Years ago, Kim Gordon dismissed both of them in her memoirs, and now there’s a comeback in a podcast conversation.
Some conflicts don’t end even after decades: Billy Corgan and Courtney Love apparently still have a bone to pick with Kim Gordon. On the latest episode of Corgan’s podcast “The Magnificent Others” Love was a guest. After about 45 minutes of rather casual chatting, the conversation developed into a remarkably open reckoning with Kim Gordon.
The starting point was Corgan’s criticism of the indie and hipster culture of the early 1990s, which he described as characterized by “fateful nastiness”. Love replied that she was now friends with Sonic Youth co-founder Thurston Moore. For Love, he was something of a “gatekeeper” back then.
However, Corgan clearly disagreed with this classification of Love: “He was never the gatekeeper type. His partner was the worst.” A nasty tip against Kim Gordon, who founded Sonic Youth with Moore and was married to him until 2013.
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Love, for her part, recalled encounters from the 1990s. “She was really terrible in the ’90s,” the singer said of Gordon. “I remember traveling with you in Holland and they (Sonic Youth) were so mean.” Corgan interjected: “I was a fan and came by to pay my respects and was treated so rudely by them.”
Gordon also served as producer on Hole’s 1991 debut album PRETTY ON THE INSIDE. A collaboration that Love now interprets as an attempt to meet Gordon’s aesthetic expectations. An adaptation to the market, as the singer made clear. “The real traitors were those of us who bowed to the market, Kim Gordon’s market.”
Sarcastic commentary in Nirvana classics
Love also brought her late husband, Kurt Cobain, into play. She claimed that a line from “Heart-Shaped Box” (“Forever in debt to your priceless advice”) was intended as a sarcastic comment about Gordon. She also complained that the musician had sold parts of Thurston Moore’s record collection to finance her daughter’s education.
Corgan then became more fundamental about the cultural conditions of the time. In his opinion, the concept of authenticity in the earlier indie scene was often more of a pose than a lived reality. Many have cultivated a “mental idea of authenticity” without actually embodying it.
Kim Gordon didn’t mince his words
As harsh as Courtney Love’s opinion of Kim Gordon is, it’s not surprising. In her autobiography “Girl In A Band,” Gordon described her colleague’s demeanor as a “mixture of glamour, narcissism and manipulation.” Corgan didn’t fare well in it either. The musician and artist described him as oversensitive and accused the Smashing Pumpkins of taking themselves far too seriously.
If you like, the three protagonists are simply fighting a dispute that subliminally shaped an entire musical era.
