Hole
Live Through This

If you have a certain taste for rock anecdotes, you are surely aware of the ‘rumores’ surrounding this famous and infamous album, and of the urban legends that make it very much an ‘aspiring edgy magazine’ for the fearful kids who want to go beyond... always and in any case, even just in words... and there's nothing more deceitful than words.

The non-historiographical story, the one that, in its intentions, is disseminated in words, supposedly to go beyond the events, tells us that the album was entirely written by Kurt Cobain for Hole, the puppet band, whose activity was more than anything else linked to the frailties of its leader and wife Courtney Love, queen of rock gossip, according to mythology, a cunning gold digger from San Francisco, who to sell the said album, decides, for advertising purposes, to have the bassist, Kristen Pfaff, die from an overdose, just to fuel the myth 'sex, drugs & rock 'n roll'... and in addition, and here's the stroke of genius, the husband... the late Kurt. At least, this is what we deduce from certain investigative essays, unofficial documents, second-hand stuff, phenomenal scoops, that appear typically every 3-4 months in reputable, so-called rock newspapers, written by equally reputable journalists, and from fundamental supermarket literature treatises, like certain works by the immense Tom Grant... who knows... perhaps with the same advertising purposes as Love.

As far as historiography is concerned, the official one, the only one of which we have methodologically verified certain evidence, Hole, in April '94, released “Live through this”, the quintessential pop-grunge product, in my opinion, more so than the lauded “Nevermind”, though, of course, it did not feature the same sales.

The opening is entrusted to the mythical three chords of “Violet”, E-C-G, “and the sky was made of amethyst...”, a worthy incipit of the album that resolves in a vocal outburst of Courtney: “take everything, take everything, take everythingggg!”. It continues with “Miss world”, a little song with pop tones and decidedly the one that falls short compared to the rest of the album, which continues on this same alternation between grunge fervor and nods to MTV politics. Naturally, there is no shortage of foxcore elements: “Gutless”, “Plump”, “Jennifer’s body”, and Love's country soul, which occasionally emerges in her compositions: “Softer/Softest”, “Doll parts” ... and besides, even “Miss world” started from the same spirit. But everything is far too glossy, sugarcoated, the lyrics and the attitude almost become stereotypes, the melodies lean towards grunge understood as a new environment to relish, for an album that completely erases what Hole had done in the previous “Pretty on the inside”, full of emotional involvement and heightened tension.

It seems like a completely different band playing in “Live through this”. An album that fully expresses the period when flannel shirts and torn jeans were already the order of the day, where just this was enough to sell. But Courtney's vein, perhaps influenced by personal experience, still fails to express adequately what musically wasn't hers... that's why “Live through this” couldn't have been written by Cobain. Sure, his influence is evident. Anyone is influenced by the people they share something with. Imagine the same life. But often we fail to translate what we feel into adequately artistic forms, especially if certain things are not inherently ours. This does not mean that this work by Hole lacks its autonomous value.

We have before us an album that, in one way or another, is history, as it too fits into the enthusiastic adherence to the 'resurrected' rock ideals that grunge had brought to light. In this sense, it is the document, in general, of how much grunge had influenced the rock imagination by then, in particular, of Courtney's profound affection towards Kurt. More than unabashed utilitarianism, it is an act of love, of fidelity, until the end, beyond death... and so recites the bridge of “Asking for it” ... “if you live through this with me, I swear that I would die for you”. Everything that happened subsequently is now in the annals, the official ones. Everything else, whatever is unofficial, is left to our discretion, to our interpretation. And if you find mine absurd, it's only because writing, words, are the specific tools of the art of sustaining the absurd.

It's up to us to go beyond this... if we have the strength. Because, as Oscar Wilde wrote, “whoever goes beyond the symbol - in this case, the words - does so at their own risk and peril...” .