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Courtney: What's She On About Now?

 
  

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Regrettable Juvenilia
10:29 / 04.12.01
I am highly ambivalent about Courtney Love. But anyway. Can anyone explain who and what she is referring to in the following quotation fromthis interview (which is, in true Love fashion, half genius and half nonsense):

quote:A member of Bikini Kill, once a brilliant essay writer, now lives in a multi-million dollar loft off the monies of one of the world's biggest bands. That's a tragedy.
 
 
Shortfatdyke
10:32 / 04.12.01
presumably she's talking about kathleen hanna, who's in a relationship with one of the beastie boys.

i think, anyway.
 
 
Jackie Susann
10:35 / 04.12.01
'Once a brilliant essay writer'? Love has been bagging Hanna, BK, and riot grrrl generally as long as any of them have had any profile whatsoever, so this comes across as wildly disengenuous, even by Love's (low) standards.
 
 
Shortfatdyke
10:38 / 04.12.01
just read the rest of the interview, though and loved it!
 
 
Ethan Hawke
10:56 / 04.12.01
Is this the interview where she claims she foretold the WTC disaster in her lyrics? I don't want to go the NME site because it always breaks my browser. Damn old Netscape browser! Damn IT department for locking me out!
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:11 / 04.12.01
The problem with Courtney these days is she positions herself as this kind of populist, pop hero(ine), and people like Kathleen Hanna and Sleater-Kinney (note the extremely backhanded compliment/faint praise she gives them) as old-fashioned no-fun jealous art snobs who still believe in the idea of 'selling out'... whereas she has (ta-da!) infiltrated the system and made it work for her.

This is such a flawed position it's untrue. Like, maybe they just didn't want to get the plastic surgery, Courtney? Plus, I love this idea that she even has a clue what's going on outside of Hollywood any more... great, so she likes The Strokes. How 'finger on the pulse'. And y'know, not wanting to listen to Bono's pep talks isn't a bad thing in my book...

Interesting that Kathleen Hanna, for her part, hasn't mentioned Courtney in an interview for years.

On reflection "half genius, half nonsense" was awfully kind...

[ 04-12-2001: Message edited by: Flyboy ]
 
 
suds
11:19 / 04.12.01
a chum of mine in the us really wants a copy of this interview - is it in the nme tomorrow or the copy that is already out? does anyone know?
i can't help but like courtney, but i find her anti-kathleen hanna stance boring and sad. i wish they could get on, you know? it's a shame.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
11:28 / 04.12.01
The interview that's online isn't quite the same as the feature that's in the paper - but it's the one out now, with her on the cover.

And suds, I feel your pain...
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
12:08 / 04.12.01
Some of that's quite smart. Unfortunately, the smart stuff feels incredibly rehearsed. Did they fax the questions to her and get a faxed response back. A lot of that interview seems that way.

And I really hate the contrived (oooh - used a nasty word) way she calls her ex 'Cobain'. Something about it just makes me want to shriek "You're made of plastic! Plastic!" At her.

Then there's the constant, and by now trademark, bitching about other famous performers. Billy did this, Perry did that... I fucked Trent (Trent: Ah... no, you didn't), Billy, and (um) Julian Cope... So much of this has the familiar "I know why you wanna hate me" of the Dursts of this world, but given a certain credibility because she's articulate and female.

And I'm sorry, but Celebrity Skin does sound like a Pumpkins record. This could be a coincidence. Corgan could have written half the songs. She could have ripped off his sound. Maybe Corgan ripped off her sound, and just got famous for it first... whatever. But jesus, at least acknowledge it... 'Violet' sounds like a cover version, for fucks sake.

Besides, didn't she kill Kurt?
 
 
Foxxy Feminist Fury
12:15 / 04.12.01
I. Can't. STAND HER!!!! She's such a fake feminist! Aarrgh. I can't stand the way she claims to have all of these woman-friendly ideas and way of being, and she doesn't at all. What has she done? She got famous riding the coat-tails of her famous husband. Needing another way to maintain fame post-Kurt Death, she gets plastic surgery and makeover in order to be at a cultural standard of acceptable feminine beauty in order to make it in the movies.

The fact that she refused to play with the otehr women on "Lilith Day," as she disaparagingly calls it, to me indicates that she does see playing with the women as not as important as getting to play with the men, and that says far more than her "enlightened" statements do. She's in more catty bitchfights with other female musicians than anyone I can think of.

It's only a matter of time before she's dating a member of the Strokes, I swear.

Oooh, I hate her I hate her I HATE HER!

I do like some Hole songs, though.
 
 
rizla mission
13:58 / 04.12.01
Courtney Love's got this cycle going where she goes SO FAR into self-centred bitching, bad publicity stunts and Hollywood in-fighting nonsense that you think "Right, that's it, she's lost it - officially NOT COOL ANYMORE!"

And then she goes and does something really cool and redeems herself.

It's really annoying.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:23 / 04.12.01
Too true.

Also, one of the reasons I don't always feel comfortable criticising Courtney Love is that a lot of the criticisms you see aimed at her in the press and elsewhere are based on the fact that she's a woman... She only married Kurt for the money/fame, she drove him to his death by not being a nice compliant socially acceptable 'wife' (or if you believe that unfeaible tosser Nick Bloomfield, had him killed), she's exploited his death since, she's mad (er, okay, so she *is* a bit mad, but she definitely gets stereotyped as one of those barmy hysterical women, whereas a male rock star would be lovably eccentric or mad in a cool, ODB way), she sleeps around, she does too many drugs (see the last bit in brackets again), and, dodgiest of all, she doesn't write her own songs (she must have needed a man to write or at least help write songs for her, because after all writing songs is primarily a male talent, a bit like riding bikes or fixing cars).

That's why this is my favourite part of the interview, and the reason why I don't hate her, I love-hate her:

quote:"You've got to be prepared for the names they are going to call you compared to your male peers. Males you may have written for or with or inspired who may be copying you - stealing your moves, stealing your 'bits' or obsessions. This could be Phil Lynott and Tori Amos - this is universal, but it applies most certainly to rock'n'roll from Joplin onward.

"You will be a floozy and a slattern. He will be virile and a ladies' man. You will be a freakshow, a retching wretch, a sloppy drunk. He will be charismatic, vainglorious, a ferocious drunk and Dionysian. You will be indiscriminate and desperate. He will be generous, tortured and driven.

"You will be so 'frail you may break at a mere wisp of wind'. He will be alienated and aggressive. You will be greedy and a control freak too, but mostly you will be 'primal', 'primitive' and 'instinctive'. If not, then you will be 'contrived'. He will be in command, a cocksman, big-dicked, a genius reinventing his instrument with superhuman technique soul magic. He will be natural and a perfectionist, he will rarely, if ever, be 'primal' in the way that you, the female, will always be 'primitive'.

"You will be 'blonde ambition' or a tiny little child or a whore. He will be channeling secrets and battling cosmic demons. Then in my case, sometimes half the lyrics, less or more, are yours, and you're still 'primal' while he's still 'tortured and a genius'."


Oh, and Jack: the interview online was done by e-mail, whereas the print version is half that and half face-to-face/reportage. And 'Violet' isn't on Celebrity Skin, it's on Live Thru This, you monkey.
 
 
Not Here Still
16:35 / 04.12.01
Usual rambling Courtney Love bollocks, I reckon.

My favourite Love moment was seeing her on TFI Friday. (It was at someone else's house - I'm not ashamed.)

It was just after Shaun Ryder got the show time-delayed by being offensive, and they obviously edited so much out of the interview it was unbelievable. It looked like that Simpsons episode where Homer gets done for sexual harassment and ends up on Hard Copy or whatever.

Courtney [looking left, clock 3.45pm] I like
Courtney [looking right, 4.15] Chris
Courtney [looking up, 6.30] Evans.

You just knew they were trying to get the interview to make sense in a traditional 'I love lager, me, Chris'kind of way - and she was being her usual difficult self...
 
 
Shortfatdyke
16:42 / 04.12.01
i don't know much about courtney love, but her comments on women in music were spot on. she ripped fred durst to bits quite nicely, too. and what was that about women being raped in the limp bizkit mosh pit???
 
 
Foxxy Feminist Fury
17:19 / 04.12.01
You didn't hear about that? Oh it was horrible - at Woodstock 99 there were several rapes that occured in the mosh pit during Limp Bizkit's set.

I'll be back with some info links.
 
 
Foxxy Feminist Fury
17:25 / 04.12.01
Initial coverage by CNN, July 99

Interesting analysis from Fabula magazine

I now return you to your thread.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
17:36 / 04.12.01
quote:Originally posted by Flyboy:
Oh, and Jack: the interview online was done by e-mail, whereas the print version is half that and half face-to-face/reportage. And 'Violet' isn't on Celebrity Skin, it's on Live Thru This, you monkey.


It certainly is... my mistake. And 'you monkey' is one of my lines, you plagiaristic... monkey... arse... oh well, whatever, nevermind.

I agree that that's by far the best part of the interview. She's an incredibly articulate, and in many ways, charismatic woman. And it makes sense (see my post above) that that was part of an online interview, because it feels like it was cut and pasted from a handy wee Word document she has for just such an occasion. Still, brilliant writing...

She's still interesting, after all this time. She makes herself so, and is contrived in her approach, but that doesn't eclipse the fact that she's interesting.
 
 
Ronald Thomas Clontle
19:34 / 04.12.01
I'd agree with Courtney about Kathleen Hanna if the same wasn't true of Courtney herself. Beastie Boy money, Nirvana money, what's the difference?

I find that I usually agree with Courtney's most basic ideas, but she herself is a problem, and she has almost no integrity so it's hard to take her seriously. Live Through This is a fantastic LP, though.
I STRONGLY disagree with the person who said that Celebrity Skin sounded like the Pumpkins. That simply is not true, and it is quite obvious that the person who wrote that does not have a real familiarity with the catalog of that band, and was simply making the connection based on the fact that Corgan co-wrote about five songs on that lp. Those songs sound very little like his band, save for maybe the worst tunes on the Machina LP, and the Machina album is hardly indicative of that band's output as a whole.

About Courtney's refusal to participate in girls-only events: This, I think is one of the best things about her. She is dead against ghettoization of both music and people, and that is to be applauded. She's not about separating the boys and the girls, because she knows that in the long run just makes things worse for everyone. She's not about making the opposite gender an 'other' the way that people like Le Tigre are.
 
 
gentleman loser
23:24 / 05.12.01
What? Am I the only one who's read Courtney's internet ravings from seven years ago?

Fun, in a train wreck sort of way.

[ 06-12-2001: Message edited by: gentleman loser ]
 
 
Jackie Susann
02:37 / 06.12.01
This is far and away the funniest thing I have read all week:

quote: I am in no way casting criticism on those females who don't and never will show you their tits, but I don't feel their pain.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
06:16 / 06.12.01
quote:Originally posted by Flux = Wrong:
She's not about making the opposite gender an 'other' the way that people like Le Tigre are.


Do me a favour, Flux - provide me with one example of Le Tigre "making the opposite gender an 'other'". Note: reporting gender inequalities that already exist in society does not count.
 
 
suds
10:04 / 06.12.01
flux, live through this is a great album because kurt wrote the tunes and courtney wrote the lyrics.
and the reason why there is a need for girls only events is because girls were gang raped in the moshpits of woodstock 1999. girls are routinely harrassed at gigs.
i don't think the answer is to segregate ourselves, but if it means *not* being in fear the whole time, and not having to listen to bands who go on and on about bitches (hello everything rolling stone likes) then i fucking applaud that.
too fucking right i do.
and 'blaming' le tigre for this is incredibly unfair. when bikini kill went overground kathleen hanna was treated very badly by the music press of the time, stereotyped and misquoted. that isn't going to happen at a riot grrrl show.
(huggy bear were the pioneers of the grrrl only show i believe, but i could be wrong)
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
14:05 / 06.12.01
quote:Originally posted by suds:
flux, live through this is a great album because kurt wrote the tunes and courtney wrote the lyrics.


Flyboy...I'll answer you later on. seriously.

now about this...why does it make a difference whether or not Kurt Cobain or Billy Corgan had any hand in writing the songs on either of the last two Hole LPs? Does it somehow make the records less good if they were in fact co-written by two very talented MALE songwriters? Why does it have to be an insult to Courtney that she had a collobator in writing the tunes? It happens all the fucking time. Why is it a mandatory thing for Courtney Love to do it all herself? And why would it make her a lesser talent...think of all the bands who have the band write the songs and singer write the lyrics... I see no one question the musical talent of Michael Stipe, Bono, or Jarvis Cocker for doing what Courtney basically did on Live Through This and Celebrity Skin. It's just not fair. Now, I can see that Kurt Cobain not being credited on the sleeve or the publishing as being a factor, but isn't that man's decision (before he died, mind you) to not have his name put on it enough? It's generally understood that he co-wrote at least "Asking For It", "Violet", "Miss World", "Doll Parts" etc... so what's the big deal?
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:14 / 06.12.01
I think you've answered your own question. The world of 'alternative' rock is one big sausage party, and so the press and many 'fans' jump at the chance to discredit a woman who's been so successful and vocal. Nobody ever suggests that Courtney might have helped Kurt write his songs (indeed, there's this whole weird "his songs are about how he hates her!" school of thought, very fucked up), nobody ever acknowledges that it was K******* H**** who coined the phrase "smells like teen spirit", do they?
 
 
suds
14:25 / 06.12.01
i don't think the album is better or worse or should be given more/less critisism because a MALE wrote the tunes on live through this.
i don't think it's a gender issue. maybe i didn't make myself clear. i think live through this was so good because kurt wrote such wonderful melodies and courtney is a port when it comes to lyrics. her lyrics make me thrilled to be a girl, and that's a truely wonderful thing.
flyboy, flyboy, your posts are everything i want to say, but you write better than what i do cause i am but a fool.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
14:32 / 06.12.01
I see that Kathleen Hanna is credited with coining "Teen Spirit" quite often. There was an *excellent* article about Kurt Cobain's life before Nevermind in SPIN earlier this year, and it focused on Hanna's involvement quite a bit...moreso Bikini Kill's drummer Toby Vail whom Kurt was in love with, and whom most of Nevermind is about, apparently.

Suds, I knew what you meant personally, but it just brought up something I've been frustrated with for many years now, so I jumped on it and siezed the opportunity.

and I'm with Suds: Flyboy often says the things I would like to, but can't because I'm rather inarticulate in comparison to his semantic wonder...
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:39 / 06.12.01
Well, suds and Flux, um, shucks, what can I do but shuffle my feet and blush. Oh, and say "no fool youze!" quite adamantly.

One question though: where are you getting this stuff about Kurt writing the tunes on Live Thru This from? I mean it could be true, I dunno, but I didn't think it was gospel... unless you're thinking of Eric, the guy in Hole who does co-write some stuff I believe.

(I haven't read any sleeve credits though, all my Hole albums are copies...)

[ 06-12-2001: Message edited by: Flyboy ]
 
 
Polly Trotsky
15:46 / 06.12.01
Nothing in the sleeve credits. 'Cept as a band they thank Dave Grohl.

Shudder, they may write good songs.

[ 06-12-2001: Message edited by: YNH alef-null ]
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
15:47 / 06.12.01
There are demos of Kurt playing "Asking For It" dating back to 1991, as well as a duet version with him and Courtney around 1993. Apparently there are some rough demos of him playing the guitar bits of "Violet" and I think "Doll Parts".

Kurt's co-authorship of much of Live Through This has been semi-acknowledged by a lot of people from the Nirvana camp...
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
21:17 / 06.12.01
Just to clarify - I meant that I think a lot of Live Thru This sounds like the Pumpkins. And having just read the above, this just may be because a lot of the Pumpkins choons sound like Nirvana?

Not that big a deal, really... No one questions the fact that Love wrote the lyrics, right? And Superfly's right - the alternoguitar genre (especially the American 'soap' aspect) does tend to splurge together. I don't think saying they sound similar is a problem... Nirvana aren't dissimilar to the Pixies, who owed a little to Husker Du, etc etc

What bothers me is the way that people argue that Hole's songs were written by people Love was sleeping with at the time in order to put down both her talent and her ethics simultaneously. Vicious Ad hominem attacks, because they can't or won't attack the songs themselves for what they are. In other words - Me Like Hole. Me No Like Courtney Love. So Me Say Love No Wrote Hole Songs. And Stole Them From Goooood Men. Urgg. Me Make Fire Now, Go Sleep.
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
12:41 / 07.12.01
quote:Originally posted by Jack The Bodiless:
Just to clarify - I meant that I think a lot of Live Thru This sounds like the Pumpkins. And having just read the above, this just may be because a lot of the Pumpkins choons sound like Nirvana?


Um, no, not at all? Have you heard Gish/Siamese Dream/Pisces Iscariot/Mellon Collie/Aeroplane Flies High/Adore recently? I would think not. And it's okay to not like them. But man, it just sounds like yr confusing them with someone else or something. Corgan's a fucking psychedelic guitar hero, ferchristsakes!
 
 
Polly Trotsky
14:06 / 07.12.01
Psychedelic?
 
 
suds
14:07 / 07.12.01
i'm, not a big fan of billy corgan's god complex, personally.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
14:26 / 07.12.01
Siamese Dream = brill.

Everything else = mixed. At best.
 
 
rizla mission
14:31 / 07.12.01
I admit having a certain fondness for the noisier tracks on Melon Collie .. or at least I did in my younger days.

Siamese Dream has kind of a nice sound, but I can't tell the songs apart.

And I really bloody hate all those goth ballads they did like 'Disarm' and 'Tonight'..

So, prob'ly not a bit fan overall.
 
  

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