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"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.


Worth the Wait....Rock has returned!   February 27, 2004
 22 out of 34 found this review helpful

Courty Love..those two words alone get so much sh*t from people who have no idea of the talent behind them. "America's Sweeheart" is an excellent album from a truly gifted artist. Courtney has returned and boy did we need her! Music itself is in a horrid state with all the throw away "rock" acts on MTV, VH1, Fuse and so forth. Courtney wails and sings from her heart about things she truly has gone through. It's her music and you have to understand that she telling her story. I have been waiting a long time for this record, but was happy when I popped it in my car and jammed around town to get a good listen. "Mono" already a classic, "Did you miss me?" hell yeah we did! Other favorites for me, "Sunset Strip" just a great song for the right moment, "Almost Golden" you can feel her on this one, along with "Life Despite God" raw emotions all the way through!, "Zeplin Song" upbeat and fun! She closes with "Never Gonna Be The Same" I played this song after I realized it was truly over with my boyfreind...(Thanks Courtney) Things won't ever be like they were but she brings it so close you can feel it.

I love this album! I hear people saying "For fans only", and I say bullsh*t! Put aside your issues and listen... you may end up eating your words after.

THANK YOU COURTNEY, FOR SHOWING THAT REAL ROCK ISN'T DEAD!


I'm about to tell you about the difference I will never make   February 25, 2004
 17 out of 25 found this review helpful

I doubt I will change anybody's mind by writing this review, but I thought I'd share my thoughts anyway. Most people have their minds made up already.

So, first things first, Hole rules! While I like this album, I think it could have been even more awesome if Eric was involved. Ohh well.

So, second things second, this is a Punk album. It's not really grunge or California rock. Courtney shouts "Hey!" "Shut up!" and "Oi!" several times throughout the album.

Now, on to the songs:

1. Mono is really catchy and I've been trying to memorize all the lyrics for the last couple of days. Did you miss me? Yes. 5/5

2. But Julian, I'm A Little Bit Older Than You is extremely fast mixture of sex adds and self deprecation. It's also pretty heavy. If you like fast punk, this is for you. 4/5

3. Hold On To Me is the first ballad, though it starts to rock towards the end. This initially features that quiet singing that was so effective on Hole ballads, like Dying and Northern Star. Very catchy refrain. 5/5

4. Sunset Strip is another quiet one that speeds up. 4/5

5. All The Drugs is a hard rock number with a catchy chorus. I want to scream out the chorus as I listen to it. I'm not sure people at work will appreciate this. 5/5

6. Almost Golden is another one that switches between slow and fast. It has a simple, yet groovy, rhythm. 4.5/5

7. I'll Do Anything is the kind of fast Courtney song that needs to be played really loud. It almost sounds something that could have been written during the Pretty on the Inside era. 5/5

8. Uncool is a ballad with words written by Bernie Tauppin. It has that monster ballad feel. 4.5/5

9. Life Despite God is the weakest song on the album. It's still pretty good and angry though. 3/5

10. Hello is fast punk. The chorus is "Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello." Hello, Courtney. Good job. 4.5/5

11. Zeplin Song is a sort-of funny send-up of Led Zeppelin. It's interesting. 4/5

12. Never Gonna Be The Same is the reason that you should bring a lighter to the next Courtney Love concert. 5/5


Nobody's "Sweetheart"   August 18, 2004
 16 out of 41 found this review helpful

"I'm overrated, desecrated/still somehow illuminated/I know I've got a screw loose..." Courtney Love is better known for her rocker-wild behavior than for her music. But hopes were high when Love brandished her solo debut after leaving her old band Hole. Were the hopes justified? Frankly, no -- tepid rock, tepid songs and close-to-snapping vocals litter "America's Sweetheart."

It starts off with a bang -- or, more specifically, with a sizzling bassline laced with distortion. For a few minutes, Love's sneering brand of singing is fun to listen to. But then she starts to deteriorate, stumbling through the embarrassing "But Julian, I'm A Little Bit Older Than You" ("I see Paris, I see France/I can see your underpants"), and struggling through the passable, semi-balladic "Hold On To Me" and "Sunset Strip."

Love launches herself back into rock turf with the cringeworthy "All The Drugs," the forgettable "I'll Do Anything," and the juvenile "Uncool ("I wanna be uncool!/Cuz I'll have you" -- huh?). By the funereal "Life Despite God," Love sounds like a wreck, with hard-to-decipher vocals that yowl drunkenly. But she manages to pull it together for the poignantly confessional "Never Gonna Be The Same."

Courtney Love is one of those celebrities you either love or hate (or pity). So it's a little hard to be objective about her album. But "America's Sweetheart" doesn't manage to be a good album, solo or not. It's definitely a disturbing one, with Love announcing calmly, "With all of my love/with all of my money/it doesn't feel as good as the drugs." It only adds to the feeling of decay that permeates this album.

The music is pretty typical rock with some hard tinges, like the shattering basslines and background percussion. Certainly it has some high points, and taken by itself, it's some fairly solid music. But the songwriting is lacking. Love has some moments of gut-wrenching honesty ("You've gotta ride that black horse baby/through the depths of hell that I've been"), but most of it is juvenile and even silly. Who let her get away with lines like "I love the way your mouth fits mine/1-800-He's-So-Fine"?

Years of wild living haven't done wonders for Love's voice. Her voice is okay in the softer songs. But when she gets loud or holds a note, she deteriorates -- strained, incoherent, sometimes sounding like her vocal chords are disintegrating in mid-song. She also seems to have trouble holding on to the lyrics and carrying a tune. By the end of the album, she sounds as if she's either stoned or drunk.

"America's Sweetheart" is a deeply disturbing album -- laced with rabid vocals and silly songs, it's almost the soundtrack of a person in a downward spiral.


Her voice is gone   February 16, 2004
 10 out of 16 found this review helpful

I'm completely shocked that people are liking this album. I own all the Hole albums and love each of them. And I'm not "anti Coutney" at all. But this album is just horrendous. It's so overproduced, giving it more of a bad pop sound than punk stylings. Yet, the vocals are so amazingly bad. It sounds like Coutney took a bunch of oxy's and then sang each track. Her voice is so weak on virtually every track. Her voice used to not be incredibly musical, but she had an interesting sound and so much power. And all that's gone on this album. Most tracks sound like she's doing really bad Bob Dylan karaoke. And the lyrics are pretty juevenile and cliche too. They're just not anywhere close to the level of Live Through This or Celebrity Skin. This is by far Courtney's worst work to date. If Coutney didn't have her fame and a couple successful albums already, no record company would have ever released this album. There are 3, maybe 4 tracks that are bareable, the others are just painful to listen to.