Slayyyter Covers Hole's 'Violet' for Like A Version as Courtney Love Praises Performance

Slayyyter has stepped directly into one of alternative rock’s defining albums with a new performance of Hole’s “Violet” for Australian radio station triple j’s Like A Version.

The performance premiered on August 21, 2026 and finds the St. Louis-born pop artist fronting a live band for her interpretation of the opening track from Hole’s 1994 album Live Through This.

But Slayyyter’s choice was not a random excursion into ’90s alternative rock.

She revealed that “Violet” was one of the first songs she attempted to teach herself on guitar and said she had always connected with the emotional quality and rawness of the track.

The cover also received approval from the person most closely associated with the original.

Courtney Love responded publicly to Slayyyter’s performance, describing the rendition as “a delight.”

Slayyyter traced her connection with Hole back to her teenage years. Speaking to triple j about the performance, she recalled encountering Hole and Courtney Love through online culture while she was younger, including fan-made material connected with the riot grrrl and alternative-rock scenes. That discovery eventually led her toward “Violet.”

“It was one of the first songs I tried to teach myself to play on guitar,” Slayyyter told triple j, adding that she was drawn to the song’s emotional character and rawness.

That history makes the Like A Version performance particularly fitting.

Rather than choosing a rock song simply to demonstrate versatility, Slayyyter returned to music that had been part of her own development long before her professional recording career.

The performance quickly reached Courtney Love, who shared her reaction publicly after the cover appeared.

Love praised Slayyyter’s version as “a delight,” giving the performance a direct connection back to Hole rather than leaving it as an isolated reinterpretation of a catalog song.

It is a particularly notable endorsement because “Violet” remains one of the songs most strongly associated with Love’s vocal and lyrical identity.

Slayyyter does not attempt to recreate the original recording note for note. Instead, the Like A Version setting allows her to bring her own vocal delivery into a song built around abrupt contrasts between restraint and explosive guitar-driven sections.

The result also puts a contemporary pop artist in direct conversation with an alternative-rock recording released more than three decades earlier.

Like A Version is a recurring live-music series produced by Australian broadcaster triple j.

The concept asks participating musicians to enter the studio and perform both one of their own compositions and a song they love by another artist.

For her debut appearance, Slayyyter chose Hole’s “Violet” as her cover.

She also performed her own recent track “brand new chanel$” with a live band during the session.

The appearance arrived while Slayyyter was in Australia for a sold-out tour, according to triple j.

The original “Violet” opens Hole’s second studio album, Live Through This, released in 1994.

The album featured Courtney Love on vocals and guitar, Eric Erlandson on guitar, Kristen Pfaff on bass and Patty Schemel on drums, and was produced by Paul Q. Kolderie and Sean Slade.

Along with “Violet,” the album included songs that became central to Hole’s catalog, including “Miss World,” “Doll Parts,” “Asking for It,” “Jennifer’s Body” and “Softer, Softest.”

Released during the extraordinary alternative-rock explosion of the early 1990s, Live Through This became Hole’s breakthrough album and established the band as one of the major voices of the period. Universal Music describes the record as the Platinum-certified release that moved Hole into the front rank of alternative rock.

“Violet” eventually received its own single release and became one of the album’s signature tracks.

More than 30 years later, its continuing visibility through younger artists such as Slayyyter illustrates how material from Live Through This has moved beyond its original 1994 audience.

LIVE THROUGH THIS LINEUP

Courtney Love - Vocals, Guitar
Eric Erlandson - Guitar
Kristen Pfaff - Bass
Patty Schemel - Drums

Produced by Paul Q. Kolderie and Sean Slade.

LIVE THROUGH THIS - TRACKLIST

01. Violet
02. Miss World
03. Plump
04. Asking For It
05. Jennifer’s Body
06. Doll Parts
07. Credit In The Straight World
08. Softer, Softest
09. She Walks On Me
10. I Think That I Would Die
11. Gutless
12. Rock Star (Olympia)

Slayyyter’s decision to perform Hole also fits increasingly naturally alongside the music she has been making herself.

Her third studio album, WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA, was released on March 27, 2026 through RECORDS/Columbia Records.

Although Slayyyter remains fundamentally a pop artist, the 14-track album incorporates a much rougher musical palette than a conventional mainstream-pop record.

The project draws from electronic and club music while also introducing live instrumentation, distorted textures and rock-oriented elements. Apple Music specifically notes the live instrumentation on “CANNIBALISM!” and connects its approach with the guitar-driven world of The Cramps, while Slayyyter has described the broader album as a return to the music and culture that surrounded her adolescence in St. Louis.

That makes “Violet” less of a stylistic detour than it might initially appear.

The Hole cover exposes one of the musical reference points that existed before Slayyyter became known for electronic pop.

WOR$T GIRL IN AMERICA followed Slayyyter’s earlier releases Slayyyter, Troubled Paradise and STARFUCKER, while shifting the imagery and musical approach toward her Midwestern background.

The album contains 14 tracks including “DANCE…,” “BEAT UP CHANEL$,” “CANNIBALISM!,” “CRANK,” “GAS STATION,” “YES GODDD,” “UNKNOWN LOVERZ” and “BRITTANY MURPHY.”

Following the album, Slayyyter released “brand new chanel$”, the song she performed as her original selection during the Like A Version session.

The combination of “brand new chanel$” and “Violet” therefore places her current work beside one of the songs that influenced her before she began releasing records herself.

Slayyyter’s performance also arrives during renewed activity around Live Through This itself.

A newly remastered 180-gram black vinyl edition of the 1994 album is scheduled for release on September 18, 2026 through Geffen/Universal.

The reissue was overseen by founding Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson and restores the original album artwork and packaging while including the complete original booklet on vinyl for the first time.

That edition again begins with “Violet,” followed by “Miss World,” “Plump,” “Asking For It,” “Jennifer’s Body” and “Doll Parts” on the first side.

Additional specialty editions are also scheduled, extending the renewed physical-media attention surrounding Hole’s catalog in 2026.

The timing gives “Violet” an unusual second life this year: a younger artist is introducing the song to part of her own audience just as Live Through This returns to record stores in a newly remastered edition.

Cover versions become particularly interesting when they reveal connections that were not necessarily obvious from an artist’s public image.

Slayyyter built her career in electronic and pop music, while Hole emerged from the American alternative-rock underground.

On paper, they belong to different musical generations and scenes.

But Slayyyter’s explanation changes that picture.

“Violet” was not something she discovered for this radio session. It was a song she had already tried to learn on guitar as a teenager.

That makes the Like A Version performance less about crossing genres for novelty and more about exposing part of the musical foundation behind an artist whose own work has increasingly incorporated heavier and less polished textures.

Courtney Love’s reaction adds another layer: the artist who helped create the original has now publicly acknowledged the reinterpretation more than three decades later.

Slayyyter covering Hole’s “Violet” connects two generations that initially appear to occupy very different corners of popular music.

Hole released Live Through This in 1994, with “Violet” opening an album that became central to the alternative-rock era.

Slayyyter encountered that music years later as a teenager, tried to teach herself the song on guitar and eventually built a career in a different part of the music industry.

Her 2026 Like A Version performance brings that relationship full circle.

It also demonstrates one of the ways catalog music remains alive: not only through anniversary editions and vinyl reissues, but through younger artists who carry songs into audiences that may not have been there when the original records were released.

With Courtney Love approving the performance and Live Through This itself returning in newly remastered physical editions, “Violet” is again connecting Hole’s 1994 history with the music culture of the present.

Written by Gino Alache – Music Journalist

SOURCE: triple j / ABC Australia / Hole / Geffen / Universal Music / RECORDS / Columbia Records / NME

IMAGE CREDIT: triple j / ABC Australia

Watch Slayyyter perform Hole’s “Violet” for Like A Version below: