Release
Pretty on the Inside was released on August 23, 1991 in the United States on Caroline Records and on City Slang in Europe. The album's lead single, "Teenage Whore", was released several weeks prior for promotion. "Teenage Whore" entered the UK Indie Chart's Top 10 at number one in September 1991, beating out "Heaven Sent An Angel" by Revolver, "Let It Slide" by Mudhoney, and "Love to Hate You" by Erasure, among others. On The Chart Show on Channel 4, the song's title was censored with ellipsis in place of the word "whore".
The single's success in the United Kingdom led the band to perform a twelve-date tour of the country in August and September 1991 with Mudhoney supporting. The subsequent success of both the album, single, and tour saw Hole embark on a further three tours of the United States, Germany and Western Europe in the latter half of 1991, playing again with Mudhoney, as well as alternative rock acts Daisy Chainsaw and Therapy?. In spite of the album's popularity in the United Kingdom, it failed to chart in the United States despite extensive touring, though it was known to be outselling Nirvana's output before the band's release of Nevermind the following week.
The band played their final show of the tour in San Francisco opening for The Smashing Pumpkins, which ended with Love infamously smashing her guitar headstock onstage at the end of their set after the audience failed to respond well.
Los Angeles Times journalist David Cromelin noted in his review of the concert:
Smashing Pumpkins' singer-guitarist Billy Corgan referred to himself as "a frustrated Midwestern youth" at the Whisky on Tuesday Smashing Pumpkins was preceded by smashing guitars, courtesy of Hole. The tortured, transfixing L.A. group's pairing with the headliners should have made this a bill to remember, but the audience was primed for Pumpkin and didn't take to Courtney Love's powerful howls of anguish. Hole ended its set in a tantrum, as Love ordered the band to halt and hurled her guitar to the ground. Guitarist Eric Erlandson finished things off by demolishing his instrument with a few impressive swings. Frustrated Midwestern youth, meet frustrated California youth.
After the tour concluded, a music video for the track "Garbadge Man" was released, though the album's only single, "Teenage Whore", did not receive a music video. The video is fairly abstract and a reflection of Hole's no wave influence at the time, with shots of Love and other band members in a car interspersed with shots of them performing outside the window. It was shown on MTV's 120 Minutes in 1992 during an interview with Love and Kim Gordon, and was broadcast again on the show in 1994 and 1995 but was never as popular as the band's later videos. For the music video, an alternate mix of the song by Gordon was used to eliminate profanity.
The album was released on CD and cassette in the United States, but received a release on vinyl LP throughout Europe by City Slang, based in Berlin, Germany. The first 3,000 pressings of the LP featured blue vinyl, while the following pressings were in standard black. In June 2011, Plain Recordings, an independent American record label specializing in cult album re-issues, announced that a 180 gram vinyl re-release of Pretty on the Inside was being introduced to their catalogue; it was released on August 2, 2011.
Read more about this topic: Pretty On The Inside
Famous quotes containing the word release:
“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)
“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)
“As nature requires whirlwinds and cyclones to release its excessive force in a violent revolt against its own existence, so the spirit requires a demonic human being from time to time whose excessive strength rebels against the community of thought and the monotony of morality ... only by looking at those beyond its limits does humanity come to know its own utmost limits.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)