Regardless of how advanced technology, and as a result production, gets as we enter the next century, music, and in particular rock, is at its best when it is primal. From Elvis to Bob Marley, the most forceful music is born of an almost desperate human anguish. Hole's Live Through This almost frighteningly captures that pain, astonishing listenerswith its immediacy and savagery. Love her or hate her, Courtney Love established herself as one of the most dynamic presences in music with her gut-wrenching vocals throughout Live Through This' 12 tracks. While almost every post-1980 punk vocalist has carried the spirit of Patti Smith in his or her vocals, Love came closer than anyone before or since to matching the ferocity of her screams of anguish and unapologetic rage. "Violet," "Asking for It," "Gutless," and even the slower tempo of "DollParts" find Love's unbridled cries come crashing down on the heads of the listeners like a barrage of rights from Muhammad Ali. In the 1994 lineup -- which consisted of guitarist Eric Erlandson, drummer Patty Schemel,and bassist Kristen Pfaff -- Love found the perfect band, particularly Erlandson, to complement her emotional style. On the record's finest tracks, the music carries a dramatic urgency that serves to underscore the desperation of Love's vocals. Released shortly after the suicide of KurtCobain, an event that sent music fans into a tailspin of emotional wallowing from which they still may have not recovered, Live Through This, along with Nine Inch Nails' Downward Spiral, is the definitive summation of mid-'90s anger. When Love growls, "I don't miss God/But I sure miss Santa Claus," in "Gutless," there wasn't a teenager or twenty-somethingthat didn't yell right back, "Fuck yeah."