As an album title the choice of LIVE THROUGH THIS could not have been more sickeningly prophetic.
The line is a quote from Vivien Leigh in Gone With The Wind but its use here was intended as comment on Courtney Love's transformation into a figure of public notoriety and vilification. It took a tragically sad meaning when only four days before the album was released, Courtney's husband Kurt Cobain was found dead of a self-inflicted shotgun wound.
Like the title, many of the lyrics also have that dreadful sense of the inevitable that only comes with hindsight. Never more so than the refrain on 'Miss World'; "I've made my bed I'll lie in it / I've made my bed I'll die in it". Because of the album's angst-ridden lyrical tone here's been rumours since it's release that Cobain was responsible for much of the content. Certainly tracks like 'Doll Parts' do sound like classic Cobain but Love has proven on all three Hole albums and solo LP that's she's a brilliant songwriter in her own right. Certainly there's no way Cobain could have written a song like 'Asking For It' the background to which is horrifying. Love has gone in record to explain that it was inspired by a terrifying incident she suffered in 1991 when Hole were touring with fellow grunge band Mudhoney. Love, was crowd surfing at a Glasgow gig when the crowd started tearing off her dress and underwear, molesting her and leaving her bruised and completely naked by the time she got backstage. Similarly personal 'Plump' is about her pregnancy and the rampant criticism of her as a mother in the now infamous Vanity Fair article about her and Cobain, that led to custody battle over their child.
If you separate the drama from the music though what you are left with is a genuinely ferocious rock album full of vitriol, bite and sarcasm.
This was this album where Love proved that she was much more than Cobain's junkie rockstar wife. Anything he could do, she could do too. The thrashed guitars and punk noise of Hole's first album 'Pretty on the Inside' are toned down in favour of a more commercial, melodic rock sound. That's not to say they lost their hard edge completely, but Love's songwriting ability and way with simple melody comes through. Just like Cobain, Love too could structure accessible pop songs and rough them up into catchy radio friendly grunge.
'Violet' makes terrifying start. Loud and thrilling guitars accompanied by Love's powerful and guttural voice, venting her spleen at her ex-boyfriend, Smashing Pumpkin's Billy Corgan. Equally aggressive is 'Plump' and 'Gutless'.
The tracks 'Doll Parts', 'Miss World', 'Asking For It' are classic radio-friendly Hole beginning softly, pulling you in with sweet melodies before Love lets her inner punk-rock banshee run riot.
While LIVE THROUGH THIS is not a "classic album" of Nevermind proportions its more than equals Nirvana's follow-up In Utero in terms fuzz drenched pop melodies, lyrical frankness and sheer rock power.
A lot of negative comment has been written about Love in years since LIVE THROUGH THIS came out. She's been called every name under the sun including, by conspiracy theorists, a murderer.
Whilst the drug abuse, bad behaviour, bad parenting is something expected, even encouraged, of male rock stars Love had been continually derided. At least here on record Courtney Love proves here she's one of America's best Rock songwriters, musicians and singers, regardless of her gender.
'VIOLET'
'DOLL PARTS'
'MISS WORLD'
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