Latest Release
![](/https/music.apple.com/assets/artwork/1x1.gif)
- 2 JUL 2024
- 11 Songs
- Fake It So Real (Live) · 2024
- Fake It So Real (Live) · 2024
- Fake It So Real (Live) · 2024
- Fake It So Real (Live) · 2024
- Fake It So Real (Live) · 2024
- Fake It So Real (Live) · 2024
- Fake It So Real (Live) · 2024
- Fake It So Real (Live) · 2024
- Fake It So Real (Live) · 2024
- Fake It So Real (Live) · 2024
Essential Albums
- Riot-grrrl lodestar, punk-feminist manifesto, primal scream: Hole’s 1994 breakthrough Live Through This is many things, including a retroactive snapshot of lead singer Courtney Love’s state of mind in the final months of her marriage to Kurt Cobain, who notoriously died by suicide a week before the album’s release. The legendary late Nirvana leader was said to have contributed background vocals on at least two tracks, and was often credited with ghostwriting at least some of the songs for his then-wife. Still, much of that unproven and widely debunked gossip seems to speak more to the widespread sexism that still persisted at the time—even in alternative culture—as well as a more specific ill will toward Love as an artist and divisive public figure. What’s impossible to deny is the raw power of Live’s electrifying blasts of noise and fury, beginning with the ferocious churn of “Violet”, with its excoriating chorus, “Go on, take everything/Take everything, I want you to.” (Despite many fans’ assumptions, Love hinted more than once that its unpretty inspiration came from her contentious relationship with The Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan, not Cobain). The 12 tracks here, knocked out over several weeks at the same Georgia studio where Siamese Dream was recorded, is littered with lyrics that seem designed to be carved into skin with a pocketknife: “Was she asking for it?/Was she asking nice?/Yeah, she was asking for it/Did she ask you twice?” (from “Asking For It”) and “I fake it so real, I am beyond fake” (“Doll Parts”). Cobain’s passing was hardly the only devastating loss to shadow the record, as bassist Kristen Pfaff would be dead of a heroin overdose within two months of Live Through This’ release. Though it was her only full album with the band, those contributions played an undeniable role in Hole’s dramatic evolution from the deliberately lo-fi scrape and fuzz of their 1991 debut, Pretty On the Inside. The result remains a career-defining near-masterpiece, and a towering document of the era—a deathless collection of monster hooks and lacerating melodies written in lightning.
Albums
Music Videos
Artist Playlists
- Get up close with the godmother of grunge.
Singles & EPs
Live Albums
About Hole
Led by the incandescent Courtney Love, Hole were one of the bands that helped make the ’90s alt-rock landscape a place where women could assert themselves through heavy riffs and snarled lyrics. Formed in Los Angeles in 1989 by Love and guitarist Eric Erlandson, Hole took early inspiration from abstract no wave and gnarly rock ’n’ roll. Their first album, 1991’s Pretty On the Inside, was coproduced by Kim Gordon of New York indie standard-bearers Sonic Youth, and its chaotic guitars were countered by Love’s guttural wail. Almost immediately, Hole began getting interest from alt-rock-interested major labels, while Love’s romance with Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain raised her celebrity profile. Live Through This, Hole’s major-label debut, came out in April 1994, one week after Cobain’s death; its blend of fury and melodicism made the frantic “Violet” and the weary “Miss World” and “Doll Parts” radio hits; that year was further punctuated by tragedy in June, when bassist Kristen Pfaff passed away. She was replaced by Melissa Auf der Maur, and the group spent the rest of 1994 and 1995 touring the world. A year later, the band’s Ric Ocasek-produced cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Gold Dust Woman” pointed toward a further glamming-up of their sound, and 1998’s Celebrity Skin, which featured tracks like the New Wave-inspired title track and the pensive “Awful”, cemented that shift. Hole broke up in 2002, with Love releasing a solo album in 2004; six years later, she released the pop-leaning Nobody’s Daughter under the Hole name, but with an all-new lineup. Love was one of the alt-rock boom’s biggest stars, transcending music with her efforts in fashion and film; that starpower is matched by the fury of Hole’s best songs, which remain anthems for disaffected women around the world.
- ORIGIN
- Los Angeles, CA, United States
- FORMED
- 1989
- GENRE
- Alternative