Hollywood superstar Adam Sandler has revealed the dark '90s rock album that he can't get enough of.
During a recent interview with NME, conducted alongside George Clooney, his co-star in new film Jay Kelly, Sandler was asked to nominate an album that he keeps going back to time and time again.
"No problem," the 59-year-old New Yorker responds immediately. "Hole, Live Through This.”
Released on April 12, 1994, just days after band leader Courtney Love's husband, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, died by suicide, Hole’s second album was always going to be a harrowing listen. But as Louder's Alice Clark notes, Live Through This "stands as a great piece of art, full of fire and fury and explosive face-offs with misogyny."
"Love's lyrics are unapologetic in their honesty," Clark explains, "exploring notions of gender exploitation, body fascism and motherhood, through the lens of postnatal depression and personal trauma... One of the most essential albums to emerge from the '90s alt. rock scene, it's the sound of the glass ceiling breaking, the sound of an often cruelly vilified musician serving notice that she will not be silenced."
Speaking with NME.com, Sandler recalls the first time he heard the record.
"I remember I was on tour," he says. "I was doing standup and that album just came out, and I was in my car a lot. I listened to the track one [Violet] and I was like, Ooh, that was nasty. Track two [Miss World], I was like, Two for two. And then I just said, I guess this whole album is going to be great."
Hole's major label debut, Live Through This peaked at number 52 on the US Billboard chart, and at number 13 in the UK. But its impact and influence cannot be measured simply by sales figures or chart statistics as it is cited as an inspiration by scores of musicians.
In conversation with NME's entertainment editor Alex Flood, Sandler also reveals that he saw an "incredible" Hole show in Missouri in the mid '90s. [Based on Hole's Live Through This touring schedule, the gig in question may well have been the LA band's September 2, 1994 show at the Pine Knob Music Theater in Clarkston, Missouri.]
"I had a stand-up gig and and a friend of mine said, ‘You should come over to such and such theater, Hole’s on'," Sandler recalls. "I was like, Hole is here? Let’s go.’ And I went over there and Drew Barrymore [who later starred alongside Sandler in 1998's The Wedding Singer] was going out with the guitar player [Eric Erlandson] at the time. I remember I was just sitting way in the back, the show was incredible, and... they introduced Drew and she came out. I was like, I know that girl, and it was a cool night.”
Earlier this year, Love shut down rumours of a Hole reunion. The world is still awaiting her much-anticipated memoir The Girl With The Most Cake, which was originally scheduled for release this year via HarperCollins.
