Celebrity Skin - Hole

Hole are a band who are always likely to be in the limelight. Not just because the lead singer Courtney Love was married to the late Kurt Cobain (of Nirvana), or because Courtney is a huge character in herself, but because the music is amazing. There is not many female-fronted bands around, (well not compared to the number of male-fronted bands), so when a band like Hole writes music of this calibre, it is certain to get noticed. This is Hole’s third album (with the title coming from the name of an American celebrity photo magazine) and drew very mixed reviews when it was first released in 1998. Hole fan veteran, John Peel, clamed it was “just ...  Read the complete review

I first heard this album about two years ago. My then girlfriend insisted on playing it in the car all the time, and to be honest, I didn't really like it that much. I guess I regarded Hole as "angry girl music" and from what I had heard my girlfriend play before, I wasn't that impressed by the whole scene. I don't know why, because now I actually enjoy this album a lot. It's a lot more commercial and easier on the ear than the likes of Live Through This, but I wouldn't have got Live Through This if I hadn't ended up buying this. The first time I listened on my own I was pleasantly surprised to say the least. Yes, it is very ...  Read the complete review

Courtney Love is a controversial figure for all kinds of reasons that I don’t have space to detail here, but in the end only question that matters is whether her band Hole’s album are any good musically. And for me, Celebrity Skin passes the best test you can use to measure an album: whether it gathers dust in a pile in the corner or has a permanent place on rotation on your CD player. In my case, it’s definitely the latter. After the visceral anger of Hole’s last album Live Through This, Celebrity Skin was dismissed as a commercial sell-out. True, the stylings of West Coast MORer’s like Joan Jett and Fleetwood Mac, that so angered ...  Read the complete review

Think of a successful rock star who has sold billions of records, plays guitar like a genius and writes fantastic songs to boot.... Okay, time's up. Was it a woman? I don't think so. Girls don't play guitars: they usually spend their time fantasing about sleeping with boys that do instead. That's why Hole are such an important band. Or should I say were. Courtney was supposed to be the woman who proved that having a uterus does not prevent females from writing great songs that AREN'T just about their latest episode of heartache or some other corny sacchrine rubbish. Courtney didn't sing in a pretty pretty fashion: she screamed, she ...  Read the complete review

Celebrity Skin by Hole (1998) The third and final album by Hole was delivered after a four-year lay off during which time Courtney Love had established herself as a Hollywood actress in the wake of her famous husband's suicide. Celebrity Skin is drastically different in tone to its predecessors Pretty On The Inside and Live Through This, eschewing noisy confessional angst in favour of slickly produced west coast pop with just enough bite not to piss everybody off. Live Through This had topped the end of year critics' polls in Rolling Stone and Village Voice and so was perceived as a tough act to follow. Although Soundgarden producer Michael Beinhorn receives ...  Read the complete review