HOLE
The 20 Best Riot Grrrl Songs
“Even though I did punch her, I thought she was a genius,” Courtney Love said of Kathleen Hanna in 2002, while attempting to explain riot grrrl to The Strokes live on MTV. Twenty years later, and about 30 since the movement’s inception, trying to define it still feels fraught. Riot grrrl was always a nebulous concept, a label intended to be adopted and personalized by young feminist punks globally. But by the early aughts, once the revolution had become FUBAR from in-fighting, unwanted media attention, and accusations of racist and transphobic exclusion, it already felt like a dream of the past. In that sense, riot grrrl was a specific movement born out of a specific moment in time, and a handful of specific places (usually Washington, state and D.C.). It is not a catch-all label for ...
The 90 Greatest Albums of the ’90s
This article originally appeared in the September 1999 issue of SPIN. “You must be high.” We heard that a lot during the time we spent preparing this issue. Which is understandable. Pronouncing the 90 greatest albums of the ’90s is a somewhat presumptuous thing to do. When you’re measuring the music this decade is offering to history—the sounds we partied with, copulated to, fought about, and wept over—everyone has an opinion. That ours should be more valid than yours is debatable. But hey—it’s our magazine. What, then, you ask, constitutes “greatest”? Don’t even start. Suffice it to say that, after much heated discussion and countless veiled insults, it came down to the factors of both remarkable artistry and cultural shock value. Sometimes a record’s knock-you-off-your-Skechers impa...
30 Overlooked 1991 Albums Turning 30 This Year
1991 was a transformative year for rock music, a time when alternative rock and heavy metal entered a new era of commercial dominance. Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden ushered in the explosion of Seattle grunge alongside blockbuster albums by Metallica, R.E.M. and Red Hot Chili Peppers, to say nothing of influential indie classics by My Bloody Valentine, Primal Scream and Slint, or SPIN’s album of the year, Teenage Fanclub’s Bandwagonesque. But while 1991’s hits set the agenda for alternative rock for the rest of the decade, the year was brimming over with fascinating career footnotes and debuts from other promising new bands. In England, the music press was excitedly hyping up genres like shoegaze, baggy, and whatever “grebo” was, while American indie bands like fIREHOSE, the Meat Puppe...
Courtney Love Says Olivia Rodrigo Ripped Off Live Through This Album Cover
Yet another controversy has roped in Courtney Love but this time in a small online skirmish over artistic thievery aimed at a photo for ascending pop singer Olivia Rodrigo’s recent livestream of her debut album, Sour. Love accused Rodrigo of ripping off Hole’s 1994 Live Through This album art, without permission or notice, to add insult to injury. At first, it wasn’t that way. On Thursday, Love posted the Rodrigo photo resembling the Hole album on Instagram with a playful jab of a caption: “Spot the difference! #twinning! @oliviarodrigo 😉👸👸” Commenting on it shortly after Love’s post, Rodrigo cleverly responded with “love u and live through this sooooo much,” pretty much conceding to either finding inspiration in it or straight stealing it outright. It’s u...
Man arrested for ‘beheading’ woman in Calabar
A young man identified as Christian Edem Eyo in Mbukpa, Calabar South, is reported to have beheaded one of his aunts, identified as Mrs Uduak. Checks indicated that the incident occurred in the early hours of Wednesday when the deceased, who was a neighbour to Christain, left her apartment to take her bath outside. Apparently not aware that she was being watched, as she approached the make-shift bathroom outside, Christain accosted her and hacked her down with a big stick and later cut off her head. According to other neighbours, the incident happened at about 5:00 am when Mrs Uduak left her apartment. A witness identified as Grace, who is a worshipper at an adjoining church which was having an all-night prayer service, said that she observed the young man burying a headless body. Grace sa...
Hole Reunion? Courtney Love Says ‘Absolutely Not’
Courtney Love seems to have put the definitive kibosh on a Hole reunion, telling Vogue, there is “absolutely not” going be a reunion. “And you guys have gotta get over it. Our old manager Peter Mensch calls once a year to ask about a reunion: ‘Hey, just doing my thing I do every year with you and Jimmy Page [of Led Zeppelin].’ I’m so honored to be in that company, but it’s just not gonna happen,” Love said. So if you were hoping for any kind of tour, reunion or whatever, well, there’s your answer. In more positive news, Love shared a new song today, a cover of “California Stars,” a tune written by Woody Guthrie and recorded by Billy Bragg and Jeff Tweedy. During the pandemic, Love has been living in a London hotel and taking guitar lessons with British musician Juliette Jackson&n...
Courtney Love Says She Stopped Acting Due to #MeToo Incidents
Hole frontwoman Courtney Love recently revealed that she’d stopped acting — something she said she loved doing — because of “a bunch of #MeToo” incidents. While she had memorable moments in 1986’s Sid & Nancy, Love’s first major role was in 1996’s The People vs. Larry Flynt, which earned her a Best Actress Golden Globe nomination for playing Althea Leasure Flynt. Subsequently, Love appeared in films including in 200 Cigarettes, Julie Johnson, Man on the Moon and Trapped. But she stepped away from the screen for a time, as she detailed in an Instagram post. Love writes, “For a few years, because of Milos Forman, I was a professional actress and a movie star. It was fun as hell. I was nominated for best actress, for a Golden Globe. One day I might talk about i...
Kieran Tierney hopeful victory over Chelsea a turning point for Arsenal
Kieran Tierney is hopeful Arsenal’s 3-1 win over Chelsea can be a springboard to climbing the table. The Gunners came into the game on the back of a winless run in the league dating back to the start of November. Coach Mikel Arteta was forced into a reshuffle due to illness and a coronavirus scare , and the changes paid off for the Spanish coach as his side looked far more hungry than Chelsea. Alexandre Lacazette’s penalty following a foul by Reece James on Tierney set them on their way on 34 minutes. A brilliant free kick from Granit Xhaka on the stroke of half-time doubled the advantage, and Bukayo Saka’s cross-cum-shot over Edouard Mendy secured the three points despite Tammy Abraham netting a late goal for Chelsea. The win does little for Arsenal’s position in the table, as they only m...
Bisi Fayemi urges Nigerians to stop seeking medical care abroad, come to ABUTH
The First Lady of Ekiti State, Erelu Bisi Fayemi, has called on rich Nigerians to stop seeking medical treatments abroad, saying the multi-system nature of Afe Babalola University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH) can rival any hospital in the world. Fayemi added that ABUTH is well equipped with personnel and instruments with indisputable capacity to offer quality healthcare delivery that any hospital in India, United States of America, Britain and other advanced nations could offer. The state first lady stated this at her office in Ado Ekiti yesterday, while playing host to the family of Miss Precious Sodeinde, who suffered brain tumour, and was taken to the hospital by her for treatment. The operation done on Precious, who had gone partially blind before the issue was reported to the first lady,...
Watch Miley Cyrus Cover Hole’s ‘Doll Parts’
In case you didn’t know, Miley Cyrus really embraced rock this year. First, it was at a Doors tribute show in February, and since then she’s teamed with Stevie Nicks for a remix of “Midnight Sky” that incorporated “Edge of Seventeen” along with dropping a slew of classic rock covers including Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” Pearl Jam’s “Just Breathe” and Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here.” And of course, her new album, Plastic Hearts. On the Howard Stern Show, Cyrus continued to go after classic alt-rock fans by performing a stirring cover of Hole’s “Doll Parts,” the first time she performed a song that Stern called one of his favorites. “There’s nothing like covering Hole at 6 am in a Plasmatics sleepy tee cause I got to the fucking studio and realized my dress I brought wa...
Stock market volatility hits Norway’s sovereign wealth fund
Norway’s Central Bank on Tuesday said its pension fund lost 188 billion kroner ( 21 billion dollars equivalent) in the first half of 2020 amid stock market volatility during the coronavirus pandemic. The bank said the return on the sovereign wealth fund fell by 3.4 per cent during the January-to-June period. The Deputy Chief Executive of Norges Bank Investment Management, Trond Grande, said there were major fluctuations in the equity market. “The year started with optimism, but the outlook of the equity market quickly turned when the coronavirus started to spread globally. “The sharp decline in global stock markets during the first quarter is, however, limited by a massive monetary and financial policy response. “Even though markets recovered well in the second quarter, we are still witnes...
