So for today’s throwback I thought I’d go with a track by one of the nineties’ more reviled artists, shit show nonpareil, Ms. Courtney Love. Let me start off by saying Live Through This, Hole’s 1994 sophomore effort, is one of the better second-wave grunge albums, and those who’d argue otherwise are clearly suffering from feigned snobbery. Tracks like “Doll Parts,” “Miss World,” and “Violet” go stride for stride with the genre’s best—no doubt the reason rumors immediately swirled that the record was largely ghostwritten by Kurt Cobain,* Love’s moribund hubby. Hole’s subsequent albums, released after an extended hiatus and near complete sound overhaul, are far less defensible, but even they feature the odd highlight, in particular the title track off 1998’s Celebrity Skin. Appropriately (given its name) plastic arena pop, “Celebrity Skin” was an obvious cash-in—one of those forgettably catchy singles that alt-radio devours on a bi-weekly basis (see: every post-Pinkerton Weezer release). Still, the song’s stadium riffs and glam punk croon add up to undeniable (if rather short-lived) fun. Anyway, in other news, the kid above is NOT me—I could never get my parents to spring for the wicked laser-effects background on picture day. I did, however, proudly sport a mushroom cut throughout my seventh and eighth years. Seriously, how easy was cutting hair back then? Penny-pinching mothers the world over must have cursed the day the style fell from vogue and owning a bowl and some clippers no longer made you a qualified barber….

*The fact that most of Celebrity Skin was co-written with Billy Corgan only added fuel to the fire.