'Live Through This' by Hole

And it’s time for my Valentine’s Day record, which I never seek any further than Hole’s Live Through This.

The annual ritual of scalloped-edge hearts, conversation candy hearts, and performative romance is back in all its high-calorie-content glory. But for me, the holiday has always carried a sharper edge. It’s less long-stem roses and more Courtney Love wishing us a “Happy fucking Valentine’s” on MTV’s Unplugged that has always felt more on-target than any Hallmark card I’ve ever seen.

Every February 14th, though, I find myself transported back to 1995. That was the best Valentine’s Day I ever had—not because it was romantic in the conventional sense, but romantic in owning an experience that didn’t include parents, and feeling a part of something that was bigger than high school. If I close my eyes I’m there again at the Roseland Ballroom, breathing in the stale cigarette smoke laced with low-quality weed, feeling the warped dancefloor creak under my worn-in Chuck Taylors, the anticipation pressing against my chest as I inched one step closer to the stage. Dolled up with my best friend in our Contempo Casuals best, going to a concert in New York City on a school night, we were never quite able to assimilate into high school after. It was pretty much all over from here.

Every February, I reach for this album to recall those first sips of freedom and appreciate the album art that visually embodies the anti-Valentine’s trope so perfectly: ironic rose imagery, retro Stepford-wive fonts hinting at something dark you can't quite put your finger on, jewelry-box ballerinas spinning to recitals that never happened, and that iconic cover. Shot by legendary fashion photographer Ellen von Unwerth, it captured the mascara-streaked beauty queen clutching her bouquet like a hard-won trophy, seemingly laughing at the naysayers. It flips every floral, romantic cliché into something manic and real—childhoods lost, loves forgotten or dead, crises survived, life continuing on. It’s pain dressed pretty in pink, not from having it all but from the scars left when you claw your way through.

A few rock-nerd notes: Say what you will on who contributed to the record, but there is no denying that LTT stormed the alternative rock charts with its punk riffs laced with pop undercurrents. Grabbing listeners right out of the gate, we get one of the greatest rock album openers of all-time with “Violet”. The almost candied major chord riff and dream-sequence vocals is love at first listen before it explodes into Love’s signature feral scream, turning beauty into pure, cathartic rage. In juicy alt-rock lore, the song’s long been tied to her ex Billy Corgan with her famously introducing it on MTV as “a song about a jerk—I hexed him, and now he’s losing his hair.” But she’s since clarified it’s not just about him and it draws from a specific memory of sitting on his Chicago fire escape, sipping cheap wine on Vicodin while watching a bejeweled sunset sky.

The album is a tapestry of emotion with layered moods and melodies reminiscent of Echo & the Bunnymen, whose brooding English atmospheres haunt “I Think That I Would Die.” There’s the power-pop crunch of The Raspberries echoed in “Jennifer’s Body,” where the melody bites as it seduces. “Gutless” delivers raw punk fury, while “Credit in the Straight World” channels X’s punk-meets-rockabilly swagger, turning the original Young Marble Giants’ spare minimalism into an arena-rock anthem. And then there’s my personal favorite: “Miss World,” which is total ’90s college-rock radio with its major chord progression, memorable lyrics and seriously cool video of vintage dresses, bassists with bangs, ironic school dances, and prom queens.

Lyrically, Love emerges as the acid-tongued heir to Joni Mitchell and Stevie Nicks—confessional yet cutting, poetic without apology, haunting without too much stargazing. While her steady diet of Joy Division’s desolation and Bauhaus’s gothic drama crept into the production choices of heavy reverb and dark themes, revealing what soundtracked her ’80s years. These weren’t just winks to her idols but the scaffolding beneath her rage and vulnerability; her sonic DNA mapped out to claim her own voice.

All these sounds and references, though, aren’t just rock snob drivel but a lifeline in how I made sense of being 13. Live Through This acted as a northern star for my girlfriends and I, guiding us through it all—a coming-of-age record that gave us permission to be just a little weird, a little curious, wondering what else was out there. We didn’t hate everyone in high school. But we didn’t like them either. And we found humor in the things that occupied them like tiny Kate Spade bags, Tiffany necklaces, immature boys seeking hand jobs. In a way, though, we felt sorry for all of them for not feeling Live Through This the way we did, or an interest in the daisy chain of records that would follow. We’d soon shoot ourselves down the rabbit’s hole of lesser-known bands, experimenting with genres and identities with Live Through This as our launching pad.

While we couldn’t fully grasp Courtney’s experiences portrayed in the lyrics, it was its honesty that spoke to us, voicing truths we hadn’t yet lived but somehow recognized as real. It also made Valentine’s Day a little less awkward knowing we were now in on the joke with Live Through This cutting through the saccharine noise. We didn’t need boys; we had this record to remind us that real connection was raw, messy, survived, and among trusted friends.

So, for those of you who feel like Valentine’s feels hollow, put this record on as a love letter for those who ache like we ache.

Happy Valentine’s Day from my inner teen to yours.

Oh, and speaking of Hole references (“Wilted and faded, Somewhere in Hollywood”), I’m celebrating the one-year anniversary of my novel Somewhere in Hollywood, my punk rock valentine to music, teenage-into-adulthood crushes, Los Angeles as I once knew it, and the friendships that save your soul.

Somewhere in Hollywood is a coming-of-age novel that gives Normal People a queer twist with Wayfarers. Nailing the early-2000s pop culture buzz, it pulses with the sting of unrequited love, and the fight to find yourself when everything stops making sense.

Available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and beyond….!