Hole
Nobody’s Daughter
Mercury Records
April 27

By Matt Kiernan

While Courtney Love has been in the public eye recently for her legal troubles with her daughter Frances Bean, she’s managed to write songs about her chaotic lifestyle that are straightforwardly melodic.

Since Hole’s last album as released over a decade ago, it was questionable as to whether she still had the talent to write a grunge-fueled tune. After it was established there would be another Hole album, the production itself was hectic with multiple producers being attached that included Smashing Pumpkins front man Billy Corgan.

Having producer Michael Beinhorn, who produced the band’s 1998 album Celebrity Skin, seemed to provide a comfortable outlet for Love to express her heavily personal tracks.

“Nobody’s Daughter” seems like a full collaboration between the band members by having all of the instruments have equal force and includes backing vocals. Love is expressing her troubling personality and need for help through her throaty voice.

“Skinny Little Bitch” has vocals that are very much like Corgan’s that are backed by pounding guitar riffs. On the track the songstress is looking at those who’ve made fun of her and sings that she’s quite aware of what’s being said, and breaks herself down in spite.

The beginning of “How Dirty Girls Get Clean” sounds as if it was recorded while Love was in rehab, and then moves into blasting electric guitars that give it a proper recording sound.

The album ends with the stripped down acoustic song “Never Go Hungry,” a track that gets rid of all the distortion and shows the vocal power of Love and leaves her in her most vulnerable moment on the record.

While the album features original members of Hole, it’s for the most part a solo album by Love since she wrote many of the songs on her own while in rehab.

Nobody’s Daughter is an album that proves Love’s music career can still have a bright future and that through all the drugs and family problems she may have, she can draw upon them to write songs that are expressive of her controversial personal thoughts.