing about the new Courtney Love is that she looks more like Amanda Lepore than like, you know, Courtney Love. The good thing about the new Courtney Love is that maybe she will save us all. Or maybe she will just die. Of course, Ms. Love herself seems to believe that she will do both, much like the Son of God. Except maybe she thinks she is Mary Magdalene too… it’s hard to tell. Either way, you have to love a good-time gal with a fabulous Messiah/Whore Complex, especially when it is all mixed up with an out-of-control dose of Valley of the Dolls pathos. Let the lady have her Dolls, I say: red, green, et cetera. She has been on the cross for awhile now, at least if we are to believe Passion of the C. Bring her some Dolls, for fuck’s sake! With all she has been through, are a few Dolls too much to ask for?!
I haven’t heard much about Courtney’s new album, and I’m sure part of the reason is that all the fake true believers have already dismissed it as so gay. After all, it was cowritten by the Pink Svengali formerly known as 4 Non Blondes and also by Bernie Taupin, who is, of course, Elton John’s Special Friend. Duh, the haters are thinking, Kurt would not approve because he is such a dead genius and all, not to mention the fact that the bitch killed him. Whatever. People with this kind of attitude are only trying to cover up for the fact that they cried harder than anyone when Mr. John sang GOODBYE ENGLISH ROSE in honor of Princess Diana. Because I have been listening to America’s Sweetheart on the treadmill, and it’s pretty fucking amazing. It’s also good when you are walking home from the subway.
The point of the album is that Courtney is not okay and she’s not afraid to let anyone know. You might even call the record a retardedly articulate cry for help. The best song is Sunset Strip, an insane, sparkly, Jackie Susann Meets Stevie Nicks Spazz Out Extravaganza. Sure it starts out pretty normal—like Courtney Love has been through the Matrix and come out with a few of Stevie’s magical tambourine tricks. But before you know it, it is building to an unintelligible crescendo of total insanity. And guess what? Courtney has completely lost her ability to sing! In fact, it sounds like she can barely talk! As far as I can tell, it’s for real and not a put on, and it makes the song out-of-control good. “I GOT PILLS WHEN I’M BAD! I GOT PILLS WHEN I’M OLD! PILLS WHEN I’M BLONDE, PILLS WHEN I’M DEAD! PILLS THAT MAKE ME FORGET WHAT I SAID!” By the end of the song, her demands for pills are the only words you can really discern; the rest of it is just screaming with a few stray scraps of English here and there. Yes, this is bad news for Frances Bean, but good news for us, because listening to Courtney have a complete breakdown is totally entrancing. I have it on a loop right now, in fact. The only sad thing is that a lot of the lyrics from the liner notes did not seem to make their way onto the final album. Most notable, of course, is that they cut out the bit about “PILLS FOR MY COOCHIE CUZ BABY I’M SORE!” Obviously, my disappointment at discovering the absence of this gem was somewhat profound.
Anyway, I heard Courtney totally embarrassed herself and the American Public when she was on David Letterman’s program the other night. I heard that during the commercial, he told her that he didn’t like her! Also I heard that she killed her husband and that she doesn’t write any of her own songs. But she is a rock star and I am glad for that because we need it. After all, Madonna has totally thrown in the towel, going from pure fantasie ladye to withered old yogafatty. Say what you will about Courtney Love, but unlike Madonna, you can be sure she will never make a guest appearance on Will and Grace.
You may think that Courtney is a bad person. Who cares? The point of Courtney Love is not whether she is a good person or a bad person, because she is obviously at least borderline odious. Sometimes, especially between albums, I hate her as much as everyone else does. That doesn’t matter though, because, ultimately she is a rejuvenating force in the universe, and America’s Sweetheart only proves it. I’m not trying to sound like the vapid Wiccan with the ridiculous jewelry in my freshman year GENDER IN INDIAN RITUAL class, but Courtney Love is not about good and bad. She is about simultaneous creation and destruction and out-of-whack balance. The New York Times thinks she is going to die soon. And when she does, we will all be cleansed. In the meantime, let the poor woman have her Dolls.