2000 Great Songs #1429: Violet
Hole 's Live Through This is one of those records I absolutely adored at the time of its 1994 release, then pretty much memory-holed for the next few decades (whether due to Courtney Love's public baggage or it just being such a consummately 90s album). Nowadays it's something like, say, Neutral Milk Hotel 's Aeroplane , or Pink Floyd 's The Final Cut , where I'll pull it out once or twice a year just to take in that initial thrill of an intense, emotionally devastating album once again, while not overplaying it and diluting its impact. "Violet" is a sort of microcosm of that whole experience. In Pixies -like fashion, it flutters from understated verses to explosive choruses, Love sounding like she's about to fly off the rails and completely destroy something, a few minutes of spine-tingling catharsis as she works through some serious shit. Live on TV 1995: Courtney in 2013: Cover by Fancy Pants: See the entire Top 2000 to date in a sortable datab...
