I might be really late to this party, but last time I checked, Courtney Love had the odd demo up on her MySpace and not a lot else. Now there are a couple of songs which sound a lot more finished, fuller and less test-like.

Go have a listen to Car Crash and Pacific Coast Highway. They're both from the Northern Star school of acoustic, MOR confessional, and if How Dirty Girls Get Clean is a whole album worth of this, it's no wonder that it's sliding into delay upon delay. I love Courtney, and would defend her to the death, but the lyrics - always one of her strongest assets - are getting painful.

It looks like she's losing any frame of reference outside of herself. Hole always had a nod towards religious iconography, to mythology, to pop culture, to celebrity, to things outside of Courtney, even if they were pulled back in to relate to the self. But Car Crash's "There's nothing I haven't done, there's no-one I haven't had" and PCH's "I'm overwhelmed and undersexed, baby what did you expect?" don't have that charm. There's no artistry in stating the facts.

At least, that's my instinctive reaction after an afternoon's listening. Any other Hole/Courtney fans heard this?