Hole - Pretty on the Inside
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CD Details
Artist: HoleBrand: HOLE
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1991-07-01
Music Label: Caroline
Soundtracks:
- Teenage Whore
- Babydoll
- Garbage Man
- Sassy
- Goodsister/Badsister
- Mrs. Jones
- Berry
- Loaded
- Star Belly
- Pretty On The Inside
Music reviews of Pretty on the Inside
Music Review: Being stabbed in the ears never felt so good
Rating: 5 Stars
Back before you knew her as Kurt Cobain's wife or widow, the strung out queen of "grunge", or the plastic surgery-ridden media disaster that is (or was) Courtney Love, this woman was a terrifying hurricane who hurled one of the best punk rock debuts EVER into a decade that would become forever famous for its cultural rock explosion.
"Pretty on the Inside" is a tattered patchwork of death and disaster, child prostitution and Virgin Marys; beauty and repulsion, all guts and no glory. This was Hole as it was initially conceived-- a basement punk rock quartet whose wild screams and raging guitars could kill your eardrums after one chorus. As we know, Courtney Love and Hole moved onto more streamlined musical styles, with 1994's acclaimed album "Live Through This" and the commercial pop-rock hit "Celebrity Skin" in 1998. This past year, after a ten year hiatus of rehab and legal disasters, Love reformed Hole with an entirely new lineup, and brought another album ("Nobody's Daughter") that is about redemption, and is equally competent-- and yet, "Pretty on the Inside" has something special that all of the band's other masterworks don't have. Maybe it's the borderline-psychotic flair that is found in Love's vivid, unrestrained, almost confessional-like lyrics. Or perhaps it's the unorthodox structure and arrangement of the songs, which sound like twisted poetry slams set to violent guitar riffs, booming bass lines, and shattering drums. Or maybe it's Courtney's primal screams and wails, which can't be found quite the same on the later albums.
Whatever it may be, "Pretty on the Inside" stands as one of the most violently impressive rock albums I've encountered, ever. The album casts its spell from track one, with Courtney screaming of her life as a "teenage whore" and comes crashing down with a cover of Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides, Now" (cleverly re-titled "Clouds") that is beyond the antithesis of folk music. Though the songs are largely obnoxious and loud, they are fiercely catchy upon repeat listens, and the album as a whole grows on you. Eric Erlandson's guitar work is brilliant, and Jill Emery and Caroline Rue storm up the album with booming bass work and crashing drums. The guitar riffs are simple but melodic, and are enhanced by distortion and overt use of feedback and wah pedals, which give the songs a rough and often jarring texture. Several of the tracks are more of noise collages than anything, which is evidence of the band's inspiration from noise rock acts like Sonic Youth-- funnily enough, Kim Gordon, bassist for Sonic Youth, was head producer on this album.
What I find most impressive, though, is Love's lyric pen(wo)manship here. The songs are abstract as hell and some of them are actually quite scary ("Mrs. Jones" stands out as the nightmare track of this album), but they also manage to be consistently poetic and unrestrained. "Pretty on the Inside" is, in many ways, a chronicle of Courtney's wayward life, and this was her at what was probably her angriest: scorned by her parents, disheveled by society, and tossed away with misfit toys. Her tumultuous past is clear inspiration for this album, from her childhood woes to her strained relationship with her mother-- when she sings of being a "teenage whore", she's really referring to the way she was seen in the eyes of her parents; particularly her mother, who wrote her off before she even reached adolescence. References to beauty, red light districts, and "slutkiss girls" seem to reflect Love's seedy past career as a stripper-- really, all of her feminine rage is rolled into this album, and the final product is so powerful you'd never think you've heard a woman this pissed off in your life.
Really, all I can say is that "Pretty on the Inside" is the real deal. If you want a serious, smash-your-guitar punk rock album with a feminine bent, then this album will work wonders on the ears and the mind. Not to demean or discredit any of Hole's later albums (which I all believe are masterworks, all for different reasons), but "Pretty on the Inside" is the rawest that this band ever was. Music that can be this harsh, foul, and confrontational-- and yet lyrical, poetic, and metaphorical-- is extremely rare. And that alone makes this one of my favorite (if not favorite) albums ever. Unfortunately, it was eclipsed by the band's two other releases in the mid and late '90s, but it remains a real gem for true Hole fans and rock fans in general who can appreciate such a valiant effort that is extremely rare in musical debuts.
This is Courtney Love when she was fresh off her adolescent train from hell, unaware of the next fire pit she was about to face-- only to eventually find herself in emotional purgatory and cleanse her soul. This is Courtney as mad as she ever was, and as maniacally genius as she'll ever be.
Description of Pretty on the Inside
11 tracks. Parental Advisory. SM.Alternative Rock CDs
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