Courtney Love: The wild prima donna of grunge turns 60

Courtney Love
The wild prima donna of grunge turns 60

April 5, 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the death of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain (1967-1994). After his tragic passing, his widow Courtney Love (60) – real name Courtney Michelle Harrison – was in the media spotlight for several years and regularly caused a stir with scandalous headlines. The grunge musician with the loose tongue repeatedly ended up in court for drug offenses, charges of physical assault or defamation. A low point was the loss of custody of her daughter Frances Bean Cobain (31) in 2009.

In addition, Courtney Love quickly became a perfect hate figure and projection screen for many Nirvana fans. This began at an official memorial service for her late husband Kurt, where Love read out part of his suicide note, in her preface angrily called an “asshole” and asked the guests present to repeat the swear word in unison.

Within a very short time, she fell out with the surviving Nirvana members Dave Grohl (55) and Krist Novoselic (59), with whom she had signed a contract in 1997 to jointly manage the band’s legacy. As the magazine “Far Out” reportsCourtney Love took the view that the two were essentially not entitled to any share in the music rights, since Nirvana was “the living manifestation of the creative vision, personal will and life force of a single, unique individual”, namely Kurt Cobain.

Unpredictable grunge prima donna

“According to Laut.de Grohl and Novoselic accused the litigious widow of only being interested in “securing more money for Love’s prima donna lifestyle” and of her behavior being just another example of her “unreasonable, unruly, capricious, self-centered, contradictory and unpredictable behavior.” After Love sold Kurt Cobain’s diaries to a publisher in 2002 for an alleged sum of four million US dollars, many Cobain followers finally considered her to be an evil black widow who was ruthlessly plundering the legacy of the deceased grunge icon.

Courtney Love was always aware that, not just since Cobain’s death, some fans saw her as a bad influence on the singer and the future fate of Nirvana. According to “Far Out” she observed that marrying Cobain in February 1992 “created a mythology around me that I had not expected for myself. I was seen in a certain light – a reviled light that made Yoko Ono look like Pollyanna – and I could not stop it.”

“Yes, I am absolutely unbearable”

Courtney Love revealed that she has nothing against her reputation as an unpredictable rock’n’roll scarecrow in one of her recent interviews with “The Standard” in April 2024. “People always said I was so difficult,” she said. “They said I was obnoxious. Yes, I am absolutely obnoxious, and I will never apologize for that. I always wanted to be known as a bitch. It was never my thing to be liked. Kurt wanted to be liked, but I didn’t. He could hide behind me, but then I was hated.” After his death, the hatred for her reached a “whole new level.”

Grunge icon in deep sleep

Unfortunately, in the widow-bashing that has been going on for three decades now, it is increasingly being forgotten that Courtney Love is a brilliant musician who played a decisive role in shaping the grunge era of the 1990s as a singer in bands such as Babes in Toyland and Hole. After Cobain’s death, her musical career increasingly came to a standstill.

Her band Hole broke up in 2002 after internal disputes and a long period of inactivity. In 2010, Love made a half-hearted attempt to revive the project, released a final album with the title “Nobody’s Daughter” with a completely new line-up and went on tour again. Since then, rumors have been circulating about a possible upcoming Hole reunion with the original line-up.

In 2004 she released her only solo album to date, “America’s Sweetheart”, which was received with little enthusiasm by critics and her remaining fans and sold moderately. But the artist herself also looks back on the work with critical eyes. In a from “Rolling Stone” In Loves’ Instagram comment on the 2021 album, she writes: “Maybe one day I won’t hate this record. There are some good songs on it. But just like Steve Coogan or Crack, it’s one of the biggest embarrassments of my life.”

Recurring comeback rumors

Over the past twenty years, Love has repeatedly announced another solo album with which she could rock out the supposed “embarrassment” of her first album, but it has not yet been released. As the magazine “Exclaim” reportsthe last time such an announcement was made was in October 2023, when the musician promised nothing less than “the longest album in the history of rock” for the upcoming Christmas season. But this time too, her fans had to make do without new music from Courtney Love.

However, recent reports from 2024 raise hopes that a Hole reunion might still happen soon. Report from the music magazine “Visions” According to a photo posted on Instagram in mid-July of Love and Hole bassist Melissa auf der Maur (52) in a studio suggests that there might actually be a new album – and a grandiose comeback for the grunge veteran.

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