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Courtney Love, Taylor Swift and The Vilification of Women In Music
Courtney Love, Taylor Swift, Fiona Apple and the damning double standards of the music industry
Earlier this month, Courtney Love definitively ruled out a reunion of her band ‘Hole’; responsible for 1994’s classic ‘Live Through This’ and most recently, 2010’s ‘Nobody’s Daughter’. The collective response to the news seemed to be a shrug. In response to the announcement, Twitter users responded with remarks of “who cares”, gifs of shrugging and, sarcastic comments. It’s a simultaneously surprising response and a completely predictable one; music critic Amanda Petrusich wrote that, over the years, Love has become “less a saviour than a punchline”, adding that her “public persona has coloured her music for just about everyone”. Every interview of Love’s published online ends up flooded with comments tearing her to shreds.
Such a public to response to Love has long been common place, but it’s hard not to feel like the disdain and dismissal of Love is egregiously misplaced; Love consistently put out some of the greatest and most significant music of the 90s. Her legacy has been confirmed in recent years as artists like Lana Del Rey (more on her later) and Sky Ferreira cite her as major influences. People like to dismiss her role in her music by…
