On its final track,
Nobody's Daughter's "Never Go Hungry" sees Courtney Love saying that "I don't care what I have to pretend", and unfortunately, she didn't. Hole's fourth studio, Nobody's Daughter, though an accumulation of cheesy powerpop numbers and sodomised with an overload of production, isn't all that bad.
The record, which began as Love's second solo album
How Dirty Girls Get Clean in 2005, has been in the making five years after being completed in 2007 and scrapped four times since its original incarnation as a humble folk rock record, and reworked as a Hole album since January 2009. One year of studio time later, and this is the result. A collection of both heartbreak and acerbic love songs to juvenile modern rock numbers.
Nobody's Daughter begins with the title track, which - though it has some rather bad attempts to recreate Love's former lyrics ("live inside this black web that you have spun / greed, your bile is miles away") - is a brilliant redemption song. It follows a basic progression but it's climax is the unusual and derigueur dark bridges (accompanied by cellos) which add a certain ambience to the otherwise upbeat record. It's ending is a soothing eulogy that contrasts the succeeding track "Skinny Little Bitch", but leeches from the similar ending to Hole's "Reasons to Be Beautiful" from 1998's
Celebrity Skin."Skinny Little Bitch" is a horrid attempt at modern rock with a hint of grunge revival. With music leeching from Hole's "Plump", lyrics from Ms. Love attempting to be "hardcore", and production from Michael Beinhorn - enough said in the name alone - it was set to be a trainwreck. It does the album no favours, yet continues to thrive as its first single... probably because all the Hole kiddies will eat it up. The production leaves a lot to be desired, it sounds prostethic and comes straight from a bad Lady Gaga remix. The only positive side would be the bass work, which is heavy and carries a certain twang about it.
Doing the previous song some justice is "Honey", the "widow song" Love never wanted to write. Needless to say, it holds a certain aesthic tone to it though alike most of the record, the production sorely decreases the song's chances of reaching its full potential. It is an earnest number, but there is something missing from the song, or perhaps something is added that doesn't need to be there. Perhaps a fully acoustic version would of worked better.
Threading along similar lines as "Honey", "Pacific Coast Highway" is one of the songs from Love's
How Dirty Girls Get Clean album. Yet another honest number, it has an upbeat tone in comparison to Love's original version which easily ranks a five star rating for any song she has composed. Without the help of Billy Corgan, however, this version has holes in it - no pun intended! Not only do the contrasting musicial and lyrical aspects make it sound "off", but the addition of the "miles and miles of regret" bridge (which also includes Hole's first song with a solo) sounds like a completely different song. Nevertheless, "Pacific Coast Highway" is one of the few songs where Love's vocals sound real and not as faux as the excuse of a song that is "Skinny Little Bitch."
Up next is "Samantha", one of the few songs that had potential. Though it is a solidly-produced song (thanks to Billy Pumpkins and Linda Perry), this version has been studioraped. To classify it as "dissapointing" would be an understatement, due to the incompetent production of lead guitarist Micko Larkin and overperfection of Michael Beinhorn, it has been butchered by post-modern techniques of performance and production. The bridge ("people like you fuck people like me") is a prime example, with the band sounding like Green Day, and Love trying to revamp the repetative nostalgia that is so brilliantly conveyed in 1994's "Miss World." This song deserves the skip button on any media player, portable music device, or stereo every time.
Thankfully, it is followed by a beautiful number and one of the album's highlight songs. "Someone Else's Bed" is a disturbingly melancholic number, similar in some respects to Marianne Faithfull, and with Love being as honest as ever. Lonliness, shame, unrequited love - it's all here, and that is what makes a song. Not only the standard - but poignant - composition, but the major themes that sit with the listener. It is a far cry from the rest of the album, which is a deliberate attempt to be a modern rock album and rejuice Hole's former glory, it is a refreshment from the philistine "Skinny Little Bitch." If one decent song remains from Hole's
Nobody's Daughter, it would be this.
"For Once In Your Life" follows, which is yet another leftover from
How Dirty Girls Get Clean. Though, ala "Pacific Coast Highway", the upbeatness of the music (which resembles British powerpop from the early '90s, which is never a bad thing!) contrasts the darker lyrics. The parade-like drums within the second verse make the new form of composition laughable, for lack of a better word. It has a rather cheesy feel throughout, yet the poetry demonstrated through the lyrics is worth a listen.
And to follow is "Letter To God." As far as the redemption theme goes, this one ranks very, very high. There's no poetic feel about it, its lyrics are blunt and to the point and arouse a certain sympathy for a figure who has been butchered in the media. With the composition following along the lines of Christina Agueleria's "Beautiful" it does not leave an impression, however, the lyrics (which include "I never wanted to be some kind of comic relief / I've been tortured and scorned since the day that I was born, but I don't know who I am") alike "For Once In Your Life" make the song somewhat listenable. Production-wise, the lack of piano takes away from the subtle tone and heavy bass does not work well for such a sober song.
Moving on from soberity to what could only be a song composed "happy in the haze of a drunken hour", as Morrissey would say. The juvenile and horrific "Loser Dust" is everything the album shouldn't of been. Petty lyrics, an ugly form of composition and performance, and what the fuck is loser dust anyway? There's no point, if any, whatsoever to explain the complete amatuerism of the song. From a "nutshell" point of view though, llet's just say if you had 12-year-old girls in a bedroom listening to the likes of Ke$ha and handed them a guitar, this would be the result.
"How Dirty Girls Get Clean", one of the first songs written for the album and title of the original album, follows and provides a sturdy finale before "Never Go Hungry." Starting off with rough vocals and a clean acoustic guitar, the song explodes during the chorus where everything melts together perfectly. The heaviness of the song builds further throughout and Ms. Love allows us to "listen to my torment / listen to my pain." Needless to say, it's expressed in a positive way.
Bringing the album to a beautiful close is "Never Go Hungry." Straight from the original 2006/2007 sessions with Linda Perry, the folkesque number is the greatest song Courtney Love has ever written, and I will never regret saying that. It carries Bob Dylan's roughness and sincerity with Joan Baez's soothfulness. Taking from Scarlett O'Hara's words, the song could not have been a better closer to a somewhat mediocre album. "Never Go Hungry" is everything this album should have been, but ultimately, wasn't. Redemption incarnate, and as honest as fuck, "Never Go Hungry" sees Love survive "from the fires of hell, I am alive", she cries.
Aside from the deathly mediocrity of the album, barre "Nobody's Daughter", "Someone Else's Bed" and "Never Go Hungry", there are a number of other non-musical flaws within
Nobody's Daughter. First and foremost was the decision for Courtney Love to use the name Hole to satisfy needs for commercial and critical success (or at least positive response), replacing the members of Hole with 20-something half-decent musicians (with the exception of drummer Stu Fisher) and dismissing Eric Erlandson who is - in all respects - the core of the band we once knew as Hole. Also, the five years and four album scraps it took to get the album released and not only that, but the decision to turn it from a humble folk rock album inspired by Dylan's
Blood on the Tracks to a modern rock cliché. The production of the album leaves much to be desired, whether or not Michael Beinhorn was trying to reach a new level of production or the incompetence of Micko Larkin directed Beinhorn's work another direction is still to be seen... and probably will never be seen.
Aside from the non-musical bias of my own opinion,
Nobody's Daughter is an "alright" album. Though it is not an honourable piece of a rock music history, it's not exactly something to chuck straight out after one listen. One would need to listen with an open mind and an open heart to feel the raw emotion conveyed throughout some songs. Not brilliant by any means, but a respectable record.
67/100 /
