Love to love her
America's Sweetheart would've been a comeback, but Courtney never went away.

By Jimmy Draper

NEVER ONE TO make small talk when there's herself to discuss, Courtney Love barely gets 30 seconds into her current single, "Mono," before asking, "Did you miss me? Yeah?" Actually, no – really, how could we? America's Sweetheart (Virgin) may be her first musical release since Hole's swan song, 1998's Celebrity Skin, but Love's not exactly one to keep a low profile. So don't call it a comeback, 'cause she's been here for years, filing and fending off lawsuits, allegedly breaking into an ex-lover's house, threatening to commit suicide, overdosing on both OxyContin and plastic surgery, and generally behaving like an irrepressibly erratic, archetypal rock star. We'd miss you like hell, Courtney, if only you'd leave long enough to let us.

But, of course, that's not her style. In typical Love fashion, she's filled the weeks surrounding her long-delayed solo debut's release with nothing if not scandal. Among her antics: making a rambling, incoherent call to the Howard Stern Show, losing her 11-year-old daughter at the Grammy Awards, and facing both a custody battle and felony drug charges. It's the stuff of great rock drama, sure, but for those of us who want to believe Love is still capable of much, much more than simply giving gossip columnists a raison d'être, it's also the latest, tragic turn in a once vital artist's downward spiral.

Just check out wire service photos taken at a recent court appearance, where Love looks strikingly similar to Aileen Wuornos as portrayed by Charlize Theron in Monster. There is, to say the least, a disturbing irony in the resemblance. Theron is allowed to gain weight and discard her glamour because it goes against type, finally guaranteeing her consideration as a serious artist. Love, on the other hand, is a serious artist who attempted to physically transform herself into one of the silver screen's beautiful people. It's a testament to Hollywood's twisted double standards that Theron has been rewarded for her "brave" makeover, while Love – who truly had a spark that can't be scripted or faked with prosthetics – has become her own sort of monster in her quest to fit the ideal that Theron embodies without even trying.

It's that much more depressing, then, to go back and watch Theron and Love cross (divergent) paths in 2002's Trapped, an entirely forgettable thriller save for the scene when Love's character is paralyzed following an injection of silicone to her neck – an apt metaphor for her career trajectory if there ever was one. Indeed, while Love once responded to the beauty myth with powerful lyrics like "They say I'm plump, but I throw up all the time," today she simply speed-dials her Botox dealer. Regrettably, America's Sweetheart is the album Love should've titled Celebrity Skin, as it's the closest she's come to literally embodying the Hollywood ideal she once scathingly critiqued on early Hole tracks like "Plump," "Pretty on the Inside," and "Asking for It."

Which doesn't mean this album isn't every bit as compelling as Hole's 1994 masterwork, Live Through This. America's Sweetheart simply rivets for different, more troubling reasons: while she formerly expressed the pain inherent in the whole be-a-model-or-just-look-like-one quandary, Love's solo material tackles – often unintentionally – the far uglier truth of what happens once you've been chewed up and spit out by the very industry from which you've sought approval. The lyric sheet reads like a collection of mash notes written during a stay at the Betty Ford Clinic: "I know I've got a screw loose"; "I got pills for my coochie 'cause, baby, I'm sore"; "I am the center of the universe!" If it's not exactly a cry for help, it's cause for serious concern in light of her legal and personal turmoil of late.

Yet unlike the airbrushed banality of Celebrity Skin, on which the stakes were nothing but Vogue photo shoots and Golden Globe nominations, America's Sweetheart is a glorious mess that roars outta the speakers like a valiant, last-ditch effort to wring relevance out of today's rock world. Not surprisingly, the very real danger of being forever left behind for Jack White, Julian Casablancas, and Chris Martin has inspired some of Love's most heated, desperate music. "Oh god, you owe me one more song so I can prove to you that I am so much better than him!" she howls on the opening call-to-arms "Mono," her voice as feral and ravaged as ever.

The plea isn't in vain, either. With its quasi-punk returns and AOR-ready power ballads, America's Sweetheart is full of the sort of searing, slate-clearing catharsis and fuck-all ferocity that the aforementioned Great White Hopes (yawn) can only hope for. It's a bittersweet victory: this album may rank among some of her best work, but Love just isn't as commercially viable as she once was, debuting only at no. 53 on Billboard. But maybe sales aren't the point anyway. "Rock star, pop star – everybody dies," Love concedes on the album's epic "Sunset Strip." Given last fall's overdose, suicide threat, and run-ins with the law, the real cause for celebration may be the fact that she's still around.