Celebrity Skin

I'm not going to go into great detail about each song, but just say that almost every song on this album is at least solid, and some of them are all-time classics. This is definitely an album I can listen to all the way through without skipping tracks and I haven't (yet) gotten sick of it...it's got that great replayability factor going for it.My favorite songs are "Celebrity Skin", "Malibu", "Reasons to be Beautiful", "Playing Your Song", and "Petals". As others have said, the Corgan influence is very strong here, but that's all for the good as far as I'm concerned because the Pumpkins outrock just about anyone. If you had Billy sing instead of Courtney on "Northern Star" or "Petals", you could drop them right into Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness and no one would be the wiser. The only song I really don't much like is the 2nd track "Awful". I almost like it, but its overly-poppy blandness annoys me. This must be one of those polarizing songs because a lot of people hate it and many say it's their favorite on the whole album...go figure. I usually don't pay much attention to lyrics, but on this album they do have meaning and resonance, and I actually found myself trying to figure out at various points what she was saying (the lyrics of "Hit So Hard" are interesting to try to interpret...it might not be as obvious as it looks at first).Anyway, I don't give 5 stars lightly like many people do when they just "don't hate" something. This is a great, great album that should be in your collection. It's totally addicting. The production values are very good here, much better than the somewhat muddier-sounding Live Through This (also an excellent though very different album). It will be a shame if Hole never does another album. I expect it will be as different from this as this was from LTT. I'd like to see Courtney collaborate with Black Francis (Pixies) or Johnny Rzeznik (Goo Goo Dolls) or Ed Kowalczyk (Live)...could make for a powerful combination. Since with Courtney's earlier work we have to assume she was basically "collaborating" with Kurt Cobain, and she had the Pumpkins/Go-Gos influence on this album, I think she's at her best working with others. Too much emphasis is put on who takes credit for writing a song, or if the artist is selling out or "staying true to their roots", but if it's good it's good, in my book. And this is very good.

Actually a great CD. I was not familiar with them until family told me about them. All as expected and arrived quickly

Celebrity Skin. For me, (and most people who know me would never suspect that I ever listened to this much less own it, but I do,) is a very good commercial Rock Album, with songs from a woman who had finally grown up, but still alienated.The tunesmithing, vocals and musicianship, all show a huge amount of maturity over earlier outings for Hole, and this remains my favorite, as I have to be in the right mood to appreciate the older stuff, but I still do, albeit rarely.It is too bad (to me) that the flack Ms. Love received as being a sell out for making a more mature and more commercial CD resulted in her going back to the teen-age anger by the time "America's Sweetheart" came out, which just comes across as an angry middle aged woman who doesn't get it. But here in "Celebrity Skin" the raw emotions are tempered with well crafted music, and ironically pretty vocals.I hope that one day Ms. Love may grow up for good and all and make this kind of album again.But that's just me

The media could not be loaded. love hole so much this album is amazing

It came a bit scratched

Awesome

Classic late 90s sound, glad to add to my collection. Vinyl pressing is good, flat, no warps or any loud surface noise. A bit pricey though.

satisfied lol but it came in a plastic bag with the bottom covered in weird tan sticky stuff? i honestly don’t mind though the vinyl itself is in great condition!