Hole’s second album, Live Through This, is one of the defining alternative rock records of the 1990s. Released in 1994, it takes the abrasion of the band’s early work and collides it with sharper melodies, huge hooks and Courtney Love’s ferocious, vulnerable songwriting. The result is raw enough to draw blood, but packed with songs that refuse to leave your head.
 
Violet opens the album in spectacular fashion, moving from an almost delicate beginning into a snarling chorus, while Miss World, Asking For It and Doll Parts turn beauty, anger, insecurity and confrontation into genuinely great pop songs. Plump hits with blunt-force energy, Jennifer’s Body is gloriously ragged, and I Think That I Would Die pushes the album’s emotional volatility close to breaking point.
 
Produced by Paul Q. Kolderie and Sean Slade, with mixing contributions from Scott Litt and J Mascis, Live Through This captures Hole as a formidable band rather than simply a vehicle for its frontwoman. Eric Erlandson’s guitars scrape and roar, Kristen Pfaff’s bass gives the songs enormous weight and Patty Schemel’s drumming drives the whole thing forward.
 
Furious, melodic, bruised and occasionally beautiful, Live Through This remains Hole’s essential album and one of the strongest records to emerge from the alternative rock explosion of its era.
 
TRACKS:
1. Violet
2. Miss World
3. Plump
4. Asking For It
5. Jennifer's Body
6. Doll Parts
7. Credit In The Straight World
8. Softer, Softest
9. She Walks On Me
10. I Think That I Would Die
11. Gutless
12. Rock Star