 Courtney Love flashes the masses |
All of this continuous nattering about Courtney Love and what a disturbed personality she is, and what a terrible mother, and how dreadful that her life – from time to time, and certainly at the moment – revolves around drugs.
Who says that Courtney Love has to live like the rest of us? You? Me? Nope, I don’t think so. And, even if we thought so, when was the last time that either one of us composed music as raw and energetic as that which Love consistently produces, even if it is potty-mouthed and substance-fuelled?
Gritty, chaotic, unorthodox, ragged and raw, the life and ‘flash the masses’ times of Courtney Love is to be celebrated.
Turns out that the Executive Editor of the Village Voice finds himself in accord with the sentiments published above, and much much more it would seem. Comparing Love to Janis Joplin, Richard Goldstein writes …
“When I watch Courtney, I see the same failure to distinguish between persona and self, the same refusal to draw a boundary between expressiveness and excess, the same insistence on showing pain that made rock music in the ’60s so intense.”
Celebrating breast baring as an act of power, discussing Love’s ‘signature of civic strength’, and writing about the artist who has chosen “to grin and bare it at an hour when all good children are asleep, having whacked off in their beds”, Goldstein’s very readable cover essay may be found here.
I am astonished beyond words at the hypocrisy of vanramblings, which pillories dylan for breaking rules and expectations, and glorifies courtney love for doing same in the next article! Lame!
Double standard! Attempt to own the artist!
Simon,
Pilloried. Just who is being pilloried here, Dylan or me?
Let’s face it, Courtney Love professes to be nothing more nor less than a repository for our collective pain, which she then ably transforms into music that is amongst the most life affirming you’ll hear anywhere. For performing this much-needed service, she is to be celebrated.
Dylan, on the other hand, was a spokesperson for a generation, an anti-war activist and a humanist — whether he sang about the times that were a changin’, or chronicled the life of wrongly imprisoned boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, Dylan’s music was well-crafted, evocative, plaintive and heartfelt.
Dylan’s music was never “sexy”, though, however much he allegedly broke the rules of convention.
You’re entitled to your opinion about VanRamblings being hypocritical. But you’re wrong. Dylan is a sell-out — the obituary for the 60s was written today.