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THE REVIEW
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.
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Summary by Bot
Pretty On The Inside is Hole's 1991 debut album, showcasing their raw, abrasive punk-influenced sound led by Courtney Love's fierce vocals and bitter lyrics. The album explores dark themes and displays a powerful alternative rock energy inspired heavily by Sonic Youth. Featuring notable singles and emotive tributes, it is a challenging yet seminal release that demands repeated listens.Tracklist Lyrics
Hole
Hole is an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1989 by Courtney Love and Eric Erlandson. The group became a fixture of the 1990s alt‑rock scene with the albums Pretty on the Inside (1991), Live Through This (1994), and Celebrity Skin (1998), later returning with Nobody’s Daughter (2010).09 Reviews
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.
