America's Sweetheart (Courtney Love album)

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For other uses of this term, see America's sweetheart.
Untitled

America's Sweetheart is the 2004 solo debut from Courtney Love. The release of this album was delayed for three years and preceded by much negative publicity over Courtney's legal problems and drug issues.

America's Sweetheart featured Courtney working with hitmaker Linda Perry (P!nk, Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani) and Bernie Taupin, famous for his collaborations with veteran rocker Elton John.

Though most critics gave the album positive reviews, it was a commercial flop, selling about 130,000 copies to date.

Non-US versions of the album features uncredited Brody Dalle and Kim Deal on a different recording of "Sunset Strip" (with slightly altered lyrics), singing and playing guitar. Dalle claims she is also a co-writer of the song.

The original recordings were made at a château in the South of France and then shopped around to four different labels. It seemed Love was likely to sign with UK label Poptones, but instead signed to Virgin Records, who offered her a $20 million record deal. However, upon purchasing the album, Virgin demanded that the album be re-recorded so it would make their fiscal-year deadline of March 31. Courtney, who was at rehab at that time, was brought back and forth from the health center by the record company, did not improve at her then addiction battle and became overwhelmed by the compulsory work.[1] Besides it all, Love later revealed to Rolling Stone that she "never saw a penny" from the advance that Virgin paid her for America's Sweetheart.

Also, between the several controversies involving America's Sweetheart release, Courtney accuses Virgin Records for putting the work out before it was finished. According to her, the record company chose the songs, the cover, the recorded vocals and the final arrangements without her participation: "...I made five good songs. I had twelve songs, but they're not on the album. I had no creative control."[2] And to make it worse, according to BMI and ASCAP's websites, four of the songs on the album ("But Julian I'm A Little Bit Older Than You", "Almost Golden" and both singles, "Mono" and "Hold On To Me") weren't officially registered for copyright collect. By late 2006, the legal status of all of them seemed to have been corrected.

Love demonstrated her extreme regret about the record in a September 2006 interview, in which she declared that "the sound on A.S. sucked beyond words. The production was a nightmare. Linda and I had written some really good songs, but they were rendered lazily and sound like shit. The art was horrific and not my idea and the label didn't back it at all. I was busy taking drugs to dull the pain of having lost everything AND made a shit album to boot (...) The producer didn't know what he was doing and he just spent my money. It almost had a moment of being Exile on Main Street - almost - but that's like almost winning a race. You either do or you do not. And in this case it's a delightfully written record in parts and sonically untenable with two of the most pretentious songs I have ever written. I was so druggy I thought it'd be cute to rip off "Teen Spirit" on "I'll Do Anything". Believe it or not, "All the Drugs", "Sunset Strip", "Mono" and "But Julian..." are all good songs. They just were produced crap and the songs weren't taken further than demo status. {...} The art still makes me seethe. At least make it look cool, and instead there's me as a playboy pinup. I love Olivia's art but that was personal for me - not art for a record."

However, her outlook on this album was not always this negative, as in 2004 when Courtney stated, "[America's Sweetheart is] good. It took forever, so it better be good." [3]


Track listing

All lyrics by Courtney Love (except Uncool by Courtney Love and Bernie Taupin)
All composition credits shown below

  1. "Mono" (Love, Perry, P. Schemel, L. Schemel) 3:39
  2. "But Julian, I'm a Little Bit Older Than You" (Love, P. Schemel, L. Schemel) 2:48
  3. "Hold On To Me" (Love) 3:45
  4. "Sunset Strip" (Love, Perry, P. Schemel, Best) 5:32
  5. "All the Drugs" (Love, P. Schemel, Best, C. Whitemyer) 4:31
  6. "Almost Golden" (Love, Barber) 3:25
  7. "I'll Do Anything" (Love, Perry, P. Schemel, Best) 3:01
  8. "Uncool" (Love, Perry, P. Schemel, Best, Taupin) 4:37
  9. "Life Despite God" (Love, Perry, P. Schemel, Best) 4:16
  10. "Hello" (Love, Perry, P. Schemel, Best) 3:10
  11. "Zeplin Song" (Love, Perry, Maloney) 2:48
  12. "Never Gonna Be the Same" (Love, Perry, P. Schemel, Best) 5:07

"Mono" CD Single B-Side & Japanese Album Track:

13. "Fly" (Love, Perry, P. Schemel, Best) 2:52

© 2004 Virgin Records America, Inc.

Publishing:
Love: America's Sweetheart Music (BMI)
Perry: Stuck In The Throat/Famous Music Corp. (ASCAP)
P. Schemel: Saint Patty Songs (BMI)
L. Schemel: Strange Design Music (ASCAP)
Best: TEAMJBTUNZ Publishing (BMI)

Personnel

Charts

Album - Billboard (North America)

Year Chart Position
2004 The Billboard 200 53
2004 UK Albums Chart 56

Singles - Billboard (North America)

Year Single Chart Position
2004 "Mono" Modern Rock Tracks 18
2004 "Mono" UK 41
2004 "Hold on to Me" Modern Rock Tracks 39

Notes

  1. ^ Courtney Love: Did Virgin Records Use Her?
  2. ^ Rolling Stone, 2004: Queen Of The Damned
  3. ^ Interview: Courtney Love
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