Hole: Live Through This (Geffen)
Jon Young, Musician, 1994
"JUST YOU try to hold me down/Come on, try to shut me up," snarls Courtney Love near the end of Live Through This, hurling a challenge no sane person would accept. On Hole's major-label debut, Kurt Cobain's much-discussed, little-heard other half finally gets the chance to escape gossip-column purgatory and succeeds with flying colors. Those who insist on seeing Love as another Yoko Ono for messing with the leader of a popular boy band won't be persuaded by her vivid diatribes — but who needs them? Anybody receptive to an ornery voice that raises prickly questions will welcome a kindred spirit.
Total word count of piece: 319
