In the track “Airplanes” from his just-released CD, “B.o.B. Presents: The Adventures of Bobby Ray,” Atlanta rapper Bobby Ray Simmons, aka B.o.B., imagines that “I just dropped my new album, on my first week I did 500,000.”  Well, the 21-year-old hip-hop newcomer didn’t come close to that number, but he did nevertheless make it to the top of the national sales chart his first week out.

Simmons’ album sold 84,000 copies, helped along by the presence of a number of high-profile guests including no less than Eminem, who joins in on a bonus track version of “Airplanes” along with Paramore singer Hayley Williams. Among his other partners are fellow rapper T.I., Lupe Fiasco, Rivers Cuomo, Janelle Monae, Bruno Mars and Ricco Barrino.

It was considerably more impressive than the lackluster first-week response to the latest outing for Courtney Love’s band Hole, which came in at No. 15 with sales of just 22,000 for “Nobody’s Daughter,” according to Billboard/Nielsen SoundScan. That mirrors the critical response to the new collection, which garners a 59 out of a possible 100 on Metacritic.com’s aggregate of reviews from major publications and music websites.

Rolling Stone said “’Nobody’s Daughter’ isn’t a true success — but it’s a noble effort,” while, writing for The Los Angeles Times, Margaret Wappler said: “The biggest problem with ‘Nobody’s Daughter’ is the mostly standard hard rock licks provided by her too-merry band of youngsters. These boys don’t sound like they’ve lived through anything, much less Love’s torrid brand of ‘this.’”

Among other new Top 10 entries are Bullet for My Valentine’s “Fever,” opening at No., 3 with sales of 71,000 copies; Melissa Etheridge’s “Fearless Love,” at No. 7 with sales of 46,000; and Miranda Cosgrove’s “Sparks Fly,” landing right behind Etheridge at No. 8 after selling 36,000 copies.

Country trio Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Now” continues strongly at No. 2, and should crack the 2-million total sales mark this week if the album keeps on the pace it’s been on lately. Last week’s top-selling album, The "Glee" cast’s “Power of Madonna,” tumbled to No. 10 with sales of 29,000 copies, a second-week sales drop of 70%.

--Randy Lewis

When Courtney Love first announced that she was resuscitating her volatile, beloved band Hole, the news arrived with two very different possibilities as to how it might play out.

The immediate question was whether Love was in creative shape for this. For younger listeners who missed her first turn as the frost-eyed fulfillment of Riot Grrl rage, Love had become something of a Miss Havisham of the blogosphere. Known for creatively punctuated missives against all the celebrities who crossed her (Lily Allen, John Mayer and Billy Corgan among them), Love saw her music become eclipsed by her role as a one-woman gossip maelstrom for much of the late '00s.

At the revived Hole's L.A. debut at the Music Box on Thursday, Love cleared that bar easily. Her feral wail — always seemingly on the edge between an earth-detonating argument and delirious makeup sex — has settled into a sly, been-there pugnacity. Songs from Hole's forthcoming “Nobody's Daughter” split a nifty difference between the bottled fury of “Live Through This” and the sunnier melodicism of Love's later work.

The sun went behind a cloud Friday afternoon at the Spin magazine party at Stubb's, just as Courtney Love claimed the stage to introduce American fans to the new incarnation of her band, Hole. Comedian Margaret Cho had just announced the rock star's arrival with the kind of burning nostalgia female rock fans of a certain age (especially) could feel in their gut.

"When I saw Hole in the '90s," Cho said, "everything changed. I stopped wearing underwear." It was a joke, but no lie. Better known as a tabloid disaster and a  brilliant, outre pugilist taking on all comers -- journalists, other celebrities, sometimes her own friends and family --  Love was also once the artist whose music expressed unacceptable female rage and hunger, and in doing so, motivated many young women to see and risk new things.

Could she do it again? Would she even stay standing? The momentary clouds, which cleared up after a few songs, seemed like a sign: Love is back, and even the weather must bow to her presence.

But weather isn't really a symbol of anything. And Hole, with only its front-woman remaining from the lineup that made some of the best rock of the '90s, would have to make the case for its relevance to older fans disillusioned by the public meltdowns and other problems that have damaged Love's legacy.

She certainly brought the mouth that helped make her notorious. Most of Love's between-song banter was just as profane as the chorus of her best new song, "Samantha," whose refrain bluntly describes what she might call "hate sex": the erotic connections are meant to wield power, not love. At her best, by singing (and howling and growling) about these dark areas of human interaction within a powerful hard rock framework that borrows from myth-obsessed goth and metal, and the spookier side of classic radio rock, Love turns her highly individualistic suffering emblematic, a broken window into the feminine condition.

The unsinkable Courtney Love comes to South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, with a re-jiggered Hole. They headline the Spin@Stubbs showcase on Red River at 5 p.m.

Just as fascinating as Mrs. Cobain, maybe more, metal gods Gwar will be interviewed for an hour in Room 18abc of the Austin Convention Center, starting at 5 p.m. "You think you've got it tough in the music business? Try establishing a career when you're from another planet!" the SXSW music book asks. Maybe that's their secret.

Feeling something completely different? Folkie Victoria Williams takes part in a 15-minute set at Jovita's (1619 S. 1st St.) at 5:45 p.m.

Sonic Youth shredder Thurston Moore (above) returns to Austin for a solo performance at 8 p.m. at the Red 7.

Local Natives are getting some excellent -- and much-deserved -- buzz here. They play the Galaxy Room on 6th Street tonight at 9.

Several blocks away, She & Him play the Lustre Pearl at 10 p.m. M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel are hard to miss here. Not only are they playing several shows, but Deschanel's eyes also peer from magazine covers all over the dirty streets of Austin.

Canada's answer to both Billy Bragg and Ryan Adams, Matthew Good, plays the cozy basement of Prague just south of Congress on 5th Street at 11 p.m. Good doesn't tour the States often, so if you missed him at the Troubadour earlier this week, this might be your last chance to see him in the U.S.

Mimicking the Beatles in a weird way, sorta, Sum 41 will bring its pop punk to the roof of Maggie Mae's at midnight.

Then, finally, if you couldn't get into the Spin party, Hole is playing a late-night (1 a.m.) show at the Dirty Dog Bar on 6th Street. If you don't want to end your night with some celebrity skin, you're missing the point of this grand melange of excess. Go rock.

-- Tony Pierce from Austin

Photo of Thurston Moore at the Mohawk in 2008. Credit: Tony Pierce / Los Angeles Times

Courtney Love watchers can download “Skinny Little Bitch” for free Wednesday only. It’s the first single from Hole’s first album in a decade, “Nobody’s Daughter,” now scheduled for April 27 release.

The Web page for the download has an evocative image of a shattered glass slipper with a dainty white bow on the toe, and there are plenty of sonic shards, with no hint of daintiness, in the pile-driving track.

After Love spits out the title phrase a cappella, the band jumps in behind her with a bruising and woozy guitar-bass-drum riff and proceeds on a Godzilla-worthy rampage through the rest of its three-minute length. “Baby you’re much too young to end up with me,” she sings, leaving it intriguingly vague whether the observation is directed at another, or into a mirror. “She’s all the things you’ll never live to tell,” she growls with egoistic pride.

Love’s made several stabs in recent years to recast her wild-child public image as she’s fought to hold onto custody of her daughter, Frances Bean Cobain , which she lost in December. But to anyone who might have thought those efforts would spill over into her ferocious music, this choice of this first official missive from her new album seems to represent one big “Hell, no!”

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Courtney Love outside the Superior Court building in downtown Los Angeles in 2005. Credit: Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times