IN LOVE AND MONEY, MUSIC LOSES.(Entertainment/Weekend/Spotlight)

Byline: Mark Brown

ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS

Just so there'd be no misunderstanding her intent, Courtney Love made her position crystal clear in an interview with the Los Angeles Times last year. She was going to fight the record industry; she was going to get out of her recording contract.

Love wasn't battling for herself, but for all musicians' rights, she said, and absolutely nothing was going to stop her. As musicians, lawyers and accountants have said over and over again, the music industry screws over the artists illegally and unfairly. Someone had to end it, and Love vowed it was her.

``I could end up being the music industry's worst nightmare: A smart gal with a fat bank account who is unafraid to go down in flames, fighting for a principle,'' Love told writer Chuck Phillips.

``Somebody has to put a stop to this crap. I've been evangelized. I'm ready to take this thing all the way to the Supreme Court.''

Instead, she took it all the way to the bank.

Love went down in flames, all right. This week she announced that she had settled her lawsuit with Universal Music. Instead of striking down contracts that were unfair to artists, Love walked away with the industry intact and a truckload of cash - most of it from negotiating away future royalties from the work of her dead husband, Kurt Cobain, and his band Nirvana.

What a lucky, lucky girl. A few months ago, open feuding between Love and the surviving members of Nirvana made it look like we'd never be hearing new music from Cobain, dead for seven years.

But just in time to extract a bunch of money from Universal Music and get new Nirvana product out in time for Christmas, Love managed to patch up her feud with surviving Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic. She managed to leverage the deal with a Nirvana greatest hits CD (now with a Nov. 12 release date) and the unreleased song, You Know You're Right.

Heck, they've already planned into 2004 with a box set and rarities.

``I plan to continue my advocacy of artists in Sacramento and Washington, where this belongs,'' she said in a statement.

Gee, if it belongs there, then why did she take it to a courtroom? Oh wait, right, yeah, it was the money.

``I look forward to joining my fellow recording artists as we look for solutions to the problems we face in the music business. We must all work together through lobbying and collective bargaining to create the opportunities that have been lacking in our careers,'' she added.

More than one wag online has pointed out that Love's claim is much like O.J. Simpson's vow to find the real killers.

Universal released Love from her recording agreement in return for the rights to the Nirvana catalog - music that she had no hand in making (except for possibly inspiring the scathing songs You Know You're Right and Heart Shaped Box). In return, Universal released her and her band, Hole, from a recording contract that made them, oh, dozens of dollars over the past few years.

Anyone who has paid attention isn't surprised; Love has been nothing but a self-promoter since she came into the public eye. There was little doubt that despite the strong words, the only beneficiary when all was said and done would be Love herself.

One of the few bright spots out of all this is that fans of Cobain will get some new music. You Know You're Right is a classic piece of Nirvana work, and they're going to finally hear it.

Knowing now how Cobain's life was unraveling in January 1994 when this song was recorded, it makes his sarcastic lyrics all the more unsettling as he snarls: ``Things have never been so swell / I have never felt this well.''

Cobain was sick of the music business and sick of Love. He'd talked about divorcing her and stepping away from music. Three months after recording this song - with its chorus of drawn-out moans of ``Pain! Pain!'' - he was dead.

You Know You're Right was leaked to the Internet last week, so fans can download and hear this without putting another ill-gotten penny into Love's Gucci-designed pockets.

Don't you just love a happy ending?

Oh well. Whatever. Nevermind.

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Courtney Love, above, has reached agreement with the surviving members of Nirvana, the band formed by her late husband, Kurt Cobain, left, that make it possible for the band to use some previously unreleased recordings it made with Cobain on a greatest hits CD, expected to be released in November. ASSOCIATED PRESS