Celebrity Skin - Hole Reviews

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 ...  Read the complete review

"Celebrity Skin" is simply the definitive album of the 90's...of the century. I'm not joking. Never have I come across such profound lyrics, such fantastic placements and backing vocals, such brilliant lead vocals, such lush production, such talented instruments (NOTHING is off the mark here - the guitars, the drums, the bass, ...  Read the complete review

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), ...  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, ...  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 ...  Read the complete review

Courtney Love writes most of the songs and her influences are still obvious. Indeed this is not the album to purchase if you need cheering up, the lyrics, whilst always performed well are distinctly depressing (‘Love hangs herself’), and will probably hasten your progress along the suicidal path. The music has a ...  Read the complete review

In response to the other opinions which have been written about this album (generally along the lines of "Hole sold there soul to sell some records"), I have to stand up and say it ain't that bad! Now I've got a few of the earlier Hole albums and I thought that they were terrible compared to Celebrity skin. Back in those ...  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 ...  Read the complete review

I think that what defines this album from Hole's previous ones is that here is a band ( you could just say Courtney Love) who are writing music for people whereas before, the band wrote it how they wanted it, they couldn't give a crap about critical respect and mainstream success. Celebrity Skin opens well, with the track of the ...  Read the complete review