But finally the publicity stunts grew more pathetic than Love's unintelligible explanations for them, and it's time to move on to new idols and leave Courtney buried in her current urn, the career of careerlessness, where she can rest (with Axl Rose) in a quiet fantasy land where her past legacies never have to be tarnished by the reality of her barren present.
With the invalid Love knocked from her throne, let's pass the crown around. Plenty of musicians have had their own sorts of public hissy fits (Kelly Osbourne, speaking of making a career of being talentless) but replacing an old wreck with a new heap of bundled nerves isn't good enough. What we need is the composite punk rock package, more of the Courtney in the rudimentary Pretty on the Inside days, when songs like "Teenage Whore" and "Good Sister/Bad Sister" caught like rusty blades, unapologetically fierce and defensive against a world Love pretended to care about only in that she could tell it to fuck off. Then came the fashion, the starfucking, the déjà vu drug binges, the removed daughter.
With all this in mind, it's time to nominate some fresh punk princesses for the complete package, a group that the pop-culture fairies should shower with lifelong recording contracts, friends worthy of name-dropping, and a bright press spotlight over the next couple years.
Brody Dalle
Okay, so the Distillers' frontwoman is the obvious first choice. Fresh from her divorce with Rancid frontman Tim Armstrong, Dalle cut her own brand of Live Through This with Coral Fang, an album that deals with loss and heartache with the delicacy of a jackhammer, busting up concrete oaths with a voice that is relentless in its vitriol, yet still shows some of the singer's own wounds through the cracks. The woman is headstrong, press savvy, and unafraid of showering her fans in a fresh smattering of spit when she plays live. She's just raw enough to stay punk but has mainstream diva tattooed all over--you get the sense that this is a woman who won't stop until she gets exactly what she wants. Plus, you want starfucking? How about showing your ex-husband (Armstrong) that you've moved on by doing a photo shoot where you're tongue to tongue with your new boyfriend (Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme) in Rolling Stone?
Karen O.
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' frontwoman is a unique punk icon on her own--equal parts visionary talent and fashion queen. One of her strengths is her ability to vacillate between a giggling star-by-surprise and the center of the party, shouting, "As a fuck, son, you suck," over her band's post-punk herky-jerky rhythms. Karen O. radiates an ebullient inebriation--and I'm not even talking about the beer she's doused herself with onstage, but rather her habit of breaking down in longing for a faraway love before screaming her way out of a death-metal dungeon. Everything she sings feels so over-the-top--but just when you think she's going to lose it, O. reels it back in, tender as the wallflower watching it all go by. The woman has the fashion statements, charisma, confidence, and delivery to hold the attention of anxious young alterna-teens and hipsters tilting their asymmetrical haircuts her way. Who needs Winona as a best friend when your boyfriend is the frontman of the Liars?
Ursula Android
But where, you may be asking, is the trash? The backstabbing, shit-talking, drug-snorting whore who shamelessly wobbles around so loaded that her eyeballs have practically turned white with the residue? Look no further than Seattle's own Ursula Android, Pho Bang's punk diva and frontwoman for Ursula & the Androids, a drag performer who makes as much of a mockery of sobriety and social graces as Love's recent Spin-reported attempts to take over Puff Daddy's limo. Whether barking orders over the phone for someone to bring in the goddamn cocaine or rambling on about someone taking a shit in her mouth, Android is the trio's dark horse, and who better than a drag queen (with equally fake self-constructions) to sit upon Love's old throne.
