Hole
Hole performing live in March 2010.
Background information
Origin	Los Angeles, California, United States
Genres	Alternative rock, grunge, power pop, noise rock
Years active	1989 (1989)–2002, 2009–present
Labels	Sympathy, Caroline, DGC/Geffen, City Slang, Mercury
Associated acts	Sugar Babydoll, Pagan Babies, Doll Squad, Babes In Toyland, Janitor Joe, Tinker, Rodney & the Tube Tops, The Smashing Pumpkins, RRIICCEE, MAdM, Bastard, The Chelsea, Larrikin Love, Ozric Tentacles, Rock Kills Kid
Website	www.holerock.net
Members
Courtney Love Micko Larkin Scott Lipps
Past members
Eric Erlandson Lisa Roberts Mike Geisbrecht Errol Stewart Caroline Rue Jill Emery Patty Schemel Leslie Hardy Kristen Pfaff Melissa Auf der Maur Samantha Maloney Shawn Dailey Stu Fisher

Hole is an American alternative rock band that originally formed in Los Angeles in 1989. The band is fronted by singer-songwriter Courtney Love (vocals, rhythm guitar), who co-founded Hole with Eric Erlandson (lead guitar). Hole achieved considerable commercial and critical success throughout the 1990s, initially releasing singles through independent labels in L.A. and debuting with their caustic noise rock-influenced Pretty on the Inside (1991),^[1][2] and later gaining near-unanimous critical acclaim with their 1994 album Live Through This.

As the band progressed into the later 1990s, they incorporated elements of power pop into their sound.^[3] The band's third album, Celebrity Skin (1998), fused hard rock with various pop elements, contrasting to their previous styles. Celebrity Skin went on to be the band's most commercially successful album, garnering them immense critical attention as well as several Grammy nominations.

The group officially disbanded in 2002 and its members began solo careers and other projects. In 2009, Love announced she was reforming Hole with former Larrikin Love guitarist Micko Larkin, along with two other young male musicians whom Love recruited out of London. Erlandson, however, stated that no reunion could take place contractually without mutual involvement between Love and Erlandson. On January 1, 2010,^[4] a website promoting Hole's latest release, Nobody's Daughter, was launched, with links to various social media pages including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace.

Despite the dispute between Erlandson and Love, the new Hole album was released in April 2010 and the band toured Europe and North America in support of the record.^[5]

History[link]

Original band (1989–2002)[link]

Background and formation[link]

Hole formed after Eric Erlandson replied to an advertisement placed by Courtney Love in punk rock fanzine Flipside in the summer of 1989. The advertisement simply read: "I want to start a band. My influences are Big Black, Sonic Youth, and Fleetwood Mac."^[6]

"She called me up and talked my ear off," said Erlandson. "We met at this coffee shop, and I saw her and I thought "Oh, God. Oh, no, What am I getting myself into?" She grabbed me and started talking, and she's like "I know you're the right one", and I hadn't even opened my mouth yet."^[7] In retrospect, Love said that Erlandson "had a Thurston [Moore] quality about him", "dressed cool", and was an "intensely weird, good guitarist."^[8] Despite several other responses to the ad, Love chose Erlandson.

Love had lived a nomadic life prior, immersing herself in various music scenes and traveling between her hometown of Portland, Oregon to Los Angeles and San Francisco; she had also spent time in the United Kingdom as a teenager, and had supported herself by working as a stripper. She starred in two Alex Cox films (Sid and Nancy and Straight to Hell), but was ultimately displeased with acting, and quit. She had been in several bands with Kat Bjelland and briefly sang in Faith No More in the early 1980s, but had yet to find any success in music. Erlandson was a California native and a graduate of Loyola Marymount University, and was working as a royalties manager for Capitol Records at the time he met Love.^[9]

During in an interview on Later... with Jools Holland, Love claimed the name for the band was inspired by a quote from Euripides' Medea which read "there's a hole that pierces my soul." Additionally, Love cited a conversation with her mother as being the primary inspiration for the band's name: "the name came from my mom. She's like, a therapist, and I said "I had a really fucked childhood", and she said "Well Courtney, you can't walk around with a big hole inside of yourself about it.""^[10]

Early work (1990-1992)[link]

The band's first rehearsal took place in Fortress Studios in Hollywood, where Love, Erlandson and original bassist Lisa Roberts "played something noisy" while "they [Courtney and Lisa] started screaming their poetry at the top of their lungs for two or three hours."^[11] Initially, the band had no percussion, until Love met drummer Caroline Rue at a Gwar show.^[10] They also recruited a third guitarist, Mike Giesbrecht, and began to perform live. Hole's first show took place at Raji's , a small club in Hollywood, in September 1989. They played three other shows at different nightclubs in Los Angeles in the following two months. Their early shows were notable for featuring lots of experimental playing, distortion, and guitar feedback—a style that would be heavily present in their eventual studio material—and Love interacting a lot with the audience. At the beginning of their third show at Nightmoves, the theme from Phantasm (1979) was played, and Love introduced the band, saying: "We're Hole. Some of you will like us, and some of you will hate us."^[12]

From the beginning, Hole was primarily influenced by punk, noise rock, and no wave music. Both Love and Erlandson were fans of the notorious LA punk band The Germs, and Love once had a "Germs burn" (a circular burn on the arm given to followers and members of the band) given to her by Germs guitarist Pat Smear.^[13] In a 1996 interview for a Germs tribute documentary, Erlandson said: "I think every band is based on one song, and our band was based on "Forming"... Courtney brought it into rehearsal, and she knew, like, three chords and it was the only punk rock song we could play."^[13] Love also noted early on that the band was "heavily into lyrics", and that they were "the most important thing" to her.^[10] "I want to transcend this whole 'chick thing'. Fuck this chick thing. The whole thing with music is that it's cathartic, and if it wasn't cathartic then I wouldn't want to play it."^[10]

In 1990, Hole recruited Jill Emery on bass and began recording studio material. The band released their debut single "Retard Girl" in 1990, and followed it with "Dicknail" in 1991, released on Sympathy for the Record Industry and Sub Pop, respectively. According to KROQ-FM disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer, Love would often "hang out" at a Denny's on Sunset Blvd. where he went for coffee in the mornings to try to convince him to play "Retard Girl" on his station.^[14] As the group began to make decent money as an underground band, A&R reps and music labels started to appear at their shows. After one show, the band was approached by a major music label representative, who told Love they needed a more "full sound," to which she replied "fuck off."^[8]

	Pretty on the Inside noicon from Pretty on the Inside (1991) – the title track to the band's debut album, featuring abrasive guitars and Love's harsh vocals.
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In 1991, the band signed onto Caroline Records to release their debut album, and Love sought Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth to produce the album for her. Sending a letter, a Hello Kitty barrette, and copies of the band's early singles to Gordon, Love mentioned that the band greatly admired Gordon's work and appreciated "... the production of the SST record"^[15] (either referring to Sonic Youth's album Sister or EVOL), also noting that they would "prefer to work with a woman" and would be "forever honored" should Gordon produce. Gordon agreed, and Gumball's Don Fleming assisted in production.

The album, titled Pretty on the Inside, was released in August 1991 to vast praise from underground critics. It was branded by underground music critics as "loud, ugly and deliberately shocking."^[16] A 1991 review in Spin said that the album "revolves around a fascination of the repulsive aspects of L.A.—superficiality, sexism, violence, and drugs."^[8] Spin also ranked the album in their "20 Best Albums of the Year" list,^[17] and it was voted album of the year by New York's Village Voice.^[18] The album peaked at number 59 on the UK albums chart,^[19] and sold well for an independent release. The album spawned one single, "Teenage Whore", which entered the UK Indie Chart at number one,^[20] as well as the band's debut music video for the song "Garbadge Man".

Musically and lyrically, the album was very abrasive, characterized by overt noise and feedback, chaotic guitar riffs, graphic lyrics, and a variation of Love's vocals ranging from whispers to guttural screaming.^[21] In later years, Love referred to the album as "unlistenable", despite its critical accolades and eventual cult following.^[22][23] The underlying pro-feminist slant prevalent in the lyrics lead many to mistakenly tag the band as being part of the riot grrl movement at the time,^[24] a movement that Love was highly critical of.^[25][26]

The band toured extensively in the UK, Europe, and the US to promote the record. The tour was marked by a fair amount of chaos: while playing in London with Mudhoney, Love had her clothes violently torn off and was sexually violated during a stage dive, an event that would later become the inspiration for the song "Asking for It".^[27][28] Another notable incident occurred on the next-to-last show of the tour on December 19, 1991 at the Whisky A Go Go, where Hole opened for The Smashing Pumpkins. Love smashed her guitar onstage in a fit of anger after the audience failed to respond well to their set, and Erlandson "demolished" his instrument as well.^[29] That same evening, Joe Cole, a mutual friend of Love's who had attended the concert with Henry Rollins, was murdered in a robbery on his way home.^[30]

It was during the tour that Love became romantically involved with Kurt Cobain of Nirvana (the two had initially crossed paths in 1989 in Portland), later becoming pregnant in December 1991.

Mainstream success (1992–1995)[link]

Hole began planning a second album in 1992, in the midst of Love's pregnancy and marriage to Cobain. Love had purportedly wanted to transition from Hole's grittier punk rock style to a more melodic, controlled rock format on their next album, which bassist Jill Emery did not want to partake in. "Courtney wanted to be pop; she wanted to change. I don't mind changing, I love it, but I didn't want to go from A to Z—it just felt fake", said Emery.^[31] Emery left the band shortly after Love married Kurt Cobain, and drummer Caroline Rue followed. In an advertisement to find a new bass player, Love wrote: "[I want] someone who can play ok, and stand in front of 30,000 people, take off her shirt and have 'fuck you' written on her tits. If you're not afraid of me and you're not afraid to fucking say it, send a letter. No more pussies, no more fake girls, I want a whore from hell."^[15][32] In April 1992, drummer Patty Schemel was recruited after an audition and recommendation by Cobain, but the band spent the rest of the year without a stable bassist.

As a result of Pretty on the Inside's success and the furious press coverage surrounding Love, Hole was signed to Geffen Records with an eight-album contract in late 1992, after many meetings with major labels during Love's pregnancy. In the spring of 1993, the band released their single "Beautiful Son", which was recorded in Seattle with producer Jack Endino as a fill-in bass player; Love also played bass on the single's b-side "20 Years In the Dakota".

The band later traveled to Rio de Janeiro for studio work, where Love and Schemel, along with Cobain, recorded a four-track demo of "joke songs" under the group name Nighty Nite; the three pretended to be two teenage sisters from Marysville, Washington who were starting a riot grrrl band, and heightened the pitch on the vocal tracks. The demos were sent to various musicians as a joke, including members of Bikini Kill, Fugazi, and Beat Happening.^[6]

After the Rio sessions, the band recruited Janitor Joe bassist Kristen Pfaff, and performed several concerts throughout 1993 (including the Phoenix Festival on July 16). The band's 1993 set-lists featured many songs from their upcoming major label debut, "Live Through This", which was recorded at Triclops Studios in Marietta, Georgia in October 1993. The studio was recommended to Love by Billy Corgan, who had recorded the Smashing Pumpkins album Siamese Dream there.

In March 1994, Love and husband Kurt Cobain individually checked themselves into rehab clinics in Los Angeles for purported heroin addiction.^[31] Cobain checked himself out of rehab shortly after arriving and returned to Seattle, just a week before the release of Hole's second album. The album, titled Live Through This, was released on April 12, 1994, and in tragic timing— four days after finding that Love's husband, Cobain, had died in their Seattle home. In the days following his death, Love mourned with fans outside their house, and a recording of her reading his note was played at a memorial service in Seattle, where she arrived shortly after the ceremony to distribute some of his clothing to fans.^[33]

Cobain's death also stirred controversy surrounding the final track on Live Through This— "Rock Star"— which contained lyrics that read: "How'd you like to be Nirvana?/ So much fun to be Nirvana / A barrel of laughs to be Nirvana / Say you'd rather die". The song was inexplicably taken off of the album and replaced by an outtake titled "Olympia". It is widely believed that, because the song lyrics appeared inappropriate in the wake of Cobain's suicide, the song was replaced. However, by the time the decision to remove "Rock Star" was made, the artwork and inserts for the album had already been printed, so the title "Rock Star" remains the official title of the song.

Amidst the emotional impact and hysteria surrounding Cobain's death, Live Through This was a critical success, and spawned a slew of fairly popular singles: "Doll Parts", "Violet", "Miss World" and "Softer, Softest". The album went multi-platinum and was hailed "Album of the Year" by Spin magazine^[34] and received unanimously rave reviews from major music periodicals.^[35][36] NME called the album "a personal but secretive thrash-pop opera of urban nihilism and passionate dumbthinks",^[37] and Rolling Stone said the album "may be the most potent blast of female insurgency ever committed to tape".^[38]

Despite the critical praise for Live Through This, furious rumors circulated insinuating that Cobain had actually written the majority of the album, though the band vehemently denies this.^[31] They did, however, state that Love convinced Cobain to provide backing vocals on "Asking for It" and "Softer, Softest" while visiting the studio, and music producers present during the recording sessions noted that Cobain seemed "completely unfamiliar" with the songs.^[39] According to Rolling Stone rock journalist Gavin Edwards, Love and Cobain had written songs together in the past, but opted to not release them because it was "a bit too redolent of John and Yoko".^[39] Incidentally, Love has revealed that the alternate mix of "Asking for It" featuring Cobain, was planned to be released as a single before his suicide occurred.

In spite of Cobain's death, the band pushed forward to prepare for a tour to promote the massively successful album, but it came to a halt when bassist Kristen Pfaff died that June of an apparent heroin overdose.^[31] Hole pulled out of the upcoming Lollapalooza festival, which was also going to include Cobain's band, Nirvana. The band disappeared from the media spotlight in the summer of 1994, and on September 1, played their first headlining show since the album's release at the Phoenix Theatre in Toronto, dedicating it to Kristen. The band, now with Melissa Auf der Maur on bass, recruited by Love at Billy Corgan's suggestion, toured extensively throughout late 1994 and 1995, and the tour became notorious for its press coverage surrounding Love's fraught emotional state.

Appearances included the KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas, Saturday Night Live, the Big Day Out festival, MTV Unplugged, the Reading Festival, and Lollapalooza 1995. Perhaps most infamously, the band was asked to play at MTV Video Music Awards, where they were nominated for the "Doll Parts" music video.^[40] They also performed "Violet" at the awards show. Before the song, a clearly distraught Love dedicated the performance to Cobain, Pfaff, Joe Cole, and River Phoenix, all of whom had recently died. Love ended the performance by chanting "God bless your soul", throwing her guitar into the air, pushing over a microphone stand into the audience, and knocking over stereo equipment before exiting the stage.^[41]

	Doll Parts noicon from Live Through This – This song from Hole's popular second album illustrates Hole's grunge influence as well as Courtney Love's distinctive vocals.
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During this time period, Love's stage antics had grown wild, garnering much attention from the press. At Lollapalooza on July 4, 1995, in George, Washington, Love punched Bikini Kill singer Kathleen Hanna in the face and pelted her with candy and a burning cigarette, after Hanna had allegedly made a drug joke about Love's two-year-old daughter.^[42][43] Love went to court over the case and was sentenced to anger management classes. More controversy was stirred at a Pittsburgh Lollapalooza concert in the fall of 1995, when Love stormed offstage with the band in tears after an audience member threw shotgun shells at her,^[44] referencing speculation that she may have been involved in husband Kurt Cobain's death.^[45] A similar event had happened several months prior— at an April 1995 show at the Paradiso in Amsterdam, Love cursed at an audience member for throwing things at her, and eventually stormed off the stage with the band after playing only six songs.

Toward the end of the tour to promote Live Through This, the band released their first EP, titled Ask for It, in September 1995; it featured 1991 Peel session recordings of "Doll Parts" and "Violet", as well as covers of The Wipers' "Over the Edge" and "Pale Blue Eyes" by The Velvet Underground. After the band's tours in 1995, Hole entered the studio to begin work on a new album. There were multiple attempts to record Hole's third album, and one such attempt was in New Orleans in winter 1995. Interviews with Erlandson have confirmed the authenticity of this session, and the style is thought to have been a transition between the alternative style of Live Through This and the band's later pop-influenced sound, however no material from the sessions has surfaced.

Hiatus and retrospective releases (1996–1997)[link]

Hole was thought to be on hiatus in 1996, due to Love's rising movie career which skyrocketed when she landed a lead role in The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996). Despite the reported hiatus and Love's acting career, the band recorded and released a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Gold Dust Woman" for The Crow: City of Angels (1996), the band's first studio song to feature Melissa Auf der Maur on bass.

During the supposed hiatus, Hole released two retrospective albums: firstly, their second EP, titled The First Session (1997), which was composed of a complete version of the band's first recording session at Rudy's Rising Star in Los Angeles in March 1990, some of which had been bootlegged widely years prior. It featured the group's first ever recorded track, "Turpentine", which had previously been unreleased to the public, as well as their first single, "Retard Girl", and its two b-sides.

The same year, the band released their first compilation album, My Body, The Hand Grenade (1997), which was produced chiefly by Eric Erlandson; Love designed the packaging and artwork on the album.^[46] The album was composed as a retrospective on the band's career, featuring early singles, mid-period b-sides and recent live tracks, illustrating their path from a "tiny L.A. basement studio into alternative rock superstardom".^[46] One outtake from the Live Through This recording sessions which was included on this release was the controversial song, "Old Age". The history and writer of this song was the subject of controversy among Courtney Love detractors who believed Kurt Cobain had written Hole's second album, an allegation for which no evidence has ever surfaced. It was eventually learned "Old Age" had been written by Kurt Cobain for the Nevermind sessions in 1991, then given to Hole, whereupon its lyrics were rewritten by Love, who "tried to make it goth".^[47] Another song featured on the album was "20 Years in the Dakota", which discussed Yoko Ono's struggles as John Lennon's wife, a position which Love herself has been frequently compared to, due to the perception that Ono drew Lennon away from The Beatles and that Love drew Cobain away from Nirvana. The album also featured a demo version of "Miss World", as well as recordings from a 1995 MTV Unplugged performance.

Although Hole as a band did not perform during 1996 and 1997, members of Hole performed separately, including Love's guest appearance at a Smashing Pumpkins' show in February 1996, at which she performed "Silverfuck" and "Farewell and Goodnight", with Smashing Pumpkins' frontman, and former boyfriend, Billy Corgan. Auf der Maur and Schemel also performed a show in Toronto in July 1996. Erlandson also collaborated with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth and director Dave Markey in the short-lived project, Rodney & the Tube Tops, with whom he released one single.

[edit] Celebrity Skin era (1997–1999)

Hole's third studio album, Celebrity Skin (1998) adopted a complete new sound for the band, which had become known for its grunge and punk rock roots. Featuring a more pop-oriented sound, Celebrity Skin was a critical success with strong sales and successful singles, including the title track, "Celebrity Skin", "Malibu", and "Awful". Eric Erlandson told Rolling Stone, "I still think a lot of Celebrity Skin is my Johnny Thunders influence coming up – which Courtney just fucking hates."^[48]

The album was recorded in Conway Recording Studios in Los Angeles throughout 1997, after many "fruitless attempts" in Miami, London and New York. Although Patty Schemel is listed as drummer in the liner notes of the record, she did not actually appear on the record as she had left the band prior to the main recording sessions and was in turn replaced by a session drummer (the band would eventually recruit drummer Samantha Maloney for the tour). The studio work on Celebrity Skin took almost a year and a half— according to Erlandson, Courtney was more focused on song-writing and singing and "did not care about her instrument". Eric also noted that Billy Corgan, who co-wrote a large portion of the album, played bass on "Hit So Hard".

In reaction to public speculation that Kurt Cobain had written the band's second album, Celebrity Skin's liner notes listed explicitly every musician's contribution to the record, specifying authorship for every song. Love wrote all the lyrics, while Erlandson, assistant-producing alongside Michael Beinhorn, had a hand in every song. Co-songwriters on the album also included Melissa Auf der Maur, Patty Schemel, Jordon Zadorozny of Blinker the Star, and Charlotte Caffey of The Go-Go's, each contributing pieces to a number of songs, however the most notable contributor was Billy Corgan, who co-wrote five of the twelve songs on the album.

Nonetheless, as with the rumors surrounding the writing credits on Live Through This, unwarranted controversy stirred over the authorship of the songs. Upon its release, Corgan made references that he should have "been given credit" for writing the entire album.^[49] Eric Erlandson responded to Corgan's statements in a Rolling Stone interview, commenting: "We were working on all the stuff that Courtney and I had already written. Billy really facilitated things, in a way... I would bring in the music, Courtney would start coming up with lyrics right away, and [Billy] would help map it all out." Erlandson also stated: "Courtney writes all her own lyrics. Nobody else is writing those lyrics and nobody ever has."^[48]

One journalist took note of the controversy when reviewing the album, stating: "Back in 1994, the acclaim for Live Through This was undercut by whispers that Love's late husband wrote the album. Combine those conspiracy theories with the unfounded but persistent rumor that Cobain was actually murdered, and it is no surprise that, in the song "Celebrity Skin", Love calls herself a walking study in demonology."^[49]

The album received unanimously positive reviews, with praise from music periodicals such as Rolling Stone, NME, and Blender,^[50][51] as well as a four-star review from the Los Angeles Times,^[52] calling it a "wild emotional ride" sure to be "one of the most dissected and debated collections of the year."^[52] The album charted incredibly well, peaking at number 9 on the Billboard 200, and garnering the band its first and only number 1 single, "Celebrity Skin", which topped the Modern Rock Tracks. "Malibu" was the album's second successful single, making it to number 3 on the Modern Rock Tracks. Commercially speaking, Celebrity Skin went on to be the band's greatest success.

In the winter of 1998–99, Hole went on tour to promote Celebrity Skin, and made further appearances at festivals throughout 1999 after an extensive American and European tour. Hole and Marilyn Manson toured together, with Manson promoting his then-recent album, Mechanical Animals (1998) on the "Beautiful Monsters Tour". The tour turned into a publicity magnet, and Hole dropped out of the tour nine dates in, due to both the majority of the fans being Manson's, who were not very interested in the Hole performances, and the financial arrangement for the bands (50/50 cost and revenue splitting) as a reason for discontinuing the tour (Hole had relatively little production costs and ending up paying a large amount for Manson's high cost production).^[53] Manson and Love often mocked one another onstage as well, and Love attacked Manson's stage antics, which included tearing up a Bible during performances: "You know, whenever somebody rips up the Bible in front of 40,000 people, I think it's a big deal," she said during a 1999 interview.^[14] The band played one last show on the tour after a poorly-received concert at Portland's Rose Garden Arena, which ended with Manson fans booing the band and Love dropping her guitar and walking offstage after a 45-minute set.^[54]

Nonetheless, Melissa Auf der Maur considered the tour "the best [we] ever were as a live band", and documented the Celebrity Skin concerts by taking photographs, several of which were featured in National Geographic music editorials.^[55] As noted by Auf der Maur, it was a "daily event" for Love to invite audience members onstage to sing with her for the last song at nearly every concert performed during the tour.^[55]

On June 18, 1999 during Hole's set at the Hultsfred Festival in Sweden, a 19-year old girl died after being crushed by the mosh pit behind the mixing board. The band did not comment on her death.^[56] Hole played its final show at Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver on July 14, 1999.

Second hiatus and disbandment (1999–2002)[link]

In October 1999, Auf der Maur quit Hole and went on to become a touring bassist for The Smashing Pumpkins. Samantha Maloney also quit a few months later. Despite being the only two remaining members of the group, Love and Erlandson still continued with Hole. The band's final release was a single for the movie Any Given Sunday (1999). "Be a Man", released in March 2000, was an outtake from the Celebrity Skin sessions, and was another song co-written by and including bass-work by Corgan.

Love and Erlandson officially disbanded Hole via a message posted on the band's website in 2002.

Post-Hole (2002–2009)[link]

After the split, the four musicians each took on projects of their own. Erlandson continued to work as a producer and session musician, eventually forming the experimental group RRIICCEE with controversial artist, Vincent Gallo and Love began a solo career, releasing her debut, America's Sweetheart in 2004. Melissa Auf der Maur also embarked on a solo career, and released her self-titled debut album in 2004, which also included Erlandson on lead guitar on the track, "Would If I Could." Her second album, Out of Our Minds, was released on March 30, 2010.

Hole's original body of work includes thirteen singles, six Grammy nominations, three LPs, three EPs, one compilation album and 10 music videos.

Reformation (2009–present)[link]

[edit] Nobody's Daughter era (2009–present)

Courtney Love and guitarist Micko Larkin performing at Bumbershoot in Seattle, Washington in September 2010.

On June 17, 2009, NME posted two in-depth blogs, and links to two interviews, of Courtney Love announcing the reunion of Hole. The article was primarily focused on Love's upcoming solo release, Nobody's Daughter, yet it claimed with the "rock Courtney back in action, this music could only come out under one name, Hole". According to the blog post, Melissa Auf der Maur would once again be bassist, with Micko Larkin replacing Eric Erlandson, and a drummer was not mentioned. There was also mention of "tours next year".^[57] However, days later, Melissa Auf der Maur, interviewed in Toronto where she was appearing at the North by Northeast music festival, said she had "no clue" about the band's reported reunion and denied the NME claim she had, or was asked to, contribute vocals to the album or had been asked to tour with the purportedly reunited band saying, "I actually don't know [about the reunion]...I arrived at [the music festival in Toronto] and I heard that Hole were getting back together from people sending me links," she said. Auf der Maur did, however, state that she had been asked by Love to do harmonies on the album, but nothing else.^[58]

Eric Erlandson stated in a Spin magazine that contractually no reunion can take place without his involvement, therefore Nobody's Daughter would remain Love's solo record, as opposed to a "Hole" record. Erlandson stated that he and Love "have a contract",^[59] which was later revealed to be a contract preventing either from reforming Hole without mutual involvement. Love then responded to Erlandson's comments in a Twitter post, claiming that "he's out of his mind, Hole is my band, my name, and my Trademark". Shortly after this quarrel Love began posting new Hole logos, stage ideas, and guitar pick ideas on her Facebook page, implying, though not confirming, that Hole had reformed. In a later interview, just days before the expected release of Hole's Nobody's Daughter, Erlandson explained how "[Courtney's] management convinced me that it was all hot air and that she would never be able to finish her album. Now I'm left in an uncomfortable position."^[60]

In December 2009, three upcoming shows were announced in New York, Milan and Amsterdam, at The Standard Hotel's Boom Boom Room, the Magazzini Generali and Paradiso respectively,^[61][62] though flyers from the New York show credit the performer solely as Courtney Love. The official Paradiso website issued a press release the same month stating Melissa Auf der Maur would partake in the show, but when asked by a fan on her official Facebook fan page, Auf der Maur claimed that "[this] mysterious press release is news to me [...] putting my detective hat on now [...] more on this soon." The Paradiso's website claimed in January 2010 that "many quarrels are settled."^[62]

Auf der Maur stated in an interview with New York Magazine in April, 2010: "Even in rock and roll, I believe there's a right and wrong. I'm still close friends with Eric, and he's the only one who can do anything on his end about it. He's a peaceful man who has made great efforts in his own life to find peace. I feel protective of the legacy of Hole and my memories in it. It wasn't even so much about doing a reunion. I told Courtney, 'I support the retrospective of everything done in that time. If and when you're ready to look at that, I'll support it.' What's so funny is that she can come out and say that I asked her to do a reunion. That's not exactly what was said. What I said was that I think a retrospective would be incredibly valuable right now and that's obviously not where she's at. I've always wished the best for her. I want her to be happy. I want her to be musical. I care about her well-being. When she gets an idea in her mind, that's what she stays with regardless of what other people think or feel."^[63]

Hole launched a new website, and an official Facebook page on January 1, 2010. The band played its first performance since the reunion on February 12, 2010 on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross playing "Samantha". On February 17, 2010 they played a full set at the O2 Shepherds Bush Empire, with support from Little Fish.^[64] Further shows were performed at 02 Academy Brixton and SPIN's annual SXSW music festival, with further dates being added for the United States and United Kingdom in April and May 2010. Television appearances, in efforts to promote the upcoming album, include performing on Late Show with David Letterman on April 27, Jimmy Kimmel Live! on April 29 and on Later with Jools Holland on the May 4. On March 16, the first Hole single in ten years, and first from Nobody's Daughter was released, titled "Skinny Little Bitch". It was the most added song on alternative radio and the second most added song on active rock in early March in the United States, debuting at No. 32 on Billboard's Alternative Singles Chart.

Nobody's Daughter was released on April 26 and 27, 2010 worldwide through Mercury Records, and was received by music critics with moderately positive acclaim.^[65] Rolling Stone gave the album three out of five stars, but noted "[while Love] was an absolute monster vocalist in the nineties, the greatest era ever for rock singers... She doesn't have that power in her lungs anymore – barely a trace. But at least she remembers, and that means something in itself." The magazine also referred to the album as "not a true success", but a "noble effort".^[66] Love's voice, which had been noticeably raspier (likely due to years of scream-singing, drug abuse, and smoking) was compared to the likes of Bob Dylan.^[67]

NME gave the album a 6/10 rating, and Robert Christgau rated it an "A-", saying, "Thing is, I can use some new punk rage in my life, and unless you're a fan of Goldman Sachs and BP Petroleum, so can you. What's more, better it come from a 45-year-old woman who knows how to throw her weight around than from the zitty newbies and tattooed road dogs who churn most of it out these days. I know—for her, BP Petroleum is just something else to pretend about. But the emotion fueling her pretense is cathartic nevertheless."^[68]

In support of the release, Hole toured between February and September 2010 in North America, Europe and Japan. An extended European tour was scheduled to take place in May and June but was canceled and only five European dates were played in late August. In 2011, the band did a few more shows, including Afisha Picnic festival in Moscow, Russia and the SWU Music & Arts festival in São Paulo, Brazil. The band gave up their headlining spot for the Australian Soundwave festival tour of 2012 due to disagreements over the bill.

On March 28, 2011, Love, Erlandson, Patty Schemel and Auf der Maur appeared at the New York screening of Schemel's documentary Hit So Hard: The Life and Near-Death Story of Patty Schemel at the Museum of Modern Art.^[69] The appearance was first time in thirteen years that all four members appeared together in public. Schemel has expressed a desire to record with Love, Erlandson and Auf der Maur stating "nothing has been discussed, but I have a feeling."^[69] After the screening, the four took part in a Q&A session where Courtney Love stated: "For me, as much as I love playing with Patty – and I would play with her in five seconds again, and everyone onstage – if it's not moving forward, I don't wanna do it. That's just my thing. There's rumblings; there's always bloody rumblings. But if it's not miserable and it's going forward and I'm happy with it… that's all I have to say about that question."^[70]

In May 2011, a video for "Samantha" was shot. It was the first promotional video for Nobody's Daughter, over a year after its release, and Hole's first official music video in eleven years since "Be a Man" in 2000. In September 2011, Hole played for ONE Management's 10th anniversary party. This concert marked Scott Lipps's first performance as drummer Stu Fisher's replacement. Love recently updated a status on her Twitter account stating that she was in the studio with the band and Scott Lipps recording their 5th album.

On April 13, 2012, Love, Erlandson, Auf der Maur and Schemel reunited at the Public Assembly in New York for a two-song set, including "Miss World" and "Over the Edge," at an after-party for the Hit So Hard documentary.^[71] The performance marked the first time the four members performed together live since 1995.

Members[link]

Current lineup[link]

• Courtney Love – lead vocals, rhythm guitar (1989–2002, 2009–present)
• Micko Larkin – lead guitar (2009–present)
• Scott Lipps – drums, percussion (2011–present)

Former members[link]

• Eric Erlandson – lead guitar (1989–2002)
• Lisa Roberts – bass, backing vocals (1989–1990)
• Mike Giesbrecht – guitar (1989)
• Errol Stewart – guitar (1989)
• Caroline Rue – drums, backing vocals (1989–1992)
• Jill Emery – bass (1990–1992)
• Patty Schemel – drums, percussion (1992–1997)
• Leslie Hardy – bass, backing vocals (1992–1993)
• Kristen Pfaff – bass, backing vocals, piano (1993–1994; died 1994)
• Melissa Auf der Maur – bass, backing vocals (1994–1999)
• Samantha Maloney – drums, percussion (1998–2000)
• Shawn Dailey – bass (2009–2012)
• Stu Fisher – drums, percussion (2009–2011)

Timeline[link]

 id:Lead               value:purple       legend:Rhythm guitar, vocals
 id:Bass              value:red        legend:Bass
 id:Guitar             value:blue      legend:Lead guitar
 id:Drums               value:green legend:Drums
 id:Lines               value:black      legend:Releases

 at:09/17/1991 color:black layer:back
 at:04/12/1994 color:black layer:back
 at:09/08/1998 color:black layer:back
 at:04/23/2010 color:black layer:back

 bar:Courtney text:"Courtney Love"
 bar:Micko text:"Micko Larkin"
 bar:Shawn text:"Shawn Dailey"
 bar:Scott text:"Scott Lipps"
 bar:Stu text:"Stu Fisher"
 bar:Eric text:"Eric Erlandson"
 bar:Samantha text:"Samantha Maloney"
 bar:Melissa text:"Melissa Auf der Maur"
 bar:Patty text:"Patty Schemel"
 bar:Kristen text:"Kristen Pfaff"
 bar:Leslie text:"Leslie Hardy"
 bar:Jill text:"Jill Emery"
 bar:Caroline text:"Caroline Rue"

 width:10 textcolor:black align:left anchor:from shift:(10,-4)
 bar:Courtney from:08/01/1989 till:05/31/2002 color:Lead
 bar:Courtney from:01/01/2009 till:end color:Lead
 bar:Shawn from:01/01/2009 till:end color:Bass
 bar:Micko from:01/01/2009 till:end color:Guitar
 bar:Scott from:09/01/2011 till:end color:Drums
 bar:Stu from:01/01/2009 till:08/31/2011 color:Drums
 bar:Eric from:08/01/1989 till:05/31/2002 color:Guitar
 bar:Samantha from:09/01/1998 till:12/31/1999 color:Drums
 bar:Melissa from:08/26/1994 till:10/31/1999 color:Bass
 bar:Patty from:04/01/1992 till:12/31/1997 color:Drums
 bar:Kristen from:01/01/1993 till:06/16/1994 color:Bass
 bar:Leslie from:04/01/1992 till:12/31/1992 color:Bass
 bar:Jill from:01/01/1990 till:03/31/1992 color:Bass
 bar:Caroline from:08/01/1989 till:03/31/1992 color:Drums

Discography[link]

Studio albums

• Pretty on the Inside (1991)
• Live Through This (1994)
• Celebrity Skin (1998)
• Nobody's Daughter (2010)

EPs

• Ask for It (1995)
• The First Session (1997)

Compilation albums

• My Body, the Hand Grenade (1997)

Chart positions[link]

US & Canada Billboard Album Chart peak positions

US & Canada Billboard Singles Chart peak positions

Awards and nominations[link]

Grammy Award

MTV Video Music Awards

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hole (band)

• Official website
• Hole on Myspace
• Hole's channel on YouTube

Look up hole in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

A hole is an opening in a solid.

Hole or holes may also refer to:

• Black hole
• Blind hole
• Electron hole, a concept in physics and chemistry
• Fox hole or spider hole, in the military
• Manhole, an opening in the ground to access the sewer under a city
• Murder-hole
• Portable hole, a fictional device
• Porthole, a window on a ship's external hull
• Punchhole, a hole punched in paper
• Sound hole, on a musical instrument
  • Tone hole
• Touch hole
• Whitewater hole, a feature found in some whitewater rapids
• Wormhole

Entertainment[link]

• Holes (novel), by Louis Sachar
  • Holes (film), a 2003 theatrical adaptation of the novel
  • Holes (play), a 1998 stage adaptation of the novel
• Plot hole, in writing
• Hole (Bottom episode), an episode of the British television sitcom Bottom

Music[link]

• Hole (band), an alternative rock band formed by Courtney Love and Eric Erlandson in 1989
• Hole (Scraping Foetus Off the Wheel album), 1984
• Hole (Merzbow album), 1994
• Holes (album), a 2004 album by melpo mene
• Hole (EP), by 65daysofstatic
• "Holes" (song), by Mercury Rev
• "Holes" (Pint Shot Riot song), from their EP Round One
• "Hole" (song), a song by Kelly Clarkson on the album My December

Games and sport[link]

• Hole (association football)
• A segment of a golf course
• A term in the game of poker
• A chess term

Other[link]

• Høle, Norway, a borough and former municipality
• Hole, Norway
• Hole (surname)

See also[link]

• All pages beginning with "Hole"
• All pages with titles containing "Hole"
• The Hole (disambiguation)
• HOL (disambiguation)
• Whole (disambiguation)
• First law of holes

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Look up band in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Band may refer to:

Clothing, jewelry, and accessories[link]

• Bands (neckwear), two pieces of cloth fitted around the neck as part of formal clothing for clergy, academics, and lawyers
• Bandolier or bandoleer, an ammunition belt
• Belt (clothing)
• Wedding ring or wedding band
• Strap, an elongated flap or ribbon, usually of fabric or leather

Science and technology[link]

• Band (radio), a range of frequencies or wavelengths used in radio transmission and radar
• Rubber band, a short length of rubber and latex formed in the shape of a loop
• Möbius strip or Möbius band, an artifact with interesting topological features
• Band (mathematics), an idempotent semigroup
• Spectral bands, part of the optical spectra of polyatomic systems
• Metals and semiconductors
  • Valence band
  • Conduction band
  • Band gap

Medicine and biology[link]

• Bird ringing, or bird banding, placing a numbered bands of metal on birds' legs for identification
• A group of animals, such as gorillas or coyotes
  • Herd
  • Flocking (behavior)
• Band cell, a type of white blood cell
• Protein band, see Coomassie
• Gastric band, a weight-control measure

Organizations[link]

• Bands (Italian Army irregulars), military units once in the service of the Italian Regio Esercito
• Brazilian broadcast television network Rede Bandeirantes, nicknamed Band or Band Network
• The Band (wrestling), the Total Nonstop Wrestling name for the professional wrestling stable New World Order

Society and government[link]

• Band society, a small group of humans in a simple form of society
• The primary unit of Native Americans in the United States
• Band (First Nations Canada), the primary unit of First Nations Government in Canada

People[link]

• Band (surname)

Places[link]

• Band, Mureş in Romania
• Bánd, a village in Hungary

Music[link]

• Band, a company of musicians—see Musical ensemble
  • Rock band
  • Concert band
  • School band, a group of student musicians who rehearse and perform instrumental music together
  • Marching band, a group of performers that consist of instrumental musicians who generally perform outdoors and incorporate some type of marching (and possibly other movements) with their musical performance
• The Band, a Canadian-American rock and roll group
  • The Band (album), its eponymous album released in 1969

See also[link]

• All pages beginning with "Band"
• All pages with titles containing "Band"
• Banding (disambiguation)
• Drum and bugle corps (disambiguation)
• Stripe (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Courtney Love
Love performing with Hole at SXSW Festival in Austin, Texas, March 2010
Background information
Birth name	Courtney Michelle Harrison[1]
Also known as	Courtney Love
Born	(1964-07-09) July 9, 1964 (age 47) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Genres	Alternative rock
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, actress, visual artist
Instruments	Vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards
Years active	1982–present
Labels	Sympathy for the Record Industry, Sub Pop, Caroline, DGC / Geffen, City Slang, Universal, Virgin, Mercury
Associated acts	Hole, Babes in Toyland, Sugar Babydoll, Pagan Babies, Faith No More, Emilie Autumn
Notable instruments
Fender Jazzmaster[2] Fender Vista Venus[3] Rickenbacker 360[4] Rickenbacker 425[5]

Courtney Michelle Love (born Courtney Michelle Harrison; July 9, 1964)^[1] is an American singer-songwriter, musician, actress and artist. Love initially gained notoriety in the Los Angeles indie rock scene with her band Hole, which she formed in 1989 with Eric Erlandson. Their debut album, Pretty on the Inside (1991) garnered them critical praise, and they went on to achieve international critical and commercial acclaim for their following albums, Live Through This (1994) and Celebrity Skin (1998).

Love also had a career in acting, originally landing small roles in Alex Cox films in the 1980s. In 1996, Love starred in The People vs. Larry Flynt alongside Woody Harrelson, and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance. She later had a brief solo career in the early 2000s after the dissolution of Hole, releasing America's Sweetheart (2004), and went through several rehab sentences and run-ins with the the law until achieving sobriety. In 2009, Love reformed Hole with new members and released Nobody's Daughter (2010). In 2012, she debuted an art exhibit featuring a collection of her own paintings and drawings titled "And She's Not Even Pretty".

Love was married to the late Kurt Cobain, frontman of the grunge band Nirvana, with whom she has a daughter, Frances Bean Cobain.^[6] Throughout her career, Love's wild stage antics and subversive feminist attitude have polarized audiences and critics,^[7][8] with Rolling Stone once calling her "the most controversial woman in the history of rock."^[9][10]

Early life[link]

Courtney Michelle Harrison was born in 1964 in San Francisco, California, to Linda Carroll, a psychotherapist, and Hank Harrison, a publisher who had some association with the Grateful Dead; at five years old, Love was included in a group picture on the back of the band's third album, Aoxomoxoa (1969).^[11][12][13] Her parents divorced in 1969, with custody being awarded to Carroll after she alleged that Harrison had fed LSD to Love when she was three years old, an allegation which he denied.^[14] Carroll then remarried, eventually giving birth to two more daughters and adopting a son. Harrison at some point claimed to be the granddaughter of Marlon Brando.^[15][16]

Love had a nomadic and troubled childhood. She moved with her family to Marcola, Oregon in 1970, and then briefly lived in New Zealand before being sent back to live with her stepfather in Oregon.^[16] At age 14, Love was arrested for shoplifting a t-shirt and was sent to Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility.^[16][17] According to the Oregon's Children's Services Division, Love was then moved to over 20 different facilities and foster homes between 1978 and 1980.^[17] At age 16, Love moved to Portland, where she began working illegally as an exotic dancer,^{[13][16][18][19][20]} and briefly as a DJ at Portland's community radio station, KBOO.^[21] She also took job opportunities working briefly at dance halls in Japan and Taiwan,^[16][22] and wrote missives under the name "Courtney Michelle" in punk-zine Maximumrocknroll on local Portland bands Poison Idea and Rancid Vat.^[23][24]

Love has said that she "didn't have a lot of social skills" as a teenager,^[25] and that she learned a lot of them while frequenting gay clubs with friends.^[19][26]

In 1981, a social worker discovered a trust fund established for Love by her mother's adoptive parents, which provided her with a $500 monthly stipend, and she gained legal emancipation.^[16] She subsequently traveled to Ireland where she took two semesters at Trinity College studying theology,^[27][28] and relocated briefly to England where she became friends with musicians Julian Cope^[29][30] and Ian McCulloch.^[31]

Love intermittently took classes at Portland State University studying English,^[32] as well as San Francisco State University and the San Francisco Art Institute, where she took a film class taught by George Kuchar and starred in one of his short films.^[33][34] Love began a budding acting career, starring in two Alex Cox films in the late 1980s (Sid and Nancy and Straight to Hell), but was ultimately dissatisfied with acting and returned to stripping, where she was recognized and photographed by customers at a bar in McMinnville, Oregon.^[13][35] Love then retreated to Anchorage, Alaska for several months where she continued to strip to support herself.^[13][16]

Music career[link]

Love initially began several music projects in the 1980s, first forming Sugar Babydoll, and then having a brief stint as a singer in Faith No More after "demanding" them to let her be in their band.^[13] Love later formed the Pagan Babies with friend Kat Bjelland, Jennifer Finch and Janis Tanaka, recording one 4-track demo before disbanding soon after.^[36][37] Love briefly played bass in Bjelland's group Babes In Toyland in 1987 before being ejected from the band.^[38]

Hole (1989-2002)[link]

In 1989, Love taught herself to play guitar and moved to Los Angeles, where she placed an ad in Flipside, reading: "I want to start a band. My influences are Big Black, Sonic Youth, and Fleetwood Mac"^[39] to which guitarist Eric Erlandson replied. Love then bought her neighbor Lisa Roberts a bass guitar, and recruited drummer Caroline Rue at a Gwar concert. Love named the band Hole.

Hole played their first show in November 1989 at Raji's after three months of rehearsal, and began making singles on the Long Beach, California, independent label Sympathy for the Record Industry. Their first single, titled "Retard Girl," was issued in spring 1990. Disc jockey Rodney Bingenheimer jokingly said that Love would often "stalk him" at a Denny's restaurant, insisting that he should give "Retard Girl" air time on his station, KROQ.^[16] One year later, the band debuted their second single, "Dicknail" through Sub Pop Records.

Influenced by the sounds and style of no wave and noise rock bands, Love convinced Sonic Youth bassist Kim Gordon to produce Hole's first studio album. The album, titled Pretty on the Inside, was released in August 1991 on Caroline Records, produced by Gordon and Gumball's Don Fleming. The album gained a following in the United Kingdom, charting at 59 on the UK Albums Chart,^[40] as well as its lead single, "Teenage Whore" entering the country's Indie chart at number one.^[41] Pretty on the Inside received generally positive critical acclaim,^[42] and was labelled one of the 20 best albums of the year by Spin Magazine.^[43] The band toured the United States and Europe in support of the record.

Hole recorded their second album, Live Through This, in the fall of 1993 in Atlanta and released it in April 1994, just four days after Love's husband, Kurt Cobain, was found dead of a self-inflicted shotgun wound in their home. The album featured a new lineup, with Kristen Pfaff on bass and Patty Schemel on drums. In June 1994, Pfaff died of an apparent heroin overdose,^[13] and Love recruited bassist Melissa Auf der Maur for the band's upcoming tour. Throughout the months preceding the tour, Love was rarely seen in public, spending her time in her home or visiting the Namgyal Buddhist Monastery in New York.^[34]

Meanwhile, Live Through This was an immense commercial and critical success, receiving rave reviews from major music periodicals^[44] and going certified gold. By April 1995, it went platinum. It went on to be declared one of the best albums of all time by Rolling Stone magazine in their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time issue in 2003.^[45]

The live performances for Hole's 1994 and 1995 tours became notorious in the media due to Love's fraught emotional state,^[13] with Love often altering hurtful song lyrics toward herself, dedicating songs to Cobain and Pfaff, provoking fans, throwing guitars into the audience,^[46] and breaking into screaming fits onstage.^[47]

In 1997, the band released a compilation album, My Body, The Hand Grenade, which featured material from the band's earliest recordings in 1989 up until 1995, and, in September 1998, released their third studio album, Celebrity Skin, which featured a stark power pop sound as opposed to the group's earlier punk rock influences. Rolling Stone called the album "accessible, fiery and intimate—often at the same time [...] a basic guitar record that's anything but basic."^[48] Celebrity Skin went on to go multi-platinum, and topped "Best of Year" lists at Spin, the Village Voice, and other periodicals.^[49] The album garnered the band their first and only No. 1 hit single on the Modern Rock Tracks chart with the title track "Celebrity Skin".

During the release and promotion of Celebrity Skin, Love and Fender designed a low-price Squier brand guitar, called Vista Venus.^[50] The instrument featured a shape inspired by Mercury, Stratocaster, and Rickenbacker's solidbodies and had a single-coil and a humbucker pickup. 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. Because I think that cultural revolutions are in the hands of guitar players".^[51]

After touring for Celebrity Skin finished, Auf der Maur left the band to tour with The Smashing Pumpkins; Hole's touring drummer Samantha Maloney left soon after. Love and Erlandson continued to pursue with the band, and released the single "Be A Man"— an outtake from the Celebrity Skin sessions— for the soundtrack of the Oliver Stone film Any Given Sunday (1999). The group became dormant in the following two years, and on May 24, 2002, officially announced their breakup amid continuing litigation with Universal Music Group over their record contract.

Solo career (2003-2008)[link]

Love performing in London, England on her 43rd birthday (2007).

With Hole in disarray, Love began a "punk rock femme supergroup" called Bastard during autumn 2001, enlisting Schemel, Veruca Salt co-frontwoman Louise Post, and bassist Gina Crosley, whom Post recommended. Though a demo was completed, the project never reached fruition.^[52][53]

In 2002, Love began composing an album with Linda Perry; the record, America's Sweetheart, was released on Virgin Records in February 2004, was embraced by critics with mixed reviews. Spin called it 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 stars,^[54] while Rolling Stone suggested that, "for people who enjoy watching celebrities fall apart, America's Sweetheart should be more fun than an Osbournes marathon." The album sold 86,000 copies in its first three months, with the singles "Mono" and "Hold on to Me", both of which earned competent spots on album charts. Love has publicly expressed her regret over the record several times, calling it "a crap record", reasoning that her drug issues at the time were to blame.^[55]

In 2006, Love started recording what was going to be her second solo album, How Dirty Girls Get Clean,^[25][56] collaborating with again with Perry and Billy Corgan in the writing and recording. Love had written several songs, including an anti-cocaine song titled "Loser Dust", during her time in rehab in 2005.^[57]

Some tracks and demos from the album (initially planned for release in 2008) were leaked on the internet in 2006, and a documentary entitled The Return of Courtney Love, detailing the making of the album, aired on the British television network in the fall of that year. A rough acoustic version of "Never Go Hungry Again", recorded during an interview for The Times in November, was also released. Incomplete audio clips of the song "Samantha", originating from an interview with NPR, were also distributed on the internet in 2007.^[58]