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160-588: Courtney Michelle Love ( née Harrison ; born July 9, 1964) is an American singer, guitarist, songwriter, and actress. A figure in the alternative and grunge scenes of the 1990s, her career has spanned four decades. She rose to prominence as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the alternative rock band Hole , which she formed in 1989. Love has drawn public attention for her uninhibited live performances and confrontational lyrics, as well as her highly publicized personal life following her marriage to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain . In 2020, NME named her one of
320-584: A Dharma Bums show in Portland, while Love's bandmate Eric Erlandson said that he and Love were introduced to Cobain in a parking lot after a concert at the Hollywood Palladium on May 17, 1991. In late 1991, Love and Cobain became re-acquainted through Jennifer Finch , one of Love's friends and former bandmates. Love and Cobain were a couple by 1992. Just marrying [him] created a mythology around me that I didn't expect for myself, because I had
480-745: A Golden Globe Award nomination for her performance as Althea Leasure in Miloš Forman 's The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), which established her as a mainstream actress. The following year, Hole's third album, Celebrity Skin (1998), was nominated for three Grammy Awards . Love continued to work as an actress into the early 2000s, appearing in big-budget pictures such as Man on the Moon (1999) and Trapped (2002), before releasing her first solo album, America's Sweetheart , in 2004. The subsequent several years were marred with publicity surrounding Love's legal troubles and drug relapse, which resulted in
640-466: A Gwar concert. Love named the band Hole after a line from Euripides ' Medea ("There is a hole that pierces right through me") and a conversation in which her mother told her that she could not live her life "with a hole running through her". On July 23, 1989, Love married Leaving Trains vocalist James Moreland in Las Vegas; the marriage was annulled the same year. She later said that Moreland
800-835: A Siouxsie Sioux -style vocal. After meeting Kat Bjelland at the Satyricon nightclub in 1984, the two formed the group the Pagan Babies . Love asked Bjelland to start the band with her as a guitarist, and the two moved to San Francisco in June 1985, where they recruited bassist Jennifer Finch and drummer Janis Tanaka . According to Bjelland, "[Courtney] didn't play an instrument at the time" aside from keyboards, so Bjelland would transcribe Love's musical ideas on guitar for her. The group played several house shows and recorded one 4-track demo before disbanding in late 1985. After Pagan Babies, Love moved to Minneapolis, where Bjelland had formed
960-606: A foundling hospital , but reclaimed her shortly after. Paula was largely raised by relatives and friends in the United States and Cuba, until around age seven, when she briefly lived with Paul and Elsie in Los Angeles, where the couple had relocated to pursue screenwriting in Hollywood. Paula recalled that her father was a "far-gone alcoholic, bent on placating Elsie and just about everybody else," though she stated he
1120-563: A gender-free household with "no dresses, no patent leather shoes, no canopy beds, nothing". Love attended a Montessori school in Eugene, Oregon , where she struggled academically and socially. She has said that she began seeing psychiatrists at "like, [age] three. Observational therapy. TM for tots. You name it, I've been there." At age nine, a psychologist noted that she exhibited signs of autism , among them tactile defensiveness . Love commented in 1995: "When I talk about being introverted, I
1280-524: A limited liability company , Nirvana LLC, to manage Nirvana's business dealings. In June 2001, Love filed a lawsuit to dissolve it, blocking the release of unreleased Nirvana material and delaying the release of the Nirvana compilation With the Lights Out . Grohl and Novoselic sued Love, calling her "irrational, mercurial, self-centered, unmanageable, inconsistent and unpredictable". She responded with
1440-711: A peep show in Times Square and squatted at the ABC No Rio social center and Pyramid Club in the East Village . That year, Cox cast her in a leading role in his film Straight to Hell (1987), a Spaghetti Western starring Joe Strummer , Dennis Hopper , and Grace Jones , shot in Spain in 1986. The film was poorly reviewed by critics, but it caught the attention of Andy Warhol , who featured Love in an episode of Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes . She also had
1600-424: A "jaw-dropping act of artistic will and a fiery, proper follow-up to 1994's Live Through This " and awarded it eight out of ten, while Amy Phillips of The Village Voice wrote: "[Love is] willing to act out the dream of every teenage brat who ever wanted to have a glamorous, high-profile hissyfit, and she turns those egocentric nervous breakdowns into art. Sure, the art becomes less compelling when you've been pulling
1760-484: A confessional tone. Rites of Spring has been described as the first "emo" band. Former Minor Threat singer Ian MacKaye founded Dischord Records which became the center for the city's emo scene. Gothic rock developed out of late-1970s British post-punk . With a reputation as the "darkest and gloomiest form of underground rock", gothic rock uses a synthesizer-and-guitar based sound drawn from post-punk to construct "foreboding, sorrowful, often epic soundscapes", and
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#17327976586481920-661: A controlled substance, violating her probation . To avoid jail time, she accepted an additional 180-day rehab sentence in September 2005. In November 2005, after completing the program, Love was discharged from the rehab center under the provision that she complete further outpatient rehab. In subsequent interviews, Love said she had been addicted to substances including prescription drugs, cocaine , and crack cocaine . She said she had been sober since completing rehabilitation in 2007, and cited her Soka Gakkai Buddhist practice (which she began in 1988) as integral to her sobriety. In
2080-420: A custody hearing, her mother, as well as one of her father's girlfriends, testified that Hank had dosed Courtney with LSD when she was a toddler. Carroll also alleged that Hank threatened to abduct his daughter and flee with her to a foreign country. Though Hank denied these allegations, his custody was revoked. In 1970, Carroll relocated with Love to the rural community of Marcola, Oregon where they lived along
2240-523: A cynical response to an "authentic" rock movement. Bush , Candlebox and Collective Soul were labelled almost pejoratively as post-grunge which, according to Tim Grierson of About.com , is "suggesting that rather than being a musical movement in their own right, they were just a calculated, cynical response to a legitimate stylistic shift in rock music." Post-grunge morphed during the late 1990s and 2000s as newer bands such as Foo Fighters , Matchbox Twenty , Creed and Nickelback emerged, becoming among
2400-417: A drinking problem. Soldiers and Women was adapted into a feature film of the same name in 1930. Fox's 1929 story Housebroken was adapted into a film of the same name in 1936. Fox wrote the story of the 1937 film The Last Train from Madrid with his then-wife, Elsie. Fox later told his daughter, Paula, that he had written the film "in a week, while Elsie... handed him Benzedrine tablets from
2560-864: A false claim leading to Love's arrest. On July 9, 2004, her 40th birthday, Love was arrested for failing to make a court appearance for the March 2004 charges, and taken to Bellevue Hospital , allegedly incoherent, where she was placed on a 72-hour watch. According to police, she was believed to be a potential danger to herself, but deemed mentally sound and released to a rehab facility two days later. Amidst public criticism and press coverage, comedian Margaret Cho published an opinion piece, "Courtney Deserves Better from Feminists", arguing that negative associations of Love with her drug and personal problems (including from feminists) overshadowed her music and wellbeing. Love pleaded guilty in October 2004 to disorderly conduct over
2720-545: A flurry of British bands emerged that wished to "get rid of grunge" and "declare war on America", taking the public and native music press by storm. Dubbed " Britpop " by the media, and represented by Pulp , Blur , Suede , and Oasis , this movement was the British equivalent of the grunge explosion, in that the artists propelled alternative rock to the top of the charts in their home country. Britpop bands were influenced by and displayed reverence for British guitar music of
2880-571: A headliner in 1998. In light of the festival's troubles that year, Spin said, "Lollapalooza is as comatose as alternative rock right now". Despite these changes in style however, alternative rock remained commercially viable into the start of the 21st century. During the latter half of the 1990s, grunge was supplanted by post-grunge . Many post-grunge bands lacked the underground roots of grunge and were largely influenced by what grunge had become, namely "a wildly popular form of inward-looking, serious-minded hard rock."; many post-grunge bands emulated
3040-601: A joke about her daughter. She pleaded guilty to an assault charge and was sentenced to anger management classes. In November 1995, two male teenagers sued Love for allegedly punching them during a Hole concert in Orlando, Florida in March 1995. The judge dismissed the case on grounds that the teens "weren't exposed to any greater amount of violence than could reasonably be expected at an alternative rock concert". Love later said she had little memory of 1994 and 1995, as she had been using large quantities of heroin and Rohypnol at
3200-643: A late night new wave show entitled "Rock and Roll Alternative". " College rock " was used in the United States to describe the music during the 1980s due to its links to the college radio circuit and the tastes of college students. In the United Kingdom, dozens of small do it yourself record labels emerged as a result of the punk subculture . According to the founder of one of these labels, Cherry Red , NME and Sounds magazines published charts based on small record stores called "Alternative Charts". The first national chart based on distribution called
3360-466: A letter stating that "Kurt Cobain was Nirvana" and that she and his family were the "rightful heirs" to the Nirvana legacy. In February 2003, Love was arrested at Heathrow Airport for disrupting a flight and was banned from Virgin Airlines . In October, she was arrested in Los Angeles after breaking several windows of her producer and then-boyfriend James Barber's home and was charged with being under
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#17327976586483520-605: A little-known independent guitar manufacturer, Stratocaster , and Rickenbacker 's solid body guitars. It had a single-coil and a humbucker pickup and was available in 6-string and 12-string versions. In an early 1999 interview, Love said about the Venus: "I wanted a guitar that sounded really warm and pop, but which required just one box to go dirty ... And something that could also be your first band guitar. I didn't want it all teched out. I wanted it real simple, with just one pickup switch ." Hole toured with Marilyn Manson on
3680-420: A majority of groups that were signed to indie labels drew from a variety of rock and particularly 1960s rock influences. This represented a sharp break from the futuristic, hyper-rational post-punk years. "Alternative music is music that hasn't yet achieved a mainstream audience, Alternative isn't new wave any more, it's a disposition of mind. Alternative music is any kind of music that has the potential to reach
3840-425: A mandatory lockdown rehabilitation sentence in 2005 while she was writing a second solo album. That project became Nobody's Daughter , released in 2010 as a Hole album but without the former Hole lineup. Between 2014 and 2015, Love released two solo singles and returned to acting in the network series Sons of Anarchy and Empire . In 2020, she confirmed she was writing new music. Love has also been active as
4000-534: A new album, Nobody's Daughter . In response, former Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson stated in Spin magazine that contractually no reunion could take place without his involvement; therefore Nobody's Daughter would remain Love's solo record, as opposed to a "Hole" record. Love responded to Erlandson's comments in a Twitter post, claiming "he's out of his mind, Hole is my band, my name, and my Trademark". Nobody's Daughter
4160-507: A new lineup with bassist Kristen Pfaff and drummer Patty Schemel . In April 1994, Cobain killed himself in the Seattle home he shared with Love, who was in rehab in Los Angeles at the time. In the following months, Love was rarely seen in public, staying at her home with friends and family. Cobain's remains were cremated and his ashes divided into portions by Love, who kept some in a teddy bear and some in an urn. In June, she traveled to
4320-469: A new wave of post-rock bands such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Sigur Rós emerged who further expanded the genre. In 1993, the Smashing Pumpkins' album Siamese Dream was a major commercial success. The strong influence of heavy metal and progressive rock on the album helped to legitimize alternative rock to mainstream radio programmers and close the gap between alternative rock and
4480-464: A number of genres, including Krautrock , progressive rock , and jazz . The genre subverts or rejects rock conventions, and often incorporates electronic music. While the name of the genre was coined by music journalist Simon Reynolds in 1994 referring to Hex by the London group Bark Psychosis , the style of the genre was solidified by the release of Millions Now Living Will Never Die (1996) by
4640-566: A part in the 1988 Ramones music video for " I Wanna Be Sedated ", appearing as a bride among dozens of party guests. Displeased by the " celebutante " fame she had attained, Love abandoned her acting career in 1988 and resumed work as a stripper in Oregon, where she was recognized by customers at a bar in the small town of McMinnville . This prompted Love to go into isolation and relocate to Anchorage, Alaska , where she lived for three months to "gather her thoughts", supporting herself by working at
4800-524: A party held for Dizzy Gillespie in 1963, and the two married in Reno, Nevada after Carroll discovered she was pregnant. Carroll, who was adopted at birth, is the biological daughter of novelist Paula Fox . Love's matrilineal great-grandmother was Elsie Fox (née de Sola), a Cuban writer who co-wrote the film The Last Train from Madrid with Love's great-grandfather, Paul Hervey Fox , cousin of writer Faith Baldwin and actor Douglas Fairbanks . Phil Lesh ,
4960-517: A passion for music, she would have sought a career working with children. Before Liverpool, my life doesn't count. Ian McCulloch and Julian Cope taught me a great deal. I owe them a lot. Liverpool had been a great school to become a rock star. –Love on her time in Liverpool In 1981, Love was granted a small trust fund that had been left by her maternal grandparents, which she used to travel to Dublin, Ireland, where her biological father
Courtney Love - Misplaced Pages Continue
5120-481: A return to acting, first in small roles in the Jean-Michel Basquiat biopic Basquiat and the drama Feeling Minnesota (1996), and then a starring role as Larry Flynt 's wife Althea in Miloš Forman 's critically acclaimed 1996 film The People vs. Larry Flynt . Love went through rehabilitation and quit using heroin at the insistence of Forman; she was ordered to take multiple urine tests under
5280-658: A role as William S. Burroughs 's wife Joan Vollmer in Beat (2000) alongside Kiefer Sutherland . Love was cast as the lead in John Carpenter 's sci-fi horror film Ghosts of Mars , but backed out after injuring her foot. She sued the ex-wife of her then-boyfriend, James Barber, whom Love alleged had caused the injury by running over her foot with her Volvo . The following year, she returned to film opposite Lili Taylor in Julie Johnson (2001), in which she played
5440-429: A solo tour of North America in mid-2013, which was purported to be in promotion of an upcoming solo album; however, it was ultimately dubbed a "greatest hits" tour, and featured songs from Love's and Hole's back catalogue. Love told Billboard at the time that she had recorded eight songs in the studio. Alternative rock Alternative rock (also known as alternative music , alt-rock or simply alternative )
5600-490: A strip club frequented by local fishermen. "I decided to move to Alaska because I needed to get my shit together and learn how to work", she said in retrospect. "So I went on this sort of vision quest . I got rid of all my earthly possessions. I had my bad little strip clothes and some big sweaters, and I moved into a trailer with a bunch of other strippers." She was the most gung-ho person I've ever met ... She gave 180%. I've worked with some people that you've had to coax
5760-552: A topless dancer, but was deported after her passport was confiscated. She returned to Portland and began working at the strip club Mary's Club , adopting the surname Love to conceal her identity; she later adopted Love as her surname. She worked odd jobs, including as a DJ at a gay disco. Love said she lacked social skills, and learned them while frequenting gay clubs and spending time with drag queens . During this period, she enrolled at Portland State University , studying English and philosophy. She later commented that, had she not found
5920-454: A very controlled, five-year plan about how I was going to be successful in the rock industry. Marrying Kurt, it all kind of went sideways in a way that I could not control and I became seen in a certain light–a vilified light that made Yoko Ono look like Pollyanna –and I couldn't stop it. –Love on her public image after marrying Kurt Cobain Shortly after completing the tour for Pretty on
6080-582: A vocalist, but fired her; according to keyboardist Roddy Bottum , who remained Love's friend in the years after, the band wanted a "male energy". Love returned to working abroad as an erotic dancer, briefly in Taiwan , and then at a taxi dance hall in Hong Kong . By Love's account, she first used heroin while working at the Hong Kong dance hall, having mistaken it for cocaine . While still inebriated from
6240-488: A wariness of its "macho" aesthetic. While indie rock artists share the punk rock distrust of commercialism, the genre does not entirely define itself against that, as "the general assumption is that it's virtually impossible to make indie rock's varying musical approaches compatible with mainstream tastes in the first place". Labels such as Matador Records , Merge Records , and Dischord , and indie rockers like Pavement , Superchunk , Fugazi , and Sleater-Kinney dominated
6400-568: A wider audience. It also has real strength, real quality, real excitement, and it has to be socially significant, as opposed to Whitney Houston, which is pablum." —Mark Josephson, Executive Director of the New Music Seminar speaking in 1988 Throughout the 1980s, alternative rock remained mainly an underground phenomenon. While on occasion a song would become a commercial hit, or albums would receive critical praise in mainstream publications like Rolling Stone , alternative rock in
6560-506: A woman who has a lesbian relationship; Love won an Outstanding Actress award at L.A.'s Outfest . She was then cast in the thriller Trapped (2002), alongside Kevin Bacon and Charlize Theron . The film was a box-office flop. In the interim, Hole had become dormant. In March 2001, Love began a "punk rock femme supergroup ", Bastard, enlisting Schemel, Veruca Salt co-frontwoman Louise Post , and bassist Gina Crosley. Post recalled: "[Love]
Courtney Love - Misplaced Pages Continue
6720-561: A writer; she co-created and co-wrote three volumes of a manga , Princess Ai , between 2004 and 2006, and wrote a memoir, Dirty Blonde (2006). Courtney Michelle Harrison was born July 9, 1964, at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco, the first child of psychotherapist Linda Carroll (née Risi; born 1944) and Hank Harrison (1941–2022), a publisher and road manager for the Grateful Dead . Her parents met at
6880-492: Is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s with the likes of the grunge subgenre in the United States, and the Britpop and shoegaze subgenres in the United Kingdom and Ireland. During this period, many record labels were looking for "alternatives", as many corporate rock , hard rock , and glam metal acts from
7040-467: Is not a rock star pretending to act, but a true actress." She won several other awards from various film critic associations for the film. During this time, Love maintained what the media noted as a more decorous public image, and she appeared in ad campaigns for Versace and in a Vogue Italia spread. Following the release of The People vs. Larry Flynt , she dated her co-star Edward Norton , with whom she remained until 1999. In late 1997, Hole released
7200-510: Is often difficult because of two conflicting applications of the word. Alternative can describe music that challenges the status quo and that is "fiercely iconoclastic, anticommercial, and antimainstream", and the term is also used in the music industry to denote "the choices available to consumers via record stores, radio, cable television, and the Internet." However alternative music has paradoxically become just as commercial and marketable as
7360-660: The Billboard 200 album chart. Soundgarden 's album Badmotorfinger , Alice in Chains ' Dirt and Stone Temple Pilots ' Core along with the Temple of the Dog album collaboration featuring members of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, were also among the 100 top-selling albums of 1992. The popular breakthrough of these grunge bands prompted Rolling Stone to nickname Seattle "the new Liverpool ". Major record labels signed most of
7520-608: The Actors Home ." In 1928, Fox wrote the short story The Strange Case of Dr. Fell , which was published in a serialized form in Ghost Stories in four parts. Fox's play Soldiers and Women , which was staged on Broadway and ran for just under one year, led to him receiving a screenwriting job offer in California. He accepted the position, and relocated with wife Elsie to Los Angeles, where he quickly developed
7680-565: The Alex Cox films Sid and Nancy (1986) and Straight to Hell (1987) before forming the band Hole in Los Angeles with guitarist Eric Erlandson . The group received critical acclaim from underground rock press for their 1991 debut album Pretty on the Inside , produced by Kim Gordon , while their second release, Live Through This (1994), was met with critical accolades and multi-platinum sales. In 1995, Love returned to acting, earning
7840-903: The Beautiful Monsters Tour in 1999, but dropped out after nine performances; Love and Manson disagreed over production costs, and Hole was forced to open for Manson under an agreement with Interscope Records . Hole resumed touring with Imperial Teen . Love later said Hole also abandoned the tour due to Manson and Korn 's (whom they also toured with in Australia) sexualized treatment of teenage female audience members. Love told interviewers at 99X.FM in Atlanta: "What I really don't like—there are certain girls that like us, or like me, who are really messed up ... they're very young, and they do not need to be taken and raped, or filmed having enema contests ... [they were] going out into
8000-504: The Billboard charts. Pearl Jam also continued to perform well commercially with its second album, Vs. (1993), which topped the Billboard charts by selling a record 950,378 copies in its first week of release. In 1993, the Smashing Pumpkins released their major breakthrough album, Siamese Dream —which debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200 and sold over 4 million copies by 1996, receiving multi-platinum certification by
8160-482: The East Village . She was released within hours and performed a scheduled concert the following evening at the Bowery Ballroom . Four days later, she called in multiple times to The Howard Stern Show , claiming in broadcast conversations with Stern that the incident had not occurred, and that actress Natasha Lyonne , who was at the concert, was told by the alleged victim that he had been paid $ 10,000 to file
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#17327976586488320-531: The Indie Chart was published in January 1980; it immediately succeeded in its aim to help these labels. At the time, the term indie was used literally to describe independently distributed records. By 1985, indie had come to mean a particular genre, or group of subgenres, rather than simply distribution status. The use of the term alternative to describe rock music originated around the mid-1980s; at
8480-533: The Modern Rock Tracks chart with " Celebrity Skin ". Hole promoted the album through MTV performances and at the 1998 Billboard Music Awards , and were nominated for three Grammy Awards at the 41st Grammy Awards ceremony. Before the release of Celebrity Skin , Love and Fender designed a low-priced Squier brand guitar, the Vista Venus . The instrument featured a shape inspired by Mercury,
8640-522: The Mohawk River while Carroll completed her psychology degree at the University of Oregon . There, Carroll remarried to schoolteacher Frank Rodríguez, who legally adopted Love. Though Love was baptized a Roman Catholic , her mother maintained an unorthodox home; according to Love, "There were hairy, wangly-ass hippies running around naked [doing] Gestalt therapy ", and her mother raised her in
8800-663: The Namgyal Buddhist Monastery in Ithaca, New York and had Cobain's ashes ceremonially blessed by Buddhist monks. Another portion was mixed into clay and made into memorial sculptures. Live Through This was released one week after Cobain's death on Geffen 's subsidiary label DGC . On June 16, Pfaff died of a heroin overdose in Seattle. For Hole's impending tour, Love recruited the Canadian bassist Melissa Auf der Maur . Hole's performance on August 26, 1994, at
8960-515: The Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain . The journalist Michael Azerrad states that Love and Cobain met in 1989 at the Satyricon nightclub in Portland, Oregon. However, the Cobain biographer Charles Cross gives the date as February 12, 1990; Cross said that Cobain playfully wrestled Love to the floor after she said that he looked like Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum . According to Love, she met Cobain at
9120-631: The RIAA . In 1995, the band released their double album, Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness — which went on to sell 10 million copies in the US alone, certifying it as a Diamond record. With the decline of the Madchester scene and the unglamorousness of shoegazing, the tide of grunge from America dominated the British alternative scene and music press in the early 1990s. As a reaction,
9280-615: The Reading Festival —Love's first public performance following Cobain's death—was described by MTV as "by turns macabre, frightening and inspirational". John Peel wrote in The Guardian that Love's disheveled appearance "would have drawn whistles of astonishment in Bedlam ", and that her performance "verged on the heroic ... Love steered her band through a set which dared you to pity either her recent history or that of
9440-923: The Red Hot Chili Peppers . Hole played their first show in November 1989 at Raji's , a rock club in central Hollywood. Their debut single, " Retard Girl ", was issued in April 1990 through the Long Beach indie label Sympathy for the Record Industry and was played by Rodney Bingenheimer on local rock station KROQ . Hole appeared on the cover of Flipside , a Los Angeles-based punk fanzine . In early 1991, they released their second single, " Dicknail ", through Sub Pop Records . With no wave , noise rock , and grindcore bands being major influences on Love, Hole's first studio album, Pretty on
9600-739: The San Francisco Art Institute and studied film under experimental director George Kuchar , featuring in one of his short films, Club Vatican . She also took experimental theater courses in Oakland taught by Whoopi Goldberg . In 1985, Love submitted an audition tape for the role of Nancy Spungen in the Sid Vicious biopic Sid and Nancy (1986) and was given a minor supporting role by director Alex Cox . After filming Sid and Nancy in New York City, she worked at
9760-628: The UK Indie Chart at number one. The album's feminist slant led many to tag the band as part of the riot grrrl movement, a movement with which Love did not associate. The band toured in support of the record, headlining with Mudhoney in Europe; in the United States, they opened for the Smashing Pumpkins , and performed at CBGB in New York City. During the tour, Love briefly dated Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan and then
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#17327976586489920-576: The Whisky a Go Go in November 1990. In early 1991, Love sent Gordon a personal letter asking her to produce the record for the band, to which she agreed. Pretty on the Inside received generally positive critical reception from indie and punk rock critics and was named one of the 20 best albums of the year by Spin . It gained a following in the United Kingdom, charting at 59 on the UK Albums Chart , and its lead single, " Teenage Whore ", entered
10080-495: The hair metal that had dominated rock music at that time fell out of favor in the face of music that was authentic and culturally relevant. The breakthrough success of Nirvana led to the widespread popularization of alternative rock in the 1990s. It heralded a "new openness to alternative rock" among commercial radio stations, opening doors for heavier alternative bands in particular. In the wake of Nevermind , alternative rock "found itself dragged-kicking and screaming ... into
10240-449: The "grunging of America" to the mass-marketing of punk rock, disco , and hip hop in previous years. As a result of the genre's popularity, a backlash against grunge developed in Seattle. Nirvana's follow-up album In Utero (1993) was an intentionally abrasive album that Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic described as a "wild aggressive sound, a true alternative record." Nevertheless, upon its release in September 1993 In Utero topped
10400-553: The 1970s, which served as a progressive alternative to top 40 radio formats by featuring longer songs and giving DJs more freedom in song selection. According to one former DJ and promoter, "Somehow this term 'alternative' got rediscovered and heisted by college radio people during the 80s who applied it to new post-punk, indie, or underground-whatever music." At first the term referred to intentionally non-mainstream rock acts that were not influenced by "heavy metal ballads, rarefied new wave" and "high-energy dance anthems". Usage of
10560-479: The 1980s was primarily featured on independent record labels, fanzines and college radio stations. Alternative bands built underground followings by touring constantly and by regularly releasing low-budget albums. In the United States, new bands would form in the wake of previous bands, which created an extensive underground circuit filled with different scenes in various parts of the country. College radio formed an essential part of breaking new alternative music. In
10720-553: The 1980s were beginning to grow stale throughout the music industry . The emergence of Generation X as a cultural force in the 1990s also contributed greatly to the rise of alternative rock. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commercial rock or pop. The term's original meaning was broader, referring to musicians influenced by the musical style or independent, DIY ethos of late-1970s punk rock . Traditionally, alternative rock varied in terms of its sound, social context, and regional roots. Throughout
10880-463: The 1980s, alternative bands generally played in small clubs, recorded for indie labels, and spread their popularity through word of mouth . As such, there is no set musical style for alternative rock as a whole, although in 1989 The New York Times asserted that the genre is "guitar music first of all, with guitars that blast out power chords, pick out chiming riffs, buzz with fuzztone and squeal in feedback." More often than in other rock styles since
11040-402: The 1980s, magazines and zines , college radio airplay , and word of mouth had increased the prominence and highlighted the diversity of alternative rock's distinct styles (and music scenes), such as noise pop , indie rock , grunge , and shoegaze . In September 1988, Billboard introduced "alternative" into their charting system to reflect the rise of the format across radio stations in
11200-752: The 2000s with multi-platinum acts such as Fall Out Boy , My Chemical Romance , Paramore and Panic! at the Disco . Bands such as the White Stripes and the Strokes found commercial success in the early 2000s, influencing an influx of new alternative rock bands that drew inspiration from garage rock , post-punk and new wave , establishing a revival of the genres. In the past, popular music tastes were largely dictated by music executives within large entertainment corporations. Record companies signed contracts with those entertainers who were thought to become
11360-473: The American indie scene for most of the 1990s. One of the main indie rock movements of the 1990s was lo-fi . The movement, which focused on the recording and distribution of music on low-quality cassette tapes , initially emerged in the 1980s. By 1992, Pavement, Guided by Voices and Sebadoh became popular lo-fi cult acts in the United States, while subsequently artists like Beck and Liz Phair brought
11520-512: The British indie scene through the end of the decade, as various bands drew from singer Morrissey 's English-centered lyrical topics and guitarist Johnny Marr 's jangly guitar-playing style. The C86 cassette, a 1986 NME premium featuring Primal Scream , the Wedding Present and others, was a major influence on the development of indie pop and the British indie scene as a whole. Other forms of alternative rock developed in
11680-723: The British music press at the end of the decade along with the Madchester scene. Performing for the most part in the Haçienda , a nightclub in Manchester owned by New Order and Factory Records , Madchester bands such as Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses mixed acid house dance rhythms with melodic guitar pop. The Amerindie of the early '80s became known as alternative or alt-rock, ascendant from Nirvana until 1996 or so but currently very unfashionable, never mind that
11840-586: The Chicago group Tortoise . Post-rock was the dominant form of experimental rock music in the 1990s and bands from the genre signed to such labels as Thrill Jockey , Kranky , Drag City , and Too Pure . A related genre, math rock , peaked in the mid-1990s. In comparison to post-rock, math rock relies on more complex time signatures and intertwining phrases. By the end of the decade a backlash had emerged against post-rock due to its "dispassionate intellectuality" and its perceived increasing predictability, but
12000-492: The English language" that year. This was followed by The Antagonists , which followed a self-indulgent mathematics professor. In reviewing The Antagonists , critic E. E. Hollis of The Salt Lake Tribune noted Fox as a "distinctive talent" and praised the work. In 1946, Fox published his third novel, Four Men . By this time, Fox had become disillusioned by his writing career in Hollywood, and left Los Angeles to return to
12160-414: The Inside , captured an abrasive sound and contained disturbing, graphic lyrics, described by Q as "confrontational [and] genuinely uninhibited". The record was released in September 1991 on Caroline Records , produced by Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth with assistant production from Gumball 's Don Fleming; Love and Gordon had met when Hole opened for Sonic Youth during their promotional tour for Goo at
12320-507: The Inside , Love married Cobain on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu , Hawaii, on February 24, 1992. She wore a satin and lace dress once owned by actress Frances Farmer , and Cobain wore plaid pajamas. During Love's pregnancy, Hole recorded a cover of "Over the Edge" for a Wipers tribute album, and recorded their fourth single, " Beautiful Son ", which was released in April 1993. On August 18, 1992
12480-881: The Lollapalooza festival became the most successful tour in North America in July and August 1991. For Dave Grohl of Nirvana who attended the festival at an open-air amphitheater in Southern California , "it felt like something was happening, that was the beginning of it all". The tour helped change the mentalities in the music industry: "by that fall, radio and MTV and music had changed. I really think that if it weren't for Perry [Farrell], if it weren't for Lollapalooza , you and I wouldn't be having this conversation right now". The release of Nirvana's single " Smells Like Teen Spirit " in September 1991 "marked
12640-625: The Replacements upended a number of underground scene conventions; Azerrad noted that "along with R.E.M., they were one of the few underground bands that mainstream people liked." By the late 1980s, the American alternative scene was dominated by styles ranging from quirky alternative pop ( They Might Be Giants and Camper Van Beethoven ), to noise rock ( Sonic Youth , Big Black , the Jesus Lizard ) and industrial rock ( Ministry , Nine Inch Nails). These sounds were in turn followed by
12800-522: The Story) Morning Glory? (1995), went on to become the third best-selling album in the UK's history. Long synonymous with alternative rock as a whole in the U.S., indie rock became a distinct form following the popular breakthrough of Nirvana. Indie rock was formulated as a rejection of alternative rock's absorption into the mainstream by artists who could not or refused to cross over, and
12960-591: The Top 40 and spawned a number of jangle pop followers. One of the many jangle pop scenes of the early 1980s, Los Angeles' Paisley Underground revived the sounds of the 1960s, incorporating psychedelia, rich vocal harmonies and the guitar interplay of folk rock as well as punk and underground influences such as the Velvet Underground . American indie record labels SST Records , Twin/Tone Records , Touch and Go Records , and Dischord Records presided over
13120-463: The UK during the 1980s. the Jesus and Mary Chain 's sound combined the Velvet Underground's "melancholy noise" with Beach Boys pop melodies and Phil Spector 's " Wall of Sound " production, while New Order emerged from the demise of post-punk band Joy Division and experimented with disco and dance music . The Mary Chain, along with Dinosaur Jr. , C86 and the dream pop of Cocteau Twins , were
13280-577: The US by a more pop-oriented focus (marked by an equal emphasis on albums and singles, as well as greater openness to incorporating elements of dance and club culture) and a lyrical emphasis on specifically British concerns. As a result, few British alternative bands have achieved commercial success in the US. Since the 1980s, alternative rock has been played extensively on the radio in the UK, particularly by disc jockeys such as John Peel (who championed alternative music on BBC Radio 1 ), Richard Skinner , and Annie Nightingale . Artists with cult followings in
13440-626: The US received greater exposure through British national radio and the weekly music press, and many alternative bands had chart success there. Early American alternative bands such as the Dream Syndicate , the Bongos , 10,000 Maniacs , R.E.M. , the Feelies and Violent Femmes combined punk influences with folk music and mainstream music influences. R.E.M. was the most immediately successful; their debut album, Murmur (1983), entered
13600-517: The United States by stations like KROQ-FM in Los Angeles and WDRE-FM in New York, which were playing music from more underground , independent, and non-commercial rock artists. Initially, several alternative styles achieved minor mainstream notice and a few bands, such as R.E.M. and Jane's Addiction , were signed to major labels . Most alternative bands at the time, like the Smiths , one of
13760-481: The Velvet Underground , which influenced many alternative rock bands that would come after it. Eccentric and quirky figures of the 1960s, such as Syd Barrett have influence on alternative rock in general. The Dead Kennedys formed the independent record label Alternative Tentacles in 1979, releasing influential underground music such as the 1983 self-titled EP from the Butthole Surfers . By 1984,
13920-558: The advent of Boston 's Pixies and Los Angeles' Jane's Addiction. Around the same time, the grunge subgenre emerged in Seattle , Washington, initially referred to as "The Seattle Sound" until its rise to popularity in the early 1990s. Grunge featured a sludgy, murky guitar sound that syncretized heavy metal and punk rock. Promoted largely by Seattle indie label Sub Pop , grunge bands were noted for their thrift store fashion which favored flannel shirts and combat boots suited to
14080-475: The aesthetic to mainstream audiences. The period also saw alternative confessional female singer-songwriters. Besides the aforementioned Liz Phair, PJ Harvey fit into this sub group. In the mid-1990s, Sunny Day Real Estate defined the emo genre. Weezer 's album Pinkerton (1996) was also influential. Post-rock was established by Talk Talk 's Laughing Stock and Slint 's Spiderland albums, both released in 1991. Post-rock draws influence from
14240-416: The airport after she stole all the money. She stayed and stayed, and then the next day she wanted me to take her to the airport. And so I drove her to the airport. She had just had some weird fight with the guy at the desk, and then she left. She said, "I'm going to go to L.A. and I'm going to get my face done and I'm going to be famous." And then she did. Deciding to shift her focus to acting, Love enrolled at
14400-601: The album three out of five, saying Love "worked hard on these songs, instead of just babbling a bunch of druggy bullshit and assuming people would buy it, the way she did on her 2004 flop, America's Sweetheart ". Sal Cinquemani of Slant Magazine also gave the album three out of five: "It's Marianne Faithfull 's substance-ravaged voice that comes to mind most often while listening to songs like 'Honey' and 'For Once in Your Life'. The latter track is, in fact, one of Love's most raw and vulnerable vocal performances to date ...
14560-539: The alternative rock community" including Henry Rollins , Butthole Surfers , Ice-T , Nine Inch Nails , Siouxsie and the Banshees (as second headliners) and Jane's Addiction (as the headlining act). Covering for MTV the opening date of Lollapalooza in Phoenix in July 1991, Dave Kendall introduced the report saying the festival presented the "most diverse lineups of alternative rock". That summer, Farrell had coined
14720-437: The alternative/independent scene and dryly tore it apart." David Lowery , then frontman of Camper Van Beethoven, later recalled: "I remember first seeing that word applied to us... The nearest I could figure is that we seemed like a punk band, but we were playing pop music, so they made up this word alternative for those of us who do that." DJs and promoters during the 1980s claim the term originates from American FM radio of
14880-466: The audience and picking up fourteen and fifteen-year-old girls who obviously cut themselves, and then [I had] to see them in the morning ... it's just uncool." In 1999, Love was awarded an Orville H. Gibson award for Best Female Rock Guitarist. During this time, she starred opposite Jim Carrey as his partner Lynne Margulies in the Andy Kaufman biopic Man on the Moon (1999), followed by
15040-473: The band ... The band teetered on the edge of chaos, generating a tension which I cannot remember having felt before from any stage." Live Through This was certified platinum in April 1995 and received numerous accolades. The success combined with Cobain's suicide produced publicity for Love, and she was featured on Barbara Walters ' 10 Most Fascinating People in 1995. Her erratic onstage behavior and various legal troubles during Hole's tour compounded
15200-414: The bed upon which she lay, doing crossword puzzles and lighting cigarette after cigarette." Fox was paid $ 10,000 for the story. Upon release, the film was lambasted by writer Graham Greene , who publicly deemed it "the worst movie I ever saw." In 1935, Fox published the novel Sailor Town , which earned high praise, and was deemed by one unnamed English critic as "one of the best six novels to appear in
15360-753: The compilations My Body, the Hand Grenade and The First Session , both of which featured previously recorded material. Love attracted media attention in May 1998 after punching journalist Belissa Cohen at a party; the suit was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. In September 1998, Hole released their third studio album, Celebrity Skin , which featured a stark power pop sound that contrasted with their earlier punk influences. Love divulged her ambition of making an album where "art meets commerce ... there are no compromises made, it has commercial appeal, and it sticks to [our] original vision." She said she
15520-401: The couple's only child, a daughter, Frances Bean Cobain , was born in Los Angeles. They relocated to Carnation, Washington , and then Seattle. Love's first major media exposure came in a September 1992 profile with Cobain for Vanity Fair by Lynn Hirschberg, entitled "Strange Love". Cobain had become a major public figure following the surprise success of Nirvana's album Nevermind . Love
15680-467: The death of Layne Staley and the subsequent disbanding of Alice in Chains in 2002, and the disbanding of both the Cranberries and Stone Temple Pilots in 2003. Britpop also began fading after Oasis ' third album, Be Here Now (1997), was met with lackluster reviews. A signifier of alternative rock's changes was the hiatus of the Lollapalooza festival after an unsuccessful attempt to find
15840-459: The decisions were business people dealing with music as a product, and those bands who were not making the expected sales figures were then excluded from this system. Before the term alternative rock came into common usage around 1990, the sorts of music to which it refers were known by a variety of terms. In 1979, Terry Tolkin used the term Alternative Music to describe the groups he was writing about. In 1979 Dallas radio station KZEW had
16000-904: The drug, Love was pursued by a wealthy male client who requested that she return with him to the Philippines, and gave her money to purchase new clothes. She used the money to purchase an airfare back to the United States. At age 19, through her then-boyfriend's mother, film costume designer Bernadene Mann, Love took a job at Paramount Studios cleaning out the wardrobe department of vintage pieces that had suffered dry rot or other damage. During this time, Love became interested in vintage fashion. She subsequently returned to Portland, where she formed short-lived musical projects with her friends Ursula Wehr and Robin Barbur (namely Sugar Babylon, later known as Sugar Babydoll ). Love briefly fronted Faith no More for their first TV appearance in 1984: she sang with
16160-453: The early 2000s, when indie rock became the most common term in the US to describe modern pop and rock, the terms "indie rock" and "alternative rock" were often used interchangeably; while there are aspects which both genres have in common, "indie rock" was regarded as a British-based term, unlike the more American "alternative rock". The name "alternative rock" essentially serves as an umbrella term for underground music that has emerged in
16320-429: The formative influences for the shoegazing movement of the late 1980s. Named for the band members' tendency to stare at their feet and guitar effects pedals onstage rather than interact with the audience, shoegazing acts like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive created an overwhelmingly loud "wash of sound" that obscured vocals and melodies with long, droning riffs, distortion, and feedback. Shoegazing bands dominated
16480-430: The foundation for its large cult following. The key British alternative rock band to emerge during the 1980s was Manchester 's the Smiths . Music journalist Simon Reynolds singled out the Smiths and their American contemporaries R.E.M. as "the two most important alt-rock bands of the day", commenting that they "were eighties bands only in the sense of being against the eighties". The Smiths exerted an influence over
16640-669: The founding bassist of the Grateful Dead, was Love's godfather. According to Love, she was named after Courtney Farrell, the protagonist of Pamela Moore 's 1956 novel Chocolates for Breakfast . Love is of Cuban, English, German, Irish, Ashkenazi Jewish, and Welsh descent. Through her mother's subsequent marriages, Love has two younger half-sisters, three younger half-brothers (one of whom died in infancy), and one adopted brother. Love spent her early years in Haight-Ashbury , San Francisco, until her parents divorced in 1970. In
16800-592: The group Babes in Toyland , and briefly worked as a concert promoter before returning to California. Drummer Lori Barbero recalled Love's time in Minneapolis: She lived in my house for a little while. And then we did a concert at the Orpheum. It was in 1988. It was called O-88 with Butthole Surfers , Cows & Bastards, Run Westy Run, and Babes in Toyland. And I guess Maureen [Herman] took Courtney to
16960-591: The incident in East Village. Love's appearance as a roaster on the Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson in August 2005, in which she appeared intoxicated and disheveled, attracted further media attention. One review said that Love "acted as if she belonged in an institution". Six days after the broadcast, Love was sentenced to a 28-day lockdown rehab program for being under the influence of
17120-642: The influence of a controlled substance; the ordeal resulted in her temporarily losing custody of her daughter. After the breakup of Hole, Love began composing material with songwriter Linda Perry , and in July 2003 signed a contract with Virgin Records . She began recording her debut solo album, America's Sweetheart , in France shortly after. Virgin Records released America's Sweetheart in February 2004; it received mixed reviews. Charles Aaron of Spin called it
17280-457: The instigation of the grunge music phenomenon". Helped by constant airplay of the song's music video on MTV, their album Nevermind was selling 400,000 copies a week by Christmas 1991. Its success surprised the music industry. Nevermind not only popularized grunge, but also established "the cultural and commercial viability of alternative rock in general." Michael Azerrad asserted that Nevermind symbolized "a sea-change in rock music" in which
17440-422: The key British alternative rock bands during the 1980s, remained signed to independent labels and received relatively little attention from mainstream radio, television, or newspapers. With the breakthrough of Nirvana and the popularity of the grunge and Britpop movements in the 1990s, alternative rock entered the musical mainstream, and many alternative bands became successful. Emo found mainstream success in
17600-420: The local weather. Early grunge bands Soundgarden and Mudhoney found critical acclaim in the U.S. and UK, respectively. By the end of the decade, a number of alternative bands began to sign to major labels. While early major label signings Hüsker Dü and the Replacements had little success, acts who signed with majors in their wake such as R.E.M. and Jane's Addiction achieved gold and platinum records, setting
17760-495: The mainstream rock, with record companies using the term "alternative" to market music to an audience that mainstream rock does not reach. Using a broad definition of the genre, Dave Thompson in his book Alternative Rock cites the formation of the Sex Pistols as well as the release of the albums Horses by Patti Smith and Metal Machine Music by Lou Reed as three key events that gave birth to alternative rock. Until
17920-559: The mainstream" and record companies, confused by the genre's success yet eager to capitalize on it, scrambled to sign bands. The New York Times declared in 1993, "Alternative rock doesn't seem so alternative anymore. Every major label has a handful of guitar-driven bands in shapeless shirts and threadbare jeans, bands with bad posture and good riffs who cultivate the oblique and the evasive, who conceal catchy tunes with noise and hide craftsmanship behind nonchalance." However, many alternative rock artists rejected success, for it conflicted with
18080-494: The mainstreaming of rock music, alternative rock lyrics tend to address topics of social concern, such as drug use, depression, suicide, and environmentalism . This approach to lyrics developed as a reflection of the social and economic strains in the United States and United Kingdom of the 1980s and early 1990s. Precursors to alternative rock existed in the 1960s with proto-punk . The origins of alternative rock can be traced back to The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) by
18240-556: The media coverage of her. Hole performed a series of riotous concerts over the following year, with Love frequently appearing hysterical onstage, flashing crowds, stage diving , and getting into fights with audience members. One journalist reported that at the band's show in Boston in December 1994: "Love interrupted the music and talked about her deceased husband Kurt Cobain, and also broke out into Tourette syndrome -like rants. The music
18400-509: The mid-1980s, college station KCPR in San Luis Obispo, California , described in a DJ handbook the tension between popular and "cutting edge" songs as played on "alternative radio". Although American alternative artists of the 1980s never generated spectacular album sales, they exerted a considerable influence on later alternative musicians and laid the groundwork for their success. On September 10, 1988, an Alternative Songs chart
18560-658: The midst of her legal troubles, Love had endeavors in writing and publishing. She co-wrote a semi-autobiographical manga , Princess Ai ( Japanese : プリンセス·アイ物語), with Stu Levy, illustrated by Misaho Kujiradou and Ai Yazawa ; it was released in three volumes in the United States and Japan between 2004 and 2006. In 2006, Love published a memoir, Dirty Blonde , and began recording her second solo album, How Dirty Girls Get Clean , collaborating again with Perry and Billy Corgan. Love had written several songs, including an anti-cocaine song titled "Loser Dust", during her time in rehab in 2005. She told Billboard : "My hand-eye coordination
18720-460: The more melodic, diverse music of college rock that emerged. Azerrad wrote, "Hüsker Dü played a huge role in convincing the underground that melody and punk rock weren't antithetical." The band also set an example by being the first group from the American indie scene to sign to a major record label, which helped establish college rock as "a viable commercial enterprise". By focusing on heartfelt songwriting and wordplay instead of political concerns,
18880-490: The most influential singers in alternative culture of the last 30 years. Love had an itinerant childhood, but was primarily raised in Portland, Oregon, where she played in a series of short-lived bands and was active in the local punk scene. After briefly being in a juvenile hall, she spent a year living in Dublin and Liverpool before returning to the United States and pursuing an acting career. She appeared in supporting roles in
19040-550: The most popular rock bands in the United States. At the same time Britpop began to decline, Radiohead achieved critical acclaim with its third album OK Computer (1997), and its follow-ups Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001), which were in marked contrast with the traditionalism of Britpop. Radiohead, along with post-Britpop groups like Travis , Stereophonics and Coldplay , were major forces in British rock in subsequent years. Paul Hervey Fox Paul Hervey Fox (March 13, 1894 – November 1, 1956)
19200-448: The most popular, and therefore who could generate the most sales. These bands were able to record their songs in expensive studios, and their works were then offered for sale through record store chains that were owned by the entertainment corporations, along with eventually selling the merchandise into big box retailers . Record companies worked with radio and television companies to get the most exposure for their artists. The people making
19360-443: The music is still there. — Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s (2000) By the start of the 1990s, the music industry was enticed by alternative rock's commercial possibilities and major labels had already signed Jane's Addiction, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Dinosaur Jr. In early 1991, R.E.M. went mainstream worldwide with Out of Time while becoming a blueprint for many alternative bands. The first edition of
19520-569: The past, particularly movements and genres such as the British Invasion , glam rock , and punk rock . In 1995, the Britpop phenomenon culminated in a rivalry between its two chief groups, Oasis and Blur, symbolized by their release of competing singles “ Roll With It ” and “ Country House ” on the same day on 14 August 1995. Blur won " The Battle of Britpop ", but they were soon eclipsed in popularity by Oasis whose second album, (What's
19680-508: The performance out of them. With Courtney, there was no attitude. –Don Fleming, who co-produced Hole's debut album with Kim Gordon , on Love At the end of 1988, Love taught herself to play guitar and relocated to Los Angeles, where she placed an ad in a local music zine: "I want to start a band. My influences are Big Black , Sonic Youth , and Fleetwood Mac ." By 1989, Love had recruited guitarist Eric Erlandson ; bassist Lisa Roberts, her neighbor; and drummer Caroline Rue, whom she met at
19840-418: The prominent grunge bands in Seattle, while a second influx of bands moved to the city in hopes of success. At the same time, critics asserted that advertising was co-opting elements of grunge and turning it into a fad. Entertainment Weekly commented in a 1993 article, "There hasn't been this kind of exploitation of a subculture since the media discovered hippies in the '60s." The New York Times compared
20000-427: The rebellious, DIY ethic the genre had espoused before mainstream exposure and their ideas of artistic authenticity. Other grunge bands subsequently replicated Nirvana's success. Pearl Jam had released its debut album Ten a month before Nevermind in 1991, but album sales only picked up a year later. By the second half of 1992 Ten became a breakthrough success, being certified gold and reaching number two on
20160-661: The same stunts for a decade. But, honestly, is there anybody out there who fucks up better?" The album sold fewer than 100,000 copies. Love later expressed regret over the record, blaming her drug problems at the time. Shortly after it was released, she told Kurt Loder on TRL : "I cannot exist as a solo artist. It's a joke." On March 17, 2004, Love appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman to promote America's Sweetheart . Her appearance drew media coverage when she lifted her shirt multiple times, flashed Letterman, and stood on his desk. The New York Times wrote: "The episode
20320-421: The shift from the hardcore punk that then dominated the American underground scene to the more diverse styles of alternative rock that were emerging. Minneapolis bands Hüsker Dü and the Replacements were indicative of this shift. Both started out as punk rock bands, but soon diversified their sounds and became more melodic. Michael Azerrad asserted that Hüsker Dü was the key link between hardcore punk and
20480-806: The song offers a rare glimpse into the mind of a woman who, for the last 15 years, has been as famous for being a rock star as she's been for being a victim." Love and the band toured internationally from 2010 into late 2012 promoting the record, with their pre-release shows in London and at South by Southwest receiving critical acclaim. In 2011, Love participated in Hit So Hard , a documentary chronicling bandmate Schemel's time in Hole. In May 2012, Love debuted an art collection at Fred Torres Collaborations in New York titled " And She's Not Even Pretty ", which contained over 40 drawings and paintings by Love composed in ink, colored pencil, pastels, and watercolors. Later in
20640-479: The sound and style of grunge, "but not necessarily the individual idiosyncracies of its original artists." Post-grunge was a more commercially viable genre that tempered the distorted guitars of grunge with polished, radio-ready production. Originally, post-grunge was a label used almost pejoratively on bands that emerged when grunge was mainstream and emulated the grunge sound. The label suggested that bands labelled as post-grunge were simply musically derivative, or
20800-514: The stage for alternative's later breakthrough. Some bands such as Pixies had massive success overseas while they were ignored domestically. In the middle of the decade, Hüsker Dü's album Zen Arcade influenced other hardcore acts by tackling personal issues. Out of Washington, D.C.'s hardcore scene what was called "emocore" or, later, " emo " emerged and was noted for its lyrics which delved into emotional, very personal subject matter (vocalists sometimes cried) and added free association poetry and
20960-445: The studio with Larkin and engineer Michael Beinhorn . The album's subject matter was largely centered on Love's tumultuous life between 2003 and 2007, and featured a polished folk rock sound, and more acoustic guitar work than previous Hole albums. The first single from Nobody's Daughter was " Skinny Little Bitch ", released to promote the album in March 2010. The album received mixed reviews. Robert Sheffield of Rolling Stone gave
21120-513: The subgenre's lyrics often address literary romanticism, morbidity, religious symbolism, and supernatural mysticism. Bands of this subgenre took inspiration from two British post-punk groups, Siouxsie and the Banshees , and Joy Division . Bauhaus ' debut single " Bela Lugosi's Dead ", released in 1979, is considered to be the proper beginning of the gothic rock subgenre. The Cure 's "oppressively dispirited" albums including Pornography (1982) cemented that group's stature in that style and laid
21280-411: The supervision of Columbia Pictures while filming, and passed all of them. Despite Columbia Pictures' initial reluctance to hire Love due to her troubled past, her performance received acclaim, earning a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress , and a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress . Critic Roger Ebert called her work in the film "quite a performance; Love proves she
21440-644: The term Alternative Nation . In December 1991, Spin magazine noted: "this year, for the first time, it became resoundingly clear that what has formerly been considered alternative rock —a college-centered marketing group with fairly lucrative, if limited, potential—has in fact moved into the mainstream." In the late 1990s, the definition again became more specific. In 1997, Neil Strauss of The New York Times defined alternative rock as "hard-edged rock distinguished by brittle, '70s-inspired guitar riffing and singers agonizing over their problems until they take on epic proportions." Defining music as alternative
21600-514: The term would broaden to include new wave , pop, punk rock , post-punk , and occasionally " college "/" indie " rock, all found on the American "commercial alternative" radio stations of the time such as Los Angeles' KROQ-FM . Journalist Jim Gerr wrote that Alternative also encompassed variants such as "rap, trash, metal and industrial". The bill of the first Lollapalooza , an itinerant festival in North America conceived by Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell , reunited "disparate elements of
21760-528: The time, the common music industry terms for cutting-edge music were new music and postmodern , respectively indicating freshness and a tendency to recontextualize sounds of the past. A similar term, alternative pop , emerged around 1985. In 1987, Spin magazine categorized college rock band Camper Van Beethoven as "alternative/indie", saying that their 1985 song "Where the Hell Is Bill" (from Telephone Free Landslide Victory ) "called out
21920-559: The time. I went for that part so hard because I felt a need for atonement for some cultural damage that had arisen out of me and things that I had done. By doing that role, I felt that, personally and creatively, I could exemplify why this was the most un-glorious, unglamorous, fucked-up thing. And then, bang! , I was done with all that. I could fuck off and do something else. –Love on her role in The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) After Hole's world tour concluded in 1996, Love made
22080-436: The type of rock played on American 1970s Album Oriented Rock radio. In the early 21st century, many alternative rock bands that experienced mainstream success struggled following the suicide of Nirvana 's Kurt Cobain in April 1994, Pearl Jam 's failed lawsuit against concert venue promoter Ticketmaster , Soundgarden 's break-up in 1997, the Smashing Pumpkins losing its original members in 2000, L7 's hiatus in 2001,
22240-405: The wake of punk rock since the mid-1980s. Throughout much of its history, alternative rock has been largely defined by its rejection of the commercialism of mainstream culture, although this could be contested since some of the major alternative artists have eventually achieved mainstream success or co-opted with the major labels from the 1990s onward (especially into the 2000s, and beyond). In
22400-493: The year, she collaborated with Michael Stipe on the track "Rio Grande" for Johnny Depp 's sea shanty album Son of Rogues Gallery , and in 2013, co-wrote and contributed vocals on "Rat A Tat" from Fall Out Boy 's album Save Rock and Roll , also appearing in the song's music video. After dropping the Hole name and performing as a solo artist in late 2012, Love appeared in spring 2013 advertisements for Yves Saint Laurent alongside Kim Gordon and Ariel Pink . Love completed
22560-581: Was "charming and almost affectionate." Paula would later refer to her mother as a " sociopath ." In 1944, Paula gave birth to a daughter, Linda Carroll , whom she gave up for adoption. Carroll is a therapist and the mother of musician Courtney Love ( b. 1964). In 1925, Fox's play Odd Man Out premiered on Broadway . Between then and 1938, four more of his plays were performed in Broadway theaters, though he later joked: "My plays dimmed more Broadway stars and killed more good performers than there are in
22720-469: Was a transvestite and that they had married "as a joke". After forming Hole, Love and Erlandson had a romantic relationship that lasted over a year. In Hole's formative stages, Love continued to work at strip clubs in Hollywood (including Jumbo's Clown Room and the Seventh Veil), saving money to purchase backline equipment and a touring van, while rehearsing at a Hollywood studio loaned to her by
22880-461: Was also released. Incomplete audio clips of the song " Samantha ", originating from an interview with NPR , were distributed on the internet in 2007. In March 2009, fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir brought a libel suit against Love concerning a defamatory post Love made on her Twitter account, which was eventually settled for $ 450,000. Several months later, in June 2009, NME published an article detailing Love's plan to reunite Hole and release
23040-407: Was an American playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. He wrote several films during the pre-Code era and Hollywood golden age , including Mandalay (1934), Grand Finale (1936), The Last Train from Madrid (1937), Safari (1940), A Gentleman at Heart (1942), and The Stars Are Singing (1953). He also published several novels and short stories, and wrote five Broadway plays. He
23200-767: Was arrested for shoplifting from a Portland department store and remanded at Hillcrest Correctional Facility , a juvenile hall in Salem , Oregon. While at Hillcrest, she became acquainted with records by Patti Smith , the Runaways , and the Pretenders , who later inspired her to start a band. She was intermittently placed in foster care throughout late 1979 until becoming legally emancipated in 1980, after which she remained staunchly estranged from her mother. Shortly after her emancipation, Love spent two months in Japan working as
23360-529: Was created by Billboard , listing the 40 most-played songs on alternative and modern rock radio stations in the US: the first number one was " Peek-a-Boo " by Siouxsie and the Banshees . By 1989, the genre had become popular enough that a package tour featuring New Order , Public Image Limited and the Sugarcubes toured the US arena circuit. Early on, British alternative rock was distinguished from that of
23520-434: Was diagnosed autistic. At an early age, I would not speak. Then I simply bloomed." In 1972, Love's mother divorced Rodríguez, remarried to sportswriter David Menely, and moved the family to Nelson , New Zealand. Love was enrolled at Nelson College for Girls , but soon expelled for misbehavior. In 1973, Carroll sent Love back to Portland , Oregon, to be raised by her former stepfather and other family friends. At age 14, Love
23680-611: Was great, but the raving was vulgar and offensive, and prompted some of the audience to shout back at her." In January 1995, Love was arrested in Melbourne for disrupting a Qantas flight after getting into an argument with a stewardess. On July 4, 1995, at the Lollapalooza Festival in George, Washington , Love threw a lit cigarette at musician Kathleen Hanna before punching her in the face, alleging that she had made
23840-503: Was influenced by Neil Young , Fleetwood Mac, and My Bloody Valentine when writing the album. Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan co-wrote several songs. Celebrity Skin was well received by critics; Rolling Stone called it "accessible, fiery and intimate—often at the same time ... a basic guitar record that's anything but basic." Celebrity Skin went multi-platinum, and topped "Best of Year" lists at Spin and The Village Voice . It garnered Hole's only number-one single on
24000-653: Was like, 'Listen, you guys: I've been in my Malibu, manicure, movie-star world for two years, alright? I wanna make a record. And let's leave all that grunge shit behind us, eh? We were being so improvisational, and singing together, and with a trust developing between us. It was the shit." The group recorded a demo tape, but by September 2001, Post and Crosley had left, with Post citing "unhealthy and unprofessional working conditions". In May 2002, Hole announced their breakup amid continuing litigation with Universal Music Group over their record contract. In 1997, Love and former Nirvana members Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl formed
24160-491: Was living. She audited courses at Trinity College , studying theology for two semesters. She later received honorary patronage from Trinity's University Philosophical Society in 2010. While in Dublin, Love met musician Julian Cope of the Teardrop Explodes at one of the band's concerts. Cope took a liking to Love and offered to let her stay at his Liverpool home in his absence. She traveled to London, where she
24320-474: Was met by her friend and future bandmate, Robin Barbur, from Portland. Recalling Cope's offer, Love and Barbur moved into Cope's home with him and several other artists, including Pete de Freitas of Echo & the Bunnymen . De Freitas was initially hesitant to allow the girls to stay, but acquiesced as they were "alarmingly young and obviously had nowhere else to go". Love recalled: "They kind of took me in. I
24480-889: Was misquoted by Hirschberg, and that she had immediately quit heroin during her first trimester once she discovered she was pregnant. Love later said the article had serious implications for her marriage and Cobain's mental state, suggesting it was a factor in his suicide two years later . On September 8, 1993, Love and Cobain made their only public performance together at the Rock Against Rape benefit in Hollywood, performing two acoustic duets of " Pennyroyal Tea " and " Where Did You Sleep Last Night ". Love also performed electric versions of two new Hole songs, " Doll Parts " and " Miss World ", both written for their upcoming second album. In October 1993, Hole recorded their second album, Live Through This , in Atlanta. The album featured
24640-457: Was not altogether surprising for Ms. Love, 39, whose most public moments have veered from extreme pathos—like the time she read the suicide note of her famous husband, Kurt Cobain, on MTV—to angry feminism to catfights to incoherent ranting." Hours later, in the early morning of March 18, Love was arrested in Manhattan for allegedly striking a fan with a microphone stand during a small concert in
24800-426: Was released worldwide as a Hole album on April 27, 2010. For the new line-up, Love recruited guitarist Micko Larkin , Shawn Dailey (bass guitar), and Stu Fisher (drums, percussion). Nobody's Daughter featured material written and recorded for Love's unfinished solo album, How Dirty Girls Get Clean , including "Pacific Coast Highway", "Letter to God", "Samantha", and "Never Go Hungry", although they were re-produced in
24960-523: Was so bad [after the drug use], I didn't even know chords anymore. It was like my fingers were frozen. And I wasn't allowed to make noise [in rehab] ... I never thought I would work again." Tracks and demos for the album leaked online in 2006, and a documentary, The Return of Courtney Love , detailing the making of the album, aired on the British television network More4 in the fall of that year. A rough acoustic version of "Never Go Hungry Again", recorded during an interview for The Times in November,
25120-406: Was sort of a mascot; I would get them coffee or tea during rehearsals." Cope writes of Love frequently in his 1994 autobiography, Head-On , in which he refers to her as "the adolescent". In July 1982, Love returned to the United States. In late 1982, she attended a Faith No More concert in San Francisco and convinced the members to let her join as a singer. The group recorded material with Love as
25280-467: Was the cousin of writer Faith Baldwin and actor Douglas Fairbanks . Fox was raised in Yonkers, New York , and was "thrown out of three [different] colleges." At age nineteen, Fox sold his first story to The Smart Set , a New York-based literary magazine. Fox married Cuban writer Elsie de Sola in 1923, and they had a daughter, Paula Fox , born the same year. Elsie initially gave their daughter to
25440-410: Was the father of author Paula Fox , whose mother was Cuban writer Elsie Fox (née de Sola). He is the biological grandfather of Linda Carroll , and great-grandfather of her daughter, rock musician Courtney Love . Fox was born in New York City in 1894 to Winfield Douglas Fox and Mary Finch. Fox's paternal great-grandmother, Jane, immigrated to the United States from her native Nova Scotia , Canada. He
25600-417: Was urged by her manager to participate in the cover story. During the prior year, Love and Cobain had developed a heroin addiction; the profile painted them in an unflattering light, suggesting that Love had been addicted to heroin during her pregnancy. The Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services investigated, and custody of Frances was temporarily awarded to Love's sister Jaimee. Love said she
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