[PREORDER] Hole - Live Through This [RSD Essential]

Recorded over three weeks at Triclops Sound in Georgia in October 1993, Live Through This is the record where Hole found the middle ground between fury and melody. Paul Q. Kolderie and Sean Slade produced, keeping the guitars raw while giving Courtney Love's songwriting room to land, and Scott Litt and J Mascis handled mixing duties across the album. The result is thirty-eight minutes that swing from whispered verses to full-throated screams, often inside the same song.

The lineup is Love, Eric Erlandson, Kristen Pfaff, and Patty Schemel, and the interplay is a huge part of why this holds up. Schemel's drumming drives "Violet" and "Asking for It" with real muscle, Pfaff's basslines give "Jennifer's Body" its dread, and Erlandson's guitar knows exactly when to drop out. "Doll Parts" remains one of the great quiet-loud confessionals of the decade, "Miss World" turns pageant imagery inside out, and the closing cover of Young Marble Giants' "Credit in the Straight World" reframes a minimalist post-punk oddity as a snarl.

It arrived on April 12, 1994, a week after Kurt Cobain's death, which colored every review it received and much of the conversation since. The album survived all of it. Certified platinum in the States the following year and charted across nine countries, it now sits permanently on all-time greatest album lists and remains the definitive Hole statement. Pfaff died two months after its release, making this the only album she recorded with the band.

This edition, overseen by Eric Erlandson, pairs audio newly remastered for vinyl with restored packaging and includes the complete original booklet on vinyl for the first time, pressed on Pop Bottle Clear vinyl keyed to the original artwork.