871. Hole - Celebrity Skin (1998)

Track Listing

1. Celebrity Skin
2. Awful
3. Hit So Hard
4. Malibu
5. Reasons To Be Beautiful
6. Dying
7. Use Once & Destroy
8. Northern Star
9. Boys On The Radio
10. Heaven Tonight
11. Playing Your Song
12. Petals

Review

I really liked Live Through This, the previous Hole album on the list, this one, even with the title track, leaves me a bit cold. Not that it isn't good, it is, not that it is boring, it isn't. But it just isn't great.

Live Through This reputedly had a lot of input from Kurt Cobain which might have helped it, particularly in lyrical terms, Hole is a more empty album, even with Billy Corgan's contributions.

That said the album is pretty consistently good, the tracks pack some punch even if is never as hard as those in their previous album. So as much as I love Courtney Love this is not an album that I particularly want to add to my library.

Track Highlights

1. Celebrity Skin
2. Malibu
3. Northern Star
4. Playing Your Song

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The songs were written by the band, some with the help of Billy Corgan; Courtney Love penned all of the lyrics. The studio work took almost a year and a half, due to Love's rising movie career, fruitless recording attempts in New Orleans and Nashville in 1997, Corgan's involvement in songwriting and the actual album sessions, between Los Angeles, New York City, London and Miami.

Celebrity Skin: