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Hole - Nobody's Daughter
CD DetailsArtist: Hole Edition: Music CD Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language) CD Release Date: 2010-04-27 Music Label: Mercury Records Product features: Soundtracks: - Nobody's Daughter
- Skinny Little Bitch
- Honey
- Pacific Coast Highway
- Samantha
- Someone Else's Bed
- For Once In Your Life
- Letter To God
- Loser Dust
- How Dirty Girls Get Clean
- Never Go Hungry (BONUS TRACK)
Music reviews of Nobody's DaughterMusic Review: Linda Perry saves the Queen of Rock Rating: 5 Stars
As I mention in my review for the album Live Through This (which I am proud to say has been designated the "Most Helpful" review of that album on Amazon), I became a fan of Courtney Love way back in 1994 shortly after Kurt Cobain's death. So, though I certainly haven't been a fan since the beginning, I have been a fan for what now feels like a long time, a timeframe spanning my late teens until, gulp, nearly middle age. I can't approach this album without a sense of "ah, youth" nostalgia.
By the time of Hole's breakup in 2002 I was something of a fixture on the official Hole forum which was frequented by Courtney Love herself. Courtney mingled with us, her fans, in the chatroom and on the forum, making us feel like we personally were a part of the process of her unfolding career (on a few occasions she even met personally with fans, even going to a premiere with one). Courtney herself even kindly answered many of my questions on wide ranging aspects of life, from the theories of Carl Jung to her favorite locales in our mutual former hometown of Portland, Oregon. She even, in a personal e-mail, introduced me to Buddhist chanting which I still do to this day.
At some point, however, in about 2001, I saw the writing on the wall and posted on the forum that I felt her career was over, that she would never release a valuable album or movie again. I was told that Courtney responded to my post, but the whole thing disappeared too quickly for me to see her response. Shortly thereafter I received a personal message from the forum moderator saying that Courtney herself said I was being too negative and I needed to tone it down. (Imagine that. Courtney Love wanted me to tone it down. Like I said: ah, youth.) By 2002, Hole was disbanded, shortly thereafter we, her fans, watched in horror as her life unravelled (she was arrested on my birthday of October 2nd), and soon the entire website, chatroom, forum, disappeared. The end of an era. Our online community was gone! I have watched in the intervening years in horror as my prediction proved to be true. It seemed that it was all over for Courtney Love.
I'm glad to say that with NOBODY'S DAUGHTER, Courtney Love has made me eat my words. I'm so glad to write that. Courtney is back. Yes, the first decade of this century was not good for Courtney, or for anyone, but NOBODY'S DAUGHTER puts that all behind her. Due to all that Courtney Love has been through, due to the fact that Courtney (like all of us) is older, the voice on this album is not the same voice as from earlier Hole recordings. Suffice it to say that in her mid-40s she does not have as much energy and spunk as she had in her late 20s and early 30s. The title track is brilliant; I love it, but it's not the same voice as, say, the voice you hear in Northern Star from Celebrity Skin. But there are still songs on NOBODY'S DAUGHTER that are on par with the best of Hole's past albums. The songs Skinny Little *****, Samantha, and the title track, are examples. There really isn't a bad song on this album. They're all great.
And that brings me to an important point. If you do buy this album, make sure -- I repeat -- make sure to get the "explicit" version with that notorious sticker! I made the mistake of buying my first copy of this album from a retailer that censors artists, meaning that many words that I am certainly old enough to hear were removed, and the chorus I heard on the song Samantha went: "People like you, suck. People like me, suck. In order to avoid suffering." A curious message of self-loathing, I thought, though ulimately nonsensical, and in the language of Beavis and Butthead. Eventually, I decided to buy a second copy marked "explicit," and I was shocked when I heard the uncensored chorus of Samantha. Replace the "s" with an "f," and that's the explicit version: "People like you **** people like me, in order to avoid suffering." The entire message of the sentence, and actually the entire song, is altered by changing that one letter. And, best of all, it actually makes sense! (Again, something of a Buddhist theme: they do it in order to avoid suffering. Like the Buddha said, all life is suffering.) That uncensored howl on Samantha is on par with classic Hole, on par with "go on, take everything" or "they bought and sold it, now it's gone!"
I actually hesitated to buy NOBODY'S DAUGHTER at first because, to be honest, even though this is a great album, it just doesn't feel like a "Hole" album. The band always had a rotating membership, but there were always the two mainstays of Courtney and Eric. The other two members were always female, of course. With Eric gone, and all the rest of the band being male (albeit males in their early 20s), it feels more like Courtney Love and her backup band. That's most likely because, well, it is. The decision to use the "Hole" moniker is most likely an attempt to put the emphasis back on the music and distance the music from Courtney's by now tabloid reputation, as well as to distance the music from the failure of the album Americas Sweetheart which was, of course, released as a "Courtney Love" album. I think it would be more appropriate if NOBODY'S DAUGHTER was released by a band called "Courtney and Linda," because producer Linda Perry said she was determined to "save the Queen of Rock." I'm glad to say she succeeded.
More Nobody's Daughter free music reviews: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Description of Nobody's DaughterNOBODY'S DAUGHTER is the first album by Hole in more than a decade (since 1998's three-time Grammy-nominated Celebrity Skin). It also marks Courtney's first record since her solo album America's Sweetheart of 2004 (with "Mono" and "Hold On To Me," both songs co-written with Linda Perry, who co-wrote the bulk of that album's songs with Courtney).
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