I think the idols we worship in our teenage years have the most sway on us. I was 14 when grunge happened and it was my music. My peers at school were into the Happy Mondays and rave culture despite the fact that the nearest they got to someone twisting their melon was a bottle of White Lightning in the park on a Friday night. It was also the time of Oliver Stone’s The Doors, so I had to cope with girls swooning at Val Kilmer and believing it was Jim Morrison. I still fume.
My family had given me an excellent musical education from skiffle and country, Merseybeat and opera to classic rock. As my classmates discovered the stuff I already knew I was jaded and cynical about their lack of knowledge. Then came grunge. Angry, intelligent and mine. It was just what I needed.
And then there was Courtney Love. In 1992 at her kinder whore peak she was a mess. And she was glorious. All pure ambition, sex appeal and raging intellect stuffed into what appeared to me to be a crazy Amazonian. Not groomed, not quiet, not polite and I adored her. Pretty on the Inside was loud and raw. I bought all the music press just to keep up with her. The press weren’t kind but she raged on.
After Kurt Cobain died the blame, conspiracy theories and mud slinging started and have never stopped but she has gone on. Through Vanity Fair articles, to Golden Globe nominated performances, to scrubbed up Versace make overs she’s carried on. There are ups and downs but she is always herself. And in spite of the circus, the music is still brilliant. I will always argue that Live Through This is one of the best rock albums of the era and if Desert Island Discs did albums it would be one of mine.
Teenage girls need anarchic, difficult warrior women to look up to. And so do 40 year old women.