Of course, one of the ways to review this would be to compare it to Hole's first LP, "Pretty on the Inside" (1990), but I haven't found a copy of it (at least, not here, but on the Internet of course I have). This way I can see "Live Through This" as an album for itself, forget about past works. One of the strangest things here is though Courtney wrote this album pre-suicide, she ultimately predicted the future with those lines from "Asking For It", "If you live through this with me, I swear that I will die for you".
"Softer, Softest" holds sarcasm against her childhood with "Pee girl gets the belt, it only makes me cry". Courtney was called Pee Girl as a child. She and the band obviously put much-an-effort into this, although the timing for the release was bad, being around 4 days after Kurt's death. Even though this was released in 1994, 2 1/2 years ago, it is still the best album to buy in its genre if you don't already have it.