Hole 'Reunion'?
Hole exploded onto the mainstream with their major-label debut album Live Through This in the early months on 1994.
A tornado of phenomenal energy and music, with the eye of it being lead front woman Courtney Love, named the "most controversial woman in rock" by Rolling Stone Magazine.
A rich, layered and textured album, a far cry from their almost rriott grrrl feminist sound of Pretty on the Inside, was released to critical acclaim, despite fingers being pointed and accusations being hurled in the direction of Love for alleged plagiarism of her deceased husband (tragic rock icon Kurt Cobain)’s work for this album.
Accusations like this would manifest themselves throughout Love’s career; when Hole released their final album, Celebrity Skin, it was claimed that Billy Corgan (her then-lover) of The Smashing Pumpkins had written the album.
Cobain’s influence is clear on their second album, Live Through This, with the work on the guitar riffs compared with the first album. There are demos featuring Cobain singing Hole songs, but Love has never come public with any of these alleged plagarisations. None of these accusations have ever been proved and Hole is now known for constantly reinventing itself; the angry punk of Pretty on the Inside, the glamorous grunge of Live Through This and the glorious pop-punk of Celebrity Skin that landed them their best known song of the same title.
A band comprised of three women and one man, they recorded one final album before calling it quits. Band members went their separate ways: bassist Melissa Auf der Maur, who also played with The Smashing Pumpkins, went on to record her self-titled debut solo album with Eric Erlanderson (ex-guitarist of Hole) appearing on the album, and the drummer disappeared into rehab.
Love’s life spiralled into dire circumstances (including custody of daughter, Frances Bean Cobain, being revoked), but she emerged triumphant with a range of manga books titled ‘Princess Ai’ (Ai meaning ‘love’ in Japanese) and a catchy single, Mono, along with her first solo album titled American Beauty.
On Friday night Love appeared on Tonight with Jonathan Ross with her band, Hole. Despite their name, Hole now isn’t comprised of the same members who graced the band throughout their career. The band is now Courtney Love and three British / American men, but it was doubtful any of the previous members would resurface for this ‘reunion’. She called it an evolution as opposed to a reunion, although most fans will be doubtful. They performed their new song, Samantha, at the end of the show, and I was extremely disappointed (to say the least) with what was performed.
A signature sound of Hole was Erlanderson’s punk ‘buzzsaw’ guitar technique, the slow bass grooves of Auf der Maur and the gutsy, heartfelt and well-written lyrics. This was all absent; the new band sounded like any of the other half a dozen pop-ish punk-ish groups, and the million indie rock punk groups with a female singer.
Her chorus for her song rang out as “People like you SUCK, people like ME suck!’; too true. This could be the final downfall for Love, tearing apart her die-hard fanbase from the days of the original formation of Hole.
