Courtney Love says that she's dropping the band name Hole, and will henceforth write, record, and perform as a solo artist. She revealed this in the comments section of the Facebook page for Mark Yarm's excellent grunge history book, Everybody Loves Our Town.
The original incarnation of Hole was active between 1989 and 2000, and broke up officially in 2002. Love released one album as a solo artist, America's Sweetheart, but that record flopped upon its release in 2004. Too bad, really, because it had some really great songs on it, like "But Julian, I'm A Little Bit Older Than You."
She eventually went back to the name Hole in 2009, but without any of her old bandmates. Former guitarist and Hole co-founder Eric Erlandson tried to keep her from using the name, claiming that he and Love had signed a contract preventing either from reforming the band without mutual involvement. Love disregarded all of that and released a fourth Hole album, Nobody's Daughter, in 2010.
Despite this awkwardness, the classic lineup of Hole reunited for one night at the afterparty for the premiere of a documentary about drummer Patty Schemel called Hit So Hard.
Love has been performing with a new version of Hole featuring guitarist Micko Larkin over the past few years. Here they are playing a full concert earlier this year.
Love has been playing a lot of Hole's biggest hits in concert – "Miss World," "Violet," "Doll Parts," "Celebrity Skin," "Malibu" – but has been focusing mainly on new songs and covers of tunes by The Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga, Leonard Cohen, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and U2. It will be interesting to see if she actually goes ahead and totally drops her Hole songs from her shows going forward, and if her fans will support that.