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Artist You Should Know: Hole
Even though Courtney Love is somewhat insane, particularly after her most recent charade accusing Dave Grohl of hitting on 19-year-old Frances Bean Cobain (who said her mother was basically talking rubbish), she has made some descent records.
Both Love and Eric Erlandson, the second major member of the band, threw themselves into music due to traumatic childhoods and in 1989 they met through an ad that Courtney posted in a punk magazine.
Love used her poetry for her initial lyrics, singing them loudly above Erlandson’s guitar riffs. With multiple influences of several music genres, the band mate’s first recordings were rather experimental. As they began to allow more room for a pop vibe the band began to make quite an impression across America.
Erlandson has previously stated the single “Forming,” was what shaped Hole in the beginning, a song performed by Californian punk band The Germs, who they were both big fans of. As Hole began to establish themselves, they signed to Caroline Records and released their debut album, “Pretty on the Inside,” in 1991 (the year Love met Cobain).
Their second album found critical acclaim and made quite an impact despite it being released during the controversy of Kurt Cobain’s death. The songs “Doll Parts,” and “Softer, Softest,” offer up a more sensitive and vulnerable feel to the group’s familiar punkish reverberation. Also featured on the album was “Asking For It,” apparently inspired by the event of Love crowd surfing during a performance where her clothes were torn off and fans abused her.
Albums to follow throughout the late 90s were “My Body, The Hand Grenade,” and “Celebrity Skin,” whose namesake single appeared in the film America Pie.
Between 1999 and 2009, the band took a break that shortly morphed into a split. Courtney Love continued to work on solo music and produced her album “America’s Sweetheart,” which includes a multitude of somewhat copyright material including riffs and lyrics that sounded like Nirvana’s. However, in 2010 Love went on with previous band members Micko Larkin and Scott Lipps to reform the band and released “Nobody’s Daughter.”
A recent tweet from Love declares the band are currently recording for their next album although there is no news of a release date as of yet.