Courtney Love has a new record in the can — and a harrowing story to go with it. In a video posted to Instagram, the rock icon told fans her first album in 16 years is done, while opening up about a 2019 health scare where she says doctors told her she was going to die.
“Hey so, I’m gonna get off social stuff, ‘cause I got to do some analog stuff for a few weeks,” she said in the video, per Rolling Stone. “A lot of you are asking where my record is at. It’s done. It’s kind of been done. It’s a really good record. I put a lot into it.”
Her last full album was Hole’s “Nobody’s Daughter” in 2010. Since then, fans have waited through a long stretch of false starts and side projects for a proper follow-up.
The 2019 Health Scare
Love detailed a brutal period after she moved from Los Angeles to London in 2019. Without giving specifics of what she suffered from, she said her body just “exploded” and that she spent long stretches in hospitals.
“I almost died,” she said. “I lost all my hair. I was about 100 pounds. And they told me I was going to die. I didn’t believe them.”
She connected the ordeal to memories from her childhood, telling fans that people around her would “say red was blue, and then I’d see blue,” a pattern she says shaped the record. “When they said I was going to die, I just didn’t believe them. And somehow I got better. I’m healthy, which is amazing.”
“I want to tour more than anything, and I want to sing. That’s what keeps my soul and body happy.” — Courtney Love
The album features an all-star list of collaborators, including Michael Stipe, Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, Butch Walker, Will Sergeant, Eg White, Suzy Shinn and J.D. Loveless. Love even referenced how “Nobody’s Daughter” flopped — “spectacularly humbling,” she called it — as she gears up for a return.
Why It Matters
For a generation of rock fans, Courtney Love has been as much a survivor as a star, and this is the first time she’s publicly connected a near-death experience to the music she’s finally ready to share. It’s her first album since 2010 and her first proper solo push in the streaming era, built with help from some of rock’s biggest names. Whether it lands as a comeback or a swan song, fans who’ve waited sixteen years are about to hear what she’s been holding onto.
