Undoubtedly it is because I watched the film "Sylvia" last week, but when listening to "America's Sweetheart" it suddenly struck me that the story of Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain is the flip side of what happened with Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. She is talented but he is more famous and her first great success is overshadowed by a suicide. You can read this as an argument that if Hughes had been the one to end his life that Plath would still have achieved prominence, because what matters in this world is that you get people to look at or listen to your work. It has been a decade since Cobain ended his life with a shotgun blast and Hole's "Live Through This" achieved acclaim as much through the notoriety of its apparent prescience as its powerful punk sound. Since then the widow Cobain's career has been a long line of tabloid scandals with not much to show on the musical side of the ledger. Well, boys and girls, that is all over now.

"America's Sweetheart" is available with both explicit and edited versions, but the idea of cleaning up Courtney Love's songs for public consumption is laughable. You think mommy plays the clean version for Frances Bean? More importantly, does excising a few bad words dilute the meaning of these songs? Right from the opening blast of "Mono" Love announces that she is back with a vengeance and the primary target is her dearly departed husband:

Hey yeah we had everything
Vinyl in mono
And we looked the other way man
We were so dumb
Is this the part in the book that you wrote
Where I gotta come and save the day
Did you miss me
Did you miss me

By the time Love howls in the chorus "Oh god you owe me one more song/ So I can prove to you that/ I'm so much better than him" it becomes clear these songs are going to wallow in the wretched existence that has been her life for the past decade. She might be hurt, but she is also angry, and she proceeds to eviscerate just about every aspect of her "pornorific" life from to the "hard drugs and bad luck" to the "lots and lots of meaningless sex." The only thing she does not touch upon is motherhood, which simply proves that that by not singing about her daughter she gives away the most sacred part of her life. But as the opening chords of "I'll Do Anything" pointedly remind us, "America's Sweetheart" always comes back to the specter of Cobain and as the lyrics of "Hold On to Me" prove you do not have to go digging far to get the point:

Hey, this life is never fair
The angels that you need are never there
But sometimes he comes to me
In the dead of winter, dead of night
He's all that I can see.

Working with songwriting collaborator Linda Perry the sound of "America's Sweetheart" is not as raw as what Love and Hole produced for "Live Through This." But the music just provides the energy for Love to get through the public exorcism of these rambling lyrics whose coherence comes primarily out of her personal pain. This is not surprising given that she has had a decade of being beaten over the head with the reality that she is the Jackie Kennedy of the Grunge generation, so it is not like there is any place or any reason to hide. Now she has found a note of grace in having produced an album on the same level of "Live Through This." Her talent is not a fluke, just her fate. The question is now whether she has anything to say beyond what is fueled by the anger at her husband's betrayal. Plath never wrote another poem, but Love is going to have to follow up this album at some point. What was implicit in 1994's "Live Through This" is made explicit in 2004's "America's Sweetheart" but it is hard to believe she can really sing about him forever. She will never be as influential as Cobain (nobody that influential ever tries to be that influential), but if she really wants to be more than a musical footnote to his legacy the next album is going to be the one that decides if she has any sort of chance.

This album America's Sweetheart is actually pretty good. The only reason I'm not giving it the full five stars is because it feels like Courtney may have lost a little bit of her focus over the years (due to the drugs maybe) and I really think the song 'Hello' kind of sucks-it sounds like it's meant for a pop poseur like Ashlee Simpson or Avril Lavigne not a true grunge goddess.
Having said all that, I have to say the best thing about America's Sweetheart is the LYRICS. Miss Love can sure write some lyrics. And those of you Nirvana-obsessives that still think she stole Kurt's lyrics-need to think again that's not very realistic. In fact Amercia's Sweetheart's lyrics-just like all of Hole's lyrics-read as close to Courtney's personality as you can get, and she may get help in writing the music aspect of it but so do many many of the artists you probably admire too. It's just unrealistic to expect that she or every single artist can do absolutely everything on their own.
Now as far as the songs go-as a rock album this is kick ass! The opener Mono is such a ROCK song, and on this record Courtney reminds me more of a pure 70's rock and roll star. She's got some rockin tunes-that's for sure.
And seeing her dare to take a riff of her late husbands signature song and entitling the song "I'll do anything" just makes me love this woman even more. How clever is that? People may not get the brilliance of that but I see it and I see it as her taking back all the garbage people call her out on and throwing it right back in all of our faces. That's Courtney for ya.
"Zeplin Song" is a hilarious track with a great subject about the boy we all know that plays "Stairway to Heaven" too damn much while the girl is out actually working.
It may be hard not to cringe at the total brash and frankness of a song like "All the Drugs" especially considering all of Courtney's recent and ongoing troubles but I just like to hear it and appreciate it for what it is: a kick ass rock song!!!
It's such a shame that Courtney will never get the appreciation for herself as an artist because her persona is too massive and too raw for people to handle-and that's her fault primarily because she does bad things that throw people off and make them have no respect for her. But as always Courtney manages to spit in everyone's faces while at the same time uncovering some of her pain and her demons that she will probably never escape from.
And that's what makes her so captivating as an artist but repulsive as a celebrity figure.
Life Despite God is a very interesting song. And most people will not be able to take this because it's so raw and disturbing and Courtney slurs it with that trademark raspy voice (that I am in love with personally) but sounding even more broken than usual. It's an all out blues song with a powerful buildup and honest and raw lyrics but what may prevent people from feeling it is that Courtney's voice on the track is so ragged that most people won't be able to take it.
I personally love Courtney's voice, and I think there are few females that have a true rock n' roll voice. Mariah Carey or Christina are just not my thing. I like a girl that can scream with more passion and fury letting the warts show and all. And who brings that more than Courtney?
The best song on the album is hands down Sunset Strip. It's such a shame because any other "lesser known" female artist could come up with this same material and people would be praising it to no end hailing her as the queen, the savior of rock. The song has an amazing buildup with Courtney spitting the most honest and heartbreaking lyrics I have heard all year. The best part is Courtney's howling at the end. She screeches the words out going through all the reasons why she pops pills "I got pills cuz..." and it goes on and on and my initial reaction was "whoa". I reccomend America's Sweetheart just for this song alone.
What I like most about Courtney's music is it always represents exactly what place she's at in her life. America's Sweetheart represents a very dark, broken place and just that feeling of being doubtful about the future and almost nostalgic about the past and reflecting on the downside of fame and love. Those expecting Live Through This II need to get over themselves. Live Through This was an outstanding album that represented THAT period and does not need to be repeated.
America's Sweetheart is raw, sad, brutally honest, wild and it has guts. It's not for everyone and Courtney has always in my opinion been a little too much for the mainstream even during her "Hollywood" phase. She'll probably never get her due but having said all that, as long as she keeps making records I will be happy because bad press won't steer me away from this rock goddess. The only true rock goddess we have in my opinion.

If the entertainment industry is "high school with ashtrays," then this is the record from the coolest girl, who sold the best drugs and still managed to receive scholarships!

I love this album. I have since I bought it on Valentine's Day of 2003. (Still my favorite valentine of that year, though I bought it for myself.)

Mono is just sweeping up the unfortunate rubbish of those three cord playing groupie infested young male musicians, who are riding on punk rhetoric. This song emasculates them all very efficiently.

Sunset Strip covers every Hollywood hopeful's dreams and the nightmare of the reality. Yes, all tomorrow's parties happened tonight. I also love the lines that imply that celebrity is a way to deny death. rock star. pop star. everybody dies.

Almost Golden is classic rock perfection. Appropriately self-degrading and self-righteous.

This album makes me sugarsick and I still haven't gotten enough. I don't care if courtney love's next record is a collection of her covering Bessie Smith, I will buy it. She is a true reactionary poet. Like it or not.

It does not matter if you love her or hate her, Courtney Love has once again managed to create a great rock album. It's a shame that her exploits in life overshadow her music once again but if given the chance, this record will blow you away. This time around her lyrics have taken a slight turn. Instead of writing in her usual metaphorical pen, she has now tried a more literal style which still suits the music. Although some beautiful metaphors still manage to gasp for air- "If you want love so unconditional and real, you gotta ride that black horse through the depths of hell that I've been"- Never Gonna Be Te Same.

You'll enjoy her usual rock hitters in songs like: Mono, Almost Golden, I'll Do Anything, Hello and Zeplin Song (which is a hilarious song). The raw and heavy drags in All the Drugs and Life Despite God. Hold On To Me, Uncool and Never Gonna Be the Same are the definite rock ballads of the record. And of course, the super catchy garage rocker But Julian, and the amazing and epic Sunset Strip (note: the UK version of the record has the longer and better version of the song).

This time around she has detached herself from her former band Hole and has created music with an array of new musicians. This has resulted on a less "fluid" sound throughout the record. Each song is clearly a different universe unlike her other albums where the songs sound familiar and somehow glued together.

In my opinion, it does not contain the genius quality that is inherent in Live Through This and Celebrity Skin. But in comparison to all of the albums that came out in 2004, America's Sweetheart is definitely #1 on my list.

For even more music, get ahold of the Mono single, which features the b-side "Fly", a great fast rocker and the alternate version of "Mono" which sounds like Courtney playing with The Hives, much rawer.

in the modern septic tank of corporate rock, pop, hip-hop, etc.....exists nothing that can hold a candle to this album. its like a good book. emotionally engaging and good from start to finish. still in the formula of the red-carpet days of Celebrity Skin. its solid rock bordering on punk at times, borrowing from earlier decades in homage to the Ramones and other bands of the era. Its basicaly an album that couldve been released as Hole and no one would know the difference for anyone who is concerned about a dramatic change of musical style. If youre a fan of Hole, especially Celebrity Skin, you will really like this album. Its totally Courtney....brash and polished, sleazy and glamourous, tragic and triumphant......you get the idea. if you relate to this line from the album, "....but im too young to be this old" and still have a bit of a rebellious soul left, it'll be right up your alley. put on your headphones and dive into anger, rage, self-pity and loathing, vulnerability and ultimately, validation through relation. This is grammy material for sure although it will most likely get overlooked, because of her negative media attention. This is the sleeper album of the year.