Release
When released on April 12, 1994, Live Through This debuted on the charts at number 52, never hitting the Top 40 in the U.S. In December 1994, the record went Gold, having sold a total of 500,000 copies, going platinum six months later for having sold one million copies. To date, the album has sold more than 1.6 million copies in the United States and has well over 2 million worldwide. It has also achieved platinum status in Canada and Australia.
The album received unanimous critical acclaim, and was regarded as Hole's greatest album, as well as one of the greatest rock albums of the 1990s. Critics praised it for combining the raw energy of the band's previous album, Pretty on the Inside, with a pop rock sound that would later characterize the band's next album, Celebrity Skin.
The album is dedicated to the memory of Joe Cole, a roadie for Black Flag and the Rollins Band who was shot to death in a 1991 after attending a Hole show at the Whisky A Go Go in West Hollywood. According to BMI's website, most of the songs credited officially to Hole were written just by Courtney Love and Eric Erlandson. "Doll Parts" was officially written only by Love and "I Think That I Would Die" was written by Erlandson, Love and Kat Bjelland. "Credit in the Straight World" is a Young Marble Giants cover.
Bassist Kristen Pfaff had decided to take a break from the band at the time of Cobain's death in April, 1994. In June 1994, she was found dead by boyfriend and bandmate Eric Erlandson from an apparent heroin overdose. Two months after Kristen's death, Hole began an extensive tour, with Melissa Auf der Maur replacing her on bass.
Four singles were released from the album and three promotional videos were shot, for "Miss World" (still with Kristen Pfaff), "Doll Parts" (with L7's bassist Jennifer Finch replacing her) and "Violet" (already with Melissa Auf der Maur). "Softer, Softest" was also released as a single, and Hole's performance of this song at their MTV Unplugged session was used as a promotional video.
Read more about this topic: Live Through This
Famous quotes containing the word release:
“The steel decks rock with the lightning shock, and shake with the
great recoil,
And the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and reaches for his spoil—
But not till the foe has gone below or turns his prow and runs,
Shall the voice of peace bring sweet release to the men behind the
guns!”
—John Jerome Rooney (1866–1934)
“An inquiry about the attitude towards the release of so-called political prisoners. I should be very sorry to see the United States holding anyone in confinement on account of any opinion that that person might hold. It is a fundamental tenet of our institutions that people have a right to believe what they want to believe and hold such opinions as they want to hold without having to answer to anyone for their private opinion.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)