Are you a Kim or are you a Courtney?
And why do we insist upon pitting our heroes against each other? And by we I mean me
It makes sense, given all the 90s nostalgia happening at the moment (I’m looking at you, Love Story) that a nasty bit of decade-specific gossip has re-emerged. It involves a feud pitting Kim Gordon, late of Sonic Youth and currently a solo artist, on one side and Courtney Love of Hole on the other, with a dash of Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins thrown in to keep things interesting (he’s pro-Courtney, for the record). It was Courtney, bless her, not Kim, who opened her mouth first—or so it seems—and started the trouble, saying Gordon was “the worst” of the gatekeepers of the indie rock era, and adding that the scene at the time had “a pernicious and horrific meanness.” For her part (and credit) Gordon did not respond to these recent charges, at least not to journalists, and unless some very crafty freelance writer gets an idea for one of those 20,000-word think pieces that nobody gets assigned to write anymore, nobody ever will.
I found this gossip pretty compelling, even as I annoyed myself not only for caring, but also for wasting precious psychic energy upon what seemed like a stale rehash of a decades-old indie rock girl fight. At issue, mostly, are statements made by Love that no one would think twice about had they come from a man, and apologies for that being the oldest complaint in the book, in addition to which it is an argument I loathe, but in this case, maybe it has the advantage of being true?
In the 90s, when I wrote about rock music, and usually rock music by women, I engaged in what I think it’s fair to say was a bumper crop of projection. In the profiles and weightier pieces I was sometimes assigned to write, I only allowed certain, very carefully-vetted artists to mean a lot to me. Courtney Love meant a lot to me, and so too did a number of other female artists. But there was a certain indie rock songstress who I decided wasn’t as feminist in her life as (my interpretation of) her lyrics might let on, and I wrote, more than just once, about thinking less of her for it. Eventually, she shot back: don’t try Googling it, because it happened pre-internet and thankfully there is little evidence of either side of the kerfuffle there. Or do bother Googling: it wasn’t my finest moment, not by a lot. I had a ton to learn about, among other things, what to expect and what not to expect from those we celebrate for entertaining us.
And just for the record, BTW, I have never heard an unkind word spoken about Kim Gordon—by the people who know her best, and number-one-fans alike. And for a while, back in that decade, kicking around that scene, I was in a position to hear it. You can’t say the same about Courtney, of course—there are many people willing to share some very ungenerous words about her, and even those who seek to defend her also have a few good Courtney stories, usually the best ones, up their sleeves. In any case, I will say that she inspires a pretty fierce loyalty in those people who call her a friend, and that, I think, has always been true.
Kim Gordon reminds me more of a girl I knew back at Oberlin. I thought she was really super-cool, and—since she was kind of a new friend—wanted my mom to meet her when she came for my graduation. After she did, Mom shared that she did not like her, which was weird, because she always liked my friends.
