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Pretty On The Inside, released in 1991, is the debut album by Hole, one of the most turbulent alternative rock bands of the Nineties. It's in the songs of this album that we come into contact with Hole in their purest form. These are the old days, when the feminist quartet played in punk venues in Hollywood. With this abrasive album, the band - led by the impetuous Courtney Love (in a whore-child style) - begins to make their way in the music scene of the Nineties.
The bitter and impactful lyrics of the scathing Courtney characterize the already ethereal album, which turns out to be an extremely violent and explosive product, revolving around themes of beauty and ugliness, sex, alienation, and death. Pretty On The Inside, featuring producers and collaborators D.O.C. like Kim Gordon and Don Fleming, is significantly influenced by Sonic Youth, decidedly the primary inspiration for the group. Indeed, it is easy to find the thread that links this brilliant debut with the legendary Confusion Is Sex (the first album by Sonic Youth, released in 1983).
Courtney's magnetic voice is well accompanied by the band's raw instrumental (at that time composed of the faithful guitarist Eric Erlandson, bassist Jill Emery, and drummer Caroline Rue).
Included in the album are well-chosen singles, such as Teenage Whore and Garbadge Man, and tributes to cult musicians like Stevie Nicks (in Starbelly, where a little voice is heard humming “Rhiannon,” along with an old version of Best Sunday Dress, from the time when Courtney was with Sugar Babylon) and concluding with Joni Mitchell, closing with a beautiful version of “Clouds.”
Pretty On The Inside is not only a mix of noise, screeching guitars, obsessive rhythms, and Courtney's powerful hardcore screams spat into the microphone with such savagery; but also of brief, visionary, and hallucinated acid tales. Teenage whores, garbage men, sugar stars, good and bad sisters, sugar running through the arteries, all of this is Pretty On The Inside.
In short, Pretty On The Inside is an album so raw and brutal that it is hard to listen to: instead, listen to it and listen to it again. You will understand that this tangle of abrasive sounds is the most shocking album of 1991.
Tracklist and Lyrics
01 Teenage Whore (02:57)
When I was a teenage whore
My mother asked me, she said, "Baby, what for?
I give you plenty, why do you want more?
Baby, why are you a teenage whore?"
I said, "I feel so alone and I, I wish I could die"
I've seen the things you put me through and I, I wish I could die
When I was a teenage whore
The rain came down like it never did before
I paid good money not to be ignored
Then why am I a teenage whore?
I've seen your repulsion and it looks real good on you
Denying what...what what you put me through
...of my house...get out of my house!
Get out of my house...get out of my house!
When I was a teenage whore
My mother asked me, she said, "Baby, what for?
I give you plenty, why do you want more?
Baby, why are you a teenage whore?"
I've seen your repulsion and it looks real good on you
I don't want to live what you had...you have put me through
I wanted that shirt and I, I wanted those pants
It's all the lying put me through and I
I never...whoa!
02 Babydoll (04:59)
Here you come sucking my energy
And you suck it up right off the street
Babydoll
Here you are sucking my energy right up
Drill it in my good hole so that I can see
You are so much bigger than me
You are so much bigger than me
Babydoll
My raw hand, my fever blister, watch me
Watch me, watch me disappear
Here she comes, her pants undone
All waste and void, all waste and void
There you go in your Nazi car
Oh babydoll, what a whore you are
You sit around with your old rag
How can I talk when you've got the gag?
Here you come sucking my energy
And you suck it up, baby, right off the street
Babydoll
In the dark I destroy
What I began, what I destroy
She's hanging in the blossom tree
Babydoll just bleeds for me
Babydoll
Babydoll, she's on the field
Her chemical wedding and her chemical peel
I knife me and I slash mine
And I knife me and I slash mine
Sick and sorry me, well, here you are as ugly as me
Drill it in my good hole so that I can see
Drill it in my good hole so that I can see
Here you come sucking my energy
And you suck it up, baby, right off the street
Babydoll
She stares too long into the sun
Now I want a cancer that the crooked eye spun for you
I don't mind my energy
'Cause baby, you are so much bigger than me
Babydoll
Little girl, she's on the floor
She gets it all 'cause she's a whore
Little girl, she's on the ground
She gets it all for falling, falling down
Falling down
"I am, I am," she says
"I am not free," she says
"Help me, I am withering...withering...withering..."
Hang on, you'll get your soul
It's a soul
Hey it's a soul, it comes down
See, see it's a soul
06 Mrs Jones (05:25)
MRS. JONES
Sorry man, sorry, sorry, I've got a bad eye
I shouldn't have looked at it
I've got a bad eye
I should have listened
Go away, go away on the sugar star
Sugar star and the abortionist
You want her on the bed
With her legs wide open and her eyes all spread
The sky's a narcotic with blackjack bones
Oh Mrs. Jones
Oh Mrs. Jones
Cry me a river but just take me home
Oh Mrs. Jones
Oh Mrs. Jones
Sorry man, I've got a gut slit
Fucking ran away with my abortionist
It's my little white lie
You know, like I jizzed with
The knife they used to gut my face in
It's been out stabbing baby angels in
Smile, smile
The sky's a narcotic with blackjack bones
Oh Mrs. Jones
Please Mrs. Jones
My virus is raging and it's breaking my bones
Oh Mrs. Jones
Please Mrs. Jones
I will follow you down the sick drain
When I lean on, on the sink
Don't worry, don't worry, baby
You will never stink so bad
Sorry man, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have looked at it
I'm sorry man, you're a night blooming sickle cell
Night blooming sickle cell
I ran away, I ran away
Look into the bloodroot you suicide bitch
It takes an hour like you to make me want to live
Sorry man, I'm sorry, man
The sky's a narcotic with blackjack bones
Oh Mrs. Jones
Oh Mrs. Jones
Come get your dog, it won't leave me alone
Oh Mrs. Jones
Please Mrs. Jones
My virus is raging and it's breaking my bones
Oh Mrs. Jones
Please Mrs. Jones
Oh, cry me a river, baby, just take me home
Oh Mrs. Jones
Oh Mrs. Jones
Sister ectoplasma, she's incredulous
Just like a pro she takes off her dress
She kicks you down in her snow white pumps
Just remember it was me who found the lumps
Shit...shit...shit...shit
East is east and west is west
And mine was you
And mine was the best
And east is east and west is west
And mine was you
And mine was blind, was gold
Mrs. Jones
Don't ask me again
Don't ever talk to me like that again
07 Berry (02:46)
Oh yeah, oh yeah
Oh yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Do you want a ride on my death machine?
Pump a dime in if you do
Oh yeah, oh yeah
Oh yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Yeah, I kill what I need
Yeah, I kill what I need
When I die won't you bury me?
'Cause I buried you, baby, deep in me
Oh yeah, oh yeah
Oh yeah yeah, yeah yeah
Cut it open
What's inside?
You drag me back there
Yeah, I want to know
Baby, I said I want to know
Never know, never know
Cut it open
Say pretty please
You'll drag it to the...
Yeah, I want to know
Baby, I said I want to know
Never know, never know
And when I die, won't you bury me?
'Cause I buried you, baby, deep in me
Yeah, when you fall for the garbage man
You wind up in the garbage
08 Loaded (04:19)
Black lung coat and your little crown
That's the crown that you get for falling down
Hey baby, let me look in your eyes
I see you standing in a weird red light
The pump and grind that I call my head
The suck milk nebula I use instead
The sweet cream clot and the sweet cream udder
The weird red light that pulls you under
Open my scar, let out my stars
Slut me open and suck my scars
And now I'm loaded
Yeah, now I'm loaded
Put on your coat and your little crown
That's the crown that you get when you fall down
Hey baby, won't you wave goodbye
As you go off to fuck your weird red light?
Rotten sun spits on your raw hide
As you dance to the sound of a suicide
Oh yeah, you laugh as you try to to hide
That you're the rat poison daughter of a suicide
Slut me open and suck my scars
Better open your eyes when I come down
And now I'm loaded
Yeah, now I'm loaded
Don't blush when I rip you open
Don't blush when I rip you open
Hey baby, let me look in your eyes
As you go off into your weird red light
The pump and grind that I call my head
The suck milk nebula I use instead
The sweet cream clot and the sick milk udder
The weird red light that pulls me under
You open and suck my scars
Better open your eyes when I come down
And now I'm loaded
I just get loaded
I just get loaded
I just get loaded
And now I'm loaded
So am I, So am I
And I, I just got, I just got I just get, I just get, I just get loaded
I just get loaded
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Other reviews
By AR (Anonima Recensori)
It’s a real, true, instinctive, alive record.
A truly aggressive but liberating album.
By ashanti
The resulting album is one that "feeds on discomfort"... it’s a single, endless chant that disturbs... zero melody and all Sonic Youth-style noise.
Courtney... sings of a corrupted authenticity, of sold innocence, of faded candor, of disturbed sound, of music that unsettles us but is finished.
