Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: The First 3 Hole Albums Vs. Ti West's 'X' Trilogy

 

Wrote this back in February, just gonna publish it now: 

The other day I was staring at some yellow flowers in Southern California. A bee was languidly resting on a petal when suddenly as I sipped coffee, out of the blue I theorized that the recent X horror trilogy about the perils of fame and ambition coincide strikingly well with the arc of the first three classic Hole albums.

"In this business, until you're known as a monster, you're not a star." That quote, attributed to screen legend Bette Davis, opens the third film in Ti West's X trilogy. Sometimes in entertainment, no matter what you do, some people will think you're an angel and some a devil. You can start out a baby doll, end up with fractured doll parts or celebrity skin, but whatever you do you are damned if you do or don't. 

Courtney in 'Straight To Hell' (1987)

I have heard people say Courtney is an angel. Others say she is a trainwreck and a monster or stole money from a door gig back in the 80s or bullied a girl. Others that she is very spiritual. One of my friends, a punk photographer, told me he went on a blind date with her once, if I remember right. Others say she tried to warn us about Harvey Weinstein long before Lana wrote a song that sounded like she was sleeping with him. 

All I know is, a lot of people try to tear Love down these days but also many are clearly influenced by her without giving due credit. She has always been very educated about the history of rock music and subculture and has decidedly shaped it. Hole was already doing well before Nirvana.

That is a lot easier to see for sure than some vague intonations that she is connected to the CIA and helped kill her own husband with Epstein decades ago, or some dumb shit. I believe a lot of conspiracies out there these days. Kubrick being killed for Eyes Wide Shut seems pretty solid, for example. But some of y'all are fucking goofy when it comes to Courtney.

She is a human being. And a fascinating one, at that. Sorry, TikTok. Not everyone is perfect and I am guessing neither are you? 

There are a ton of comments under the song "R*tard Girl" on YouTube videos of it saying how, despite the awful in hindsight song name, the song comforted a lot of kids who were bullied in school for being different or autistic or queer or having a learning disability. I don't condone the use of the slur at all, but I am glad at least that people took comfort from the song.

Truth is stranger than fiction and Courtney Love's journey is even more unlikely and insane than the gore soaked fictional characters Pearl and Maxine Minx that Mia Goth already made iconic for a pre AI cucked A24 and horror fans within an almost unprecedented short time period. Hole likewise had a very meteoric rise within a semi short timeframe, though aided by years of prep about town and in the scene, so to speak.

Yes, I know the albums and movies portray different decades than one another and the Hole stuff is mainly 90s coded, but a lot of parallels can be made between story notes, some song themes in the albums and even somewhat between Goth and Love. I don't know, for example, why one of them would think she could "fix" Shia LaBarf after how he treated FKA Twigs. From recent news from New Orleans, that certainly didn't work out. Likewise, why the fuck is Love going to unrepentant and legal system and potential fandom wielding bully Marilyn Manson's birthday party recently, a guy who joked about grape with Johnny Darvo Depp and has been accused of some very crypto racist moments? 

If you know power structures, you know how victims can be made to back down out of fear. That shit depresses me. Maybe Love is just thankful for times he helped her or is worn down by the industry and has blind spots, like many other artists, to some shit she doesn't want to face. I don't know, but it depressing, as Manson has not at all done any restorative work to those harmed. That is also a part of "sobriety". Brian.

Another friend of mine who is a survivor of a lot of industry sexism said to me that she wishes she could just sit with Courtney and cry together. Not even talk. And that was maybe the only person she could hypothetically do that with. So clearly, she occupies many figurative roles to different people. 

Hole put on what I often at times consider and call the best concert I maybe ever saw. It was a year and some change after Kurt died. Courtney and pals played Lollapalooza at Randall's Island just before an also majestic Sonic Youth, owning the crowd with estrogen fueled nuance and a grunge glory power peak, in a spot where I would a year or so later see Korn and Tool sort of obliterate people with testosterone. 

Love was magnificent that night and still raw, riding a wave of mutilation of nerves and songs that she absolutely did not have someone write all of for her, to a pure celebration of warts and all rock n roll majesty. My first long term girlfriend Polly was on my shoulders for most of it but we were floating in the electricity and snarl. Whispers already surrounded her in this era, but she had already dealt with being demonized by Vogue and even the worst shit in the world could barely seemingly dent her resolve anymore.

I've only interacted with Courtney once. It was on Facebook in regards to the exploitative Pam and Tommy Hulu series that Sebastian Stan and Lily James led, reportedly with Pamela Anderson (the abuse victim in the true story), never being consulted much about her own life. Motley are embedded in my early years as a music fan and my girlfriend's mom knew Nikki and even maybe dated both him and Riki Rachtman apparently back in those days and has some crazy stories, but at the time of that documentary I was shitting on it hard for treating Pamela unfairly. Love agreed and was complaining online about it and defending Pamela from a friendly and feminist vantage point, despite singing famously Hole’s ‘I Think That I Would Die' the line "I am not a feminist" and creating debate about what that meant ever since.

Anyway, I told Courtney that I thought it looked like a dumpster fire and she responded amused and asking if she could "steal that phrase'. I was flabbergasted and didn't believe she had never heard it before, especially considering all the mean things people have called her messier moments over the years. 

Personally, I think the conspiracies that she killed Kurt are ridiculous. The fact that she has had many imperfect and messy moments makes me trust her more. I don't think she could frankly keep something like that a secret this long, I think it is sexist, and turns her from a person who endured real grief from one of the worst things imaginable into a sexist trope and a cartoon. I know a lot of fake people in the music scene who are way too cowardly to ever be messy at all, and as a result are both fairweather allies and clout chasers who block anyone that critiques them.

So no, the parallels I am attempting to draw between Love and the X films are not some gauche murder themes, but rather commentary about themes of ambition, feeling distorted and pushed to the breaking point by the machines of industry and cultural standards or limits or how something that felt like pure appreciation and dreams can turn into nightmares or a cage or even instill jealousy. 

Other than that one time exchange of comments, Courtney liked my psych folk musician (who used to be in Foxygen and performs solo under the name Globelamp) Elizabeth Gomez's cover of "Malibu" once on Twitter after Lizzie expressed how she thought it was corny that Miley Cyrus tried to write a song with the same name. Incidentally, Miley went on to use Lizzie's ex Foxygen bandmate Jonathan Rado as a producer on a recent album, despite Lizzie repeatedly telling publications that Rado helped enable darvo against her after his one time best friend and their mutual bandmate/her ex (I have to write allegedly here for legal reasons, but I believe her) Sam France did domestic violence on her. Rado also allegedly wanted to have her be an unpaid member of the band as the only woman in Foxygen about a decade ago. Fuck that dude. 

Also incidentally, Lizzie and Courtney both have dealt with being jaded about the Olympia scene and are often called "difficult" (always a sexist red flag, even if also as internalized sexism from other women) and tone policed. Lizzie/Globelamp is currently unsigned and semi-blacklisted due to the aforementioned fights with Foxygen's one time powerhouse label conglomerate, Secretly Group. It reall bums me out that Dinosaur Jr are on Jagjaguwar, who I believe helped Lizzie's abuser with Darvo. 

I digress...though I will add that once when Frances Bean Cobain heard that Lizzie was upset and thought she didn't like her, that she was very sweet and wrote Lizzie a nice message and was kind to her. I think little moments like that really speak to a person's character about clearing up things or making people feel better. Thank you, Frances for being nice to Lizzie! 

But let's talk sensitivity. Pretty On The Inside is a lot like the prequel film Pearl. It examines the raw material of ambition, pain and pushing yourself past the limit for people who don't appreciate you. The band perhaps never again got as ragged as "Teenage Whore" and the criminally underrated "Garbage Man". It has Kim Gordon involved with it and just has a rawer edge that nonetheless found a way to start fashion trends before the true onslaught of hot topic. You can debate if she stole the look from Babes In Toyland all you want, but Love took it to the next level and became a household name. Likewise Pearl is my favorite in it's own series. X is obviously Live Through This. It just vibes on that level and is also the most acclaimed, but a certain bunch of us weirdos like the first part of each of these arcs the best. 

"But Morgan, where are the Wizard of Oz parallels? Where is David Corenswet?" Well, I don't have a Corenswet parallel, but I do think I recall Love mentioning once that she and Michael Stipe sang Elton John's anthemic "Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road" in a limo together once. That's as anthemic a song about disillusionment with fame and the perils of it as you'll ever hear...which brings us nicely to the Hollywood Years, Celebrity Skin and of course, back to MaXXXine. 

MaXXXine, like Celebrity Skin, is clearly about finding success and what you are forced to change or adjust to along the way. Likewise they both are the highest grossing financially compared to their predecessors. They also both have some very killer (no pun intended) and stylized moments, but are slightly less raved about by critics. Even as they channel some West Coast charm they both make you wonder a little what was lost along the way for those involved, fictional or otherwise, and if it was too high a price to pay. Kim Gordon famously used the phrase "tarantula LA glamour" rather mercilessly to describe later-day Love, and fairly or unfairly chalked some of it up to mental illness.  

Anyway, on a loosely related note, all I know is that everyone should have to watch The People Vs. Larry Flynt or Straight To Hell at some point in their lives. Both are more relevant than ever. That's all I've got. I'm riffing here, and sometimes you just riff until you can hopefully break on through to the other side and say ,"I lived through all that."