I'm hardly a Courtney Love hater. Whenever I
indulge in a Love takedown, I make it a point to say that
Live Through This is
one of the greatest albums of all time, and certainly among the five best of the nineties. Yet as was made clear in a
recent appearance on Howard Stern, Courtney Love has lost it. And now comes this delicious poison-pen review, from the
Washington Post, of Hole's 9:30 Club show last Sunday. Read it all
here, but this sums up the tone of the piece:
When Love did get around to singing, her voice sounded as if something had died in her throat. Love has a blood-curdling howl, by far her most effective asset as a performer. She should have used it more on Sunday. During the choruses of "Miss World" and "Violet" -- two of her best and most popular songs -- she turned the microphone to the crowd and didn't bother singing. Other times she skipped lines in order to cough or take a sip of water or just . . . not sing. Of the nearly 30 songs (or song fragments), not even a handful were completed without some minor disaster.
Love took a request for "Rock Star" despite admitting that she didn't remember how to play it. She stumbled through half the song without strumming one correct chord. She played a new song, "Pretty Your Whole Life." It was bad. Half an hour later, she played it again. It was worse.
I'm hardly a Courtney Love hater. Whenever I indulge in a Love takedown, I make it a point to say that Live Through This is one of the greatest albums of all time, and certainly among the five best of the nineties. Yet as was made clear in a recent appearance on Howard Stern, Courtney Love has lost it. And now comes this delicious poison-pen review, from the Washington Post, of Hole's 9:30 Club show last Sunday. Read it all here, but this sums up the tone of the piece: