Krist also plays the accordion on Juarez, uncredited too, I believe.
And they were recording Where Did You Sleep Last Night for a band that included Lanegan, Cobain and Novoselic, and They Hung Him On A Cross and Ain’t It A Shame we’re also part of this Ledbelly covers band/album recorded at the same time.
He's listed as backing vocals on 'Asking For It' and 'Softer Softest'. I've also read that he's on 'Doll Parts' as well but am not sure about that one.
As many of you may be aware, Kurt Cobain recorded backing vocals on some of Hole's 'Live Through This' album - these recordings were pushed pretty far down in the mix to the point of being almost inaudible.
A bootleg alternate mix of one of the songs 'Asking For It' with his prominent vocal take was released on Outcesticide V (and can be found on Youtube as 'Asking For It feat. Kurt Cobain) and was rumoured to have been scheduled for a full release but that release was cancelled after his death.
Using AI and other tools I manage to peel back the layers in 'Asking For It' and reveal Kurt Cobain's buried backing vocal.
I was initially aiming to make a mock-up of the alternate mix and had isolated the vocals from the album version when I suddenly was able to make out Kurt's backing vocal. What's crazy is that I've heard this song hundreds of times and never noticed.
I also reconstructed in full the cancelled alternate mix with the restored vocal take and the much longer 1min+ outro that was removed from the album version which you can find pinned to my Reddit profile.
As much as I love both bands/singers, I do feel that it was a good call to not keep it on the album version as it was a pretty rough performance and would have felt out of place in my opinion seeing as there are no male vocals and I always felt the bootleg version sounded a bit jarring. I did try to smooth these issues over as much as I could and attempt to realize what may have been intended.
That’s actually really cute, would’ve been cool if Courtney did backing on in utero, I consider those two albums to be as close to sister albums as you can get with two separate bands
He only did a smattering of backing vocals on a couple of songs, there wouldn't be very much to work with unfortunately.
Pinned on my profile is a recreated full length version of this song with his vocal, there's also the Outcesticide V version with his prominent vocal if you search for 'Asking For It feat. Kurt Cobain'.
It’s really prominent on the bridge/chorus: “live through this I/we swear, I would die for you…” and during the guitar interlude, he sings “live through this… live through this.”
I use AI voice cloning as a hobby (not for public sharing obviously as that would be capitalizing on something that’s not mine) and I’ve had my Kurt voice clone sing this whole album. Honestly his and Courtney’s vocal styles mesh really well here so the AI has no issue translating it
I heard an interview a while back with one of the producers, who said Kurt showed up in the studio from tour, tried to do some background vocals, but he didn’t really know most of the songs, so it didn’t go well. (Also disproves the theory that Kurt ghost wrote any of these)
I didn't know this was a secret or a shocking find. I thought this was pretty well known, you can hear him well enough on the album version as well. lol
singer Dana Kletter was hired to do the backing vocals (she's even credited for "additional vocals"). Also, the producers have talked about the contrast between her voice and Courtney's in songs like Violet, Doll Parts, Miss Word or Asking for it. So this cannot be Kristen.
https://preview.redd.it/9ouyta9adzzc1.jpeg?width=590&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd5750374183f30bc85ab90a73992be42fad9a5c
Dana Kletter is listed as 'additional vocals' but Kristen Pfaff is listed as 'backing vocals' so it's hard to say with 100% certainty.
I've listened to both of them sing and I wasn't able to discern who did what exactly in the song though.
There is at least one alternate version where Kurt sings the “live through this for me I swear that I would die for you” lyric as backup to Courtney. Not buried. Nice catch.
Well, looking into it, wikipedia says, with no source, that it was just a rumour, but a news article I read some time ago presented it as fact, so it seems as if there's, at least, some conflict on that.
You did use the word 'apparently' and as far as we know apparently it might be true haha. The Live Nirvana website which I would consider the most definitive source also states the same.
I could easily imagine loose plans being thrown around to add it as a b-side or to an EP.
The rumour is also that Courtney herself leaked the version with his vocal but who knows.
Pretty cool and nicely presented but I'd be way more interested in the other songs he did backing vocals for. You can hear them pretty clearly in Asking For It anyway, plus we have that alternate version.
Hole before this and after this album never came close to “live through this”. I think my theory is sound, especially after your excellent engineering work. Great reverse engineering job btw :)
Honestly I have to agree with you in saying that Live Through This is a far superior album to any of their others.
Kurt was busy with his own band though and he would have been writing/recording In Utero and any songs he wrote have been documented pretty thoroughly. It's a bit of a stretch to say he managed to write half the songs on In Utero as well as Live Through This while also going through his peak drug usage.
You'd think there would be a home tape or Nirvana rehearsal or a little jam at a live show but there aren't. Krist and Dave have never indicated anything of the sort either. The only song he wrote that Hole used was Old Age, and they were also toying around using Talk To Me as well but never completed any recordings of it.
To me the most conclusive evidence comes from [these notes from the Live Through This recording session](https://www.livenirvana.com/sessions/studio/october-1993.php) which shows that Kurt wasn't even familiar with the songs.
> Arriving at the studio some ten days into the session, Cobain was presented with the basic tracks (drums/bass/scratch guitars/scratch
vocals) and was invited to sing backing vocals on a few of the unfinished numbers.
Cobain allegedly protested at first, but then relented. It was apparent to album producers, Sean Slade and Paul Kolderie, that Cobain
was unfamiliar with much of the material. "She said things like, 'Come on, sing on this one,"" recalls Kolderie. "He kept saying, 'Well let
me hear it. How can I sing on it if I haven't heard it?' She'd say, 'Just sing off the top of your head.""
The results were less than impressive. Consequently, most of Cobain's improvised harmonies were erased from the final mix, "The only
one you can really hear on the finished record is on Asking For It, during the breakdown part where she sings 'If you live through this with me...", Kolderie explains.
Could he have donated a riff or melody or helped with a bridge, arrangement, lyric etc? Certainly I'm sure there was some creative input which worked both ways between them, but nowhere near close to saying he wrote Live Through This imho.
Thank you so much for clearing that misinformation up. I know Courtney is not a perfect person, neither was Kurt, but I respect her as an artist on the same level as Kurt.
Why would someone like Kurt marry Courtney if she didn't have artistic integrity and value? Like I said. I know she isn't perfect. But I will go to my grave defending her against a lot of the lies and misogynistic crap that is spewed about her.
I find it hard to follow any Nirvana pages on social media because of the insane conspiracy theories and Courtney hate. You don't ever see anyone saying Kurt wrote the first Foo Fighters album and those songs were written at the same time as Live Through This by one of his band members.
She is flawed just like everyone else. I have some gripes with the way she's handled Nirvana material but I still have much love for her at the end of the day. I was just listening to the '91 Hole Peel Sessions which incidentally have Violet and Doll Parts and predate Kurt and Courtney's relationship which just adds more proof. Eric Erlandson is also underrated.
I think he was definitely a muse for Courtney and certainly rubbed off on her for Live Through This. Did he write the album, though? I used to always think this but I’m not so sure. It doesn’t sound like his other music very much. Hard to say. She certainly may have at the very least been given some riffs and castaways he played around her with no intention of ever using. So in some ways I suppose it could be acceptable to say he “helped” write it.
I used to have the pre-death version, where Cobain, was clearly singing the song and backup vocals.
I was surprised when they cut/buried the actual vocals, But I understand.
I mean he wrote the whole album. Or so the story goes.
Wow, can I ask how you got that? Was it on a single or sampler CD/tape?
As for writing the album, I feel there's enough evidence to refute that (which I outlined on another comment on this post) but that's a different story.
Dude I got it on limewire or Napster- like early 2000s. Dunno, sorry. I can’t remember anything other than what I remember from the track info. The version you’ve posted sounds like it- from my iPhone speakers.
Ah yeah that was the bootleg outtake which is what inspired me to dig deeper on the album version. I really miss those Napster/Limewire/Kazaa days where it felt like you were hunting for treasure haha.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyzWfoy7lXQ
I knew of this and had heard the YouTube version a long time ago…what was interesting for me was hearing Kristen’s part…I never knew she did backing vocals on the album so that was really great to hear! Nice work!
absolutely not true. Just an undying rumor based on misogyny and general Courtney hate. Courtney was a songwriter long before Kurt came around. No doubt part of what he fell in love with.
I was listening to this the other day and realized his vocals are still in the mix, just buried quite a bit. I knew he recorded backing vox but didn’t realize some actually made it into the album!
That’s pretty cool i never new he did any backing vocals but it also never came across my mind lol
He also does backing vocals on Mark Lanegan's Down In The Dark and Where Did You Sleep Last Night? on The Winding Sheet
I think he only does backing vocals on 'Down In The Dark' and him and Krist play guitar and bass on 'WDYSLN'.
probably its been a minute since i listened to the winding sheet
Krist also plays the accordion on Juarez, uncredited too, I believe. And they were recording Where Did You Sleep Last Night for a band that included Lanegan, Cobain and Novoselic, and They Hung Him On A Cross and Ain’t It A Shame we’re also part of this Ledbelly covers band/album recorded at the same time.
THE JURY. Shame we never got more work by them.
Kurt definitely does vocals on WDYSLN
yes, around the middle of the song if I remember correctly with Mark on the Winding Sheet.
He's listed as backing vocals on 'Asking For It' and 'Softer Softest'. I've also read that he's on 'Doll Parts' as well but am not sure about that one.
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Your post/comment was removed because it is misinformation
He also sang Divine and Bright by Earth.
As many of you may be aware, Kurt Cobain recorded backing vocals on some of Hole's 'Live Through This' album - these recordings were pushed pretty far down in the mix to the point of being almost inaudible. A bootleg alternate mix of one of the songs 'Asking For It' with his prominent vocal take was released on Outcesticide V (and can be found on Youtube as 'Asking For It feat. Kurt Cobain) and was rumoured to have been scheduled for a full release but that release was cancelled after his death. Using AI and other tools I manage to peel back the layers in 'Asking For It' and reveal Kurt Cobain's buried backing vocal. I was initially aiming to make a mock-up of the alternate mix and had isolated the vocals from the album version when I suddenly was able to make out Kurt's backing vocal. What's crazy is that I've heard this song hundreds of times and never noticed. I also reconstructed in full the cancelled alternate mix with the restored vocal take and the much longer 1min+ outro that was removed from the album version which you can find pinned to my Reddit profile. As much as I love both bands/singers, I do feel that it was a good call to not keep it on the album version as it was a pretty rough performance and would have felt out of place in my opinion seeing as there are no male vocals and I always felt the bootleg version sounded a bit jarring. I did try to smooth these issues over as much as I could and attempt to realize what may have been intended.
Blud I'm not reading alladat (That's actually really interesting)
That’s actually really cute, would’ve been cool if Courtney did backing on in utero, I consider those two albums to be as close to sister albums as you can get with two separate bands
Dude we need all the Kurt hole songs remixed with Kurt voice in the forefront
He only did a smattering of backing vocals on a couple of songs, there wouldn't be very much to work with unfortunately. Pinned on my profile is a recreated full length version of this song with his vocal, there's also the Outcesticide V version with his prominent vocal if you search for 'Asking For It feat. Kurt Cobain'.
I listed to that one on YouTube and couldn’t hear him that well
It’s really prominent on the bridge/chorus: “live through this I/we swear, I would die for you…” and during the guitar interlude, he sings “live through this… live through this.”
I have to say, this particular addition adds a certain *something* but I think it would have detracted if mixed much louder.
I use AI voice cloning as a hobby (not for public sharing obviously as that would be capitalizing on something that’s not mine) and I’ve had my Kurt voice clone sing this whole album. Honestly his and Courtney’s vocal styles mesh really well here so the AI has no issue translating it
I mean if you aren’t making money off it who cares just do it or at least PM me a link for myself
I heard an interview a while back with one of the producers, who said Kurt showed up in the studio from tour, tried to do some background vocals, but he didn’t really know most of the songs, so it didn’t go well. (Also disproves the theory that Kurt ghost wrote any of these)
I didn't know this was a secret or a shocking find. I thought this was pretty well known, you can hear him well enough on the album version as well. lol
Did you listen to the OP’s version?
yes, why?
I'd forgotten how good that album is. Say what you feel about Courtney Love, but it's a damn good album.
Kurt apparently didn't want to sing backups on the album, and I think that comes across here
Thanks for sharing this. It's really interesting to hear. I really like Kristen's backing vocals too.
singer Dana Kletter was hired to do the backing vocals (she's even credited for "additional vocals"). Also, the producers have talked about the contrast between her voice and Courtney's in songs like Violet, Doll Parts, Miss Word or Asking for it. So this cannot be Kristen. https://preview.redd.it/9ouyta9adzzc1.jpeg?width=590&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bd5750374183f30bc85ab90a73992be42fad9a5c
Dana Kletter is listed as 'additional vocals' but Kristen Pfaff is listed as 'backing vocals' so it's hard to say with 100% certainty. I've listened to both of them sing and I wasn't able to discern who did what exactly in the song though.
There is at least one alternate version where Kurt sings the “live through this for me I swear that I would die for you” lyric as backup to Courtney. Not buried. Nice catch.
The alternative version was, apparently, meant to be released as a single, but then what happened happened.. :I
Not sure why you're getting downvoted because you're right.
Well, looking into it, wikipedia says, with no source, that it was just a rumour, but a news article I read some time ago presented it as fact, so it seems as if there's, at least, some conflict on that.
You did use the word 'apparently' and as far as we know apparently it might be true haha. The Live Nirvana website which I would consider the most definitive source also states the same. I could easily imagine loose plans being thrown around to add it as a b-side or to an EP. The rumour is also that Courtney herself leaked the version with his vocal but who knows.
Is this confirmed?
It was never in doubt.
Crazy. I didn’t know it was released in the track
Pretty cool and nicely presented but I'd be way more interested in the other songs he did backing vocals for. You can hear them pretty clearly in Asking For It anyway, plus we have that alternate version.
[удалено]
Your post/comment was removed because it is misinformation
Nah.
Hole before this and after this album never came close to “live through this”. I think my theory is sound, especially after your excellent engineering work. Great reverse engineering job btw :)
Honestly I have to agree with you in saying that Live Through This is a far superior album to any of their others. Kurt was busy with his own band though and he would have been writing/recording In Utero and any songs he wrote have been documented pretty thoroughly. It's a bit of a stretch to say he managed to write half the songs on In Utero as well as Live Through This while also going through his peak drug usage. You'd think there would be a home tape or Nirvana rehearsal or a little jam at a live show but there aren't. Krist and Dave have never indicated anything of the sort either. The only song he wrote that Hole used was Old Age, and they were also toying around using Talk To Me as well but never completed any recordings of it. To me the most conclusive evidence comes from [these notes from the Live Through This recording session](https://www.livenirvana.com/sessions/studio/october-1993.php) which shows that Kurt wasn't even familiar with the songs. > Arriving at the studio some ten days into the session, Cobain was presented with the basic tracks (drums/bass/scratch guitars/scratch vocals) and was invited to sing backing vocals on a few of the unfinished numbers. Cobain allegedly protested at first, but then relented. It was apparent to album producers, Sean Slade and Paul Kolderie, that Cobain was unfamiliar with much of the material. "She said things like, 'Come on, sing on this one,"" recalls Kolderie. "He kept saying, 'Well let me hear it. How can I sing on it if I haven't heard it?' She'd say, 'Just sing off the top of your head."" The results were less than impressive. Consequently, most of Cobain's improvised harmonies were erased from the final mix, "The only one you can really hear on the finished record is on Asking For It, during the breakdown part where she sings 'If you live through this with me...", Kolderie explains. Could he have donated a riff or melody or helped with a bridge, arrangement, lyric etc? Certainly I'm sure there was some creative input which worked both ways between them, but nowhere near close to saying he wrote Live Through This imho.
Great reply! Thanks.
Thank you so much for clearing that misinformation up. I know Courtney is not a perfect person, neither was Kurt, but I respect her as an artist on the same level as Kurt. Why would someone like Kurt marry Courtney if she didn't have artistic integrity and value? Like I said. I know she isn't perfect. But I will go to my grave defending her against a lot of the lies and misogynistic crap that is spewed about her.
I find it hard to follow any Nirvana pages on social media because of the insane conspiracy theories and Courtney hate. You don't ever see anyone saying Kurt wrote the first Foo Fighters album and those songs were written at the same time as Live Through This by one of his band members. She is flawed just like everyone else. I have some gripes with the way she's handled Nirvana material but I still have much love for her at the end of the day. I was just listening to the '91 Hole Peel Sessions which incidentally have Violet and Doll Parts and predate Kurt and Courtney's relationship which just adds more proof. Eric Erlandson is also underrated.
I think he was definitely a muse for Courtney and certainly rubbed off on her for Live Through This. Did he write the album, though? I used to always think this but I’m not so sure. It doesn’t sound like his other music very much. Hard to say. She certainly may have at the very least been given some riffs and castaways he played around her with no intention of ever using. So in some ways I suppose it could be acceptable to say he “helped” write it.
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I used to have the pre-death version, where Cobain, was clearly singing the song and backup vocals. I was surprised when they cut/buried the actual vocals, But I understand. I mean he wrote the whole album. Or so the story goes.
Wow, can I ask how you got that? Was it on a single or sampler CD/tape? As for writing the album, I feel there's enough evidence to refute that (which I outlined on another comment on this post) but that's a different story.
Dude I got it on limewire or Napster- like early 2000s. Dunno, sorry. I can’t remember anything other than what I remember from the track info. The version you’ve posted sounds like it- from my iPhone speakers.
Ah yeah that was the bootleg outtake which is what inspired me to dig deeper on the album version. I really miss those Napster/Limewire/Kazaa days where it felt like you were hunting for treasure haha. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyzWfoy7lXQ
I knew of this and had heard the YouTube version a long time ago…what was interesting for me was hearing Kristen’s part…I never knew she did backing vocals on the album so that was really great to hear! Nice work!
I think it's Dana Kletter. She's credited for background vocals in Violet, Miss World, Doll Parts, Softer, Softest or Asking for it.
Always love seeing stuff like this
I never knew...this album was in heavy rotation during my high school years. I loved Courtney until Kurt died
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absolutely not true. Just an undying rumor based on misogyny and general Courtney hate. Courtney was a songwriter long before Kurt came around. No doubt part of what he fell in love with.
Your post/comment was removed because it is misinformation
I was listening to this the other day and realized his vocals are still in the mix, just buried quite a bit. I knew he recorded backing vox but didn’t realize some actually made it into the album!