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Welcome to a new edition of the Best Music of All Time newsletter!
Today’s music pick celebrates the 30th anniversary of Courtney Love’s fiery, righteous post-Nirvana statement.
Genre: Alternative, Punk Rock
Label: DGC
Release Date: April 12, 1994
Vibe: 🥵
There’s a passage in Kim France’s 1996 article for New York Magazine titled “Feminism Rocks” that illustrates the cultural tug of war at the heart of rock music’s misogyny: “[While] our culture admires the angry young man, who is perceived as heroic and sexy, it can’t find anything but scorn for the angry young woman, who is seen as emasculating and bitter.” This statement is especially true of the grunge movement that led to Hole’s 1994 release, Live Through This. The album was famously released four days after Kurt Cobain’s passing, amid (unsubstantiated) rumors that he ghostwrote a sizable chunk of the material for Courtney Love’s band. His shadow, along with assumptions regarding what men and women were “supposed” to sound like on the alt-rock scene, threatened to swallow this LP whole, but thank goodness it didn’t. 30 years later, it stands out as one of its era's most devastatingly effective rock records.
If Live Through This bears any resemblance to the Nirvana canon, particularly In Utero, it’s in the unfettered rage that sits at the core of every song. There’s the bleak, knowing recounting of sexual violence on “Asking For It” (”Was she asking for it?/Was she asking nice?”) and the ugliness of “Doll Parts,” a scathing gut punch written from the point of view of unwilling subjects of the male gaze. For all the trauma and pain that’s on display, it’s easy to overlook how exhilarating and (dare I say it) catchy these tracks are. They’re calculated to the point of being analytical, harnessing holler-ready punk rock formulas to elevate the listening experience beyond pure catharsis.
Ultimately, as its title suggests, Live Through This is a record about survival. Surviving the incessant tabloid coverage, surviving a tumultuous marriage, surviving a much-scrutinized pregnancy, and surviving in a milieu that, at the time, was undoubtedly more hostile than people remember. In a 1992 Vanity Fair profile, Love shared an anecdote about an incident of sexual assault where the male perpetrators were singing the Nirvana cut “Polly” throughout. “These are the people who listen to him [Cobain],” she added. With that context in mind, it’s easy to understand where Love’s anger and, at times, resignation are coming from.
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