Courtney Love has reflected on the 33rd anniversary of Hole‘s debut album ‘Pretty On The Inside’.
Released in September 1991, ‘Pretty On The Inside’ was produced by Sonic Youth‘s Kim Gordon and Don Fleming from the band Gumball. It marked Hole’s first major release following their formation in 1989.
Speaking about the album in an Instagram post shared by Fyeahcourtneylove – a fanpage dedicated to the musician, Love shared: “‘POTI’ [‘Pretty On The Inside’] is like an exorcism it felt awesome to scream that loud and be that visceral and primal, but back to R.E.M. right after. and the lyrics on ‘POTl’ are sick I never corrected one lyric I simply scatted what was in my head then and it was 25 yrs of repressed rage.”
She added that she believes the “lyrical equasions on ‘POTI’ are the best I will ever do (Rimbaud stopped young) I know im one of the best, but ‘poti’? It can’t really be topped lyrically for feminine lyrics, feminine rage it was my first time letting go of all sense of proportion, whats ‘nice’.”
Love explained that she created ‘Pretty On The Inside’ with that concept in mind and claimed that she knew within a week to two that the LP would have “the exact impact that it had no more no less, and it was awesome.”
“I like being in total control like that, then I hooked up with Kurt Cobain at some point and everything lost control,” she continued, adding: “He-lovely, but the nonsense? well I’m still battling Kurt’s dammed demons. When do I get to battle mine? ‘poti’ differentiated me and gave me a ‘brand’ that I’m still trying to shed off of myself. I’m not 24 and spitting bile anymore! Damn!”
The musician then went on to explain why being young was good and referred to her lyrics on the album. “Its lyrics first. I could, when writing ‘POTl’, write a decent song. I wrote ‘DollParts’ then, and sort of sub rem songs, you’d never know its from ‘POTI’ but that record was an experiment that was disciplined.”
She continued: “I let EE [guitarist Eric Erlandson] play with weird tunings and I played with words only. In other words, the concept of that record was to totally deconstruct, utterly, no song songs. At least ‘Bleach’ had ‘About A Girl’. I didn’t.”
In the post’s caption, Love explained that the songs on the album are about “My own weaknesses and impurities; things about myself that I hate … paranoias, petty concerns, and pithy, pathetic things that are inside of me.”
She added: “I try to place beautiful imagery next to fucked up imagery because that’s how I view things.”
‘Pretty On The Inside’ discussed themes such as abortion, prostitution, suicide, murder, “red lights”, and self-destructiveness with lyrics also describing elitism, beauty and self-image. It peaked at Number 59 on the UK Charts, with its lead single ‘Teenage Whore’ landing the Number One spot on the UK Indie Singles Chart.
Hole would then go on the Pretty On The Inside’ tour which saw them support the likes of Mudhoney and the Smashing Pumpkins. At the time, Love briefly dated Billy Corgan but the two eventually split. Later on during the tour, Love was introduced to Nirvana‘s frontman Kurt Cobain and the two began a relationship. Shortly after the end of the tour, Love an Cobain would go on to get married.
In other news, Noel Fielding recently reflected on his “partying” days with Love in the ’00s.
