Hole's sophomore release saw a big change in the bands line-up, and as a result it's sound. The album is somewhat more accessibly then the debut, but the sound has yet to be fully cleaned up.

With Hole’s second release, Live Through This showed that the band was capable of evolving, even within the grunge community. Cleaning up their sound ever so slightly, Hole creates a more accessible piece of grunge influenced music with this record. Songs came off edgy yet somewhat poppy, as is the case with the albums opener, ‘Violet’. The drastic change in the quality and sound of the bands music is most likely due to the fact that Courtney revamped the line-up, replacing all but herself and guitarist Eric Erlandson. ‘Doll Parts’ and ‘Miss World’ also fall into a similar sound-range, making them easy radio favourites in their day. The album's consistency is a little off, with Courtney’s vocals ranging from gorgeous to grisly. At times the recording value appears to be way off, but one can only imagine this was intentional giving the band’s attitude. However the record as a whole makes a definite grab for mainstream status, which the album did help the band achieve. There is also a certain element to Love’s lyrics that caused rumours to start that then husband Kurt Cobain was responsible for the material. Nonetheless the album makes one of the few stages in evolution that Hole was able to achieve in their short career.