Hole - Celebrity Skin (CD 1998)

Hole's third and final studio album...It is a different sound to the previous two items, Pretty on the inside and Live Through this, it is more polished and less angry.
Lyrically it is the most telling for all those with an interest in Courtney Love/Kurt Cobain. This is the first album since his suicide and it features here quite heavily. Courtney is both mournful, lost and angry. She ponders her life and her death, domestic violence and she also sings of her own suicide "Love hangs herself, with the bed sheets in her cell."
She also ponders the turns that her life has taken and her celebrity. Celebrity Skin and Awful are an anti-celebrity, anti-Hollywood system rant.
Some of their best and most beautiful material can be found on this album, Malibu sounds to me like summer. I always listen it on a cold wet day, when i want the sun to shine. Dying is haunting and beautiful, the backing by Melissa Auf de Maur is breathtaking.
For me, the musical highlight of this album is Northern Star. It is a chilling and again hauntingly beautiful account of her days without Kurt. Although, the song penned by Courtney for her daughter France Bean is another.
This album has been touched by death, most noticeably Kurt's but also that of band member Kristen Pfaff, to whom it is dedicated, as well as to all those who have ever drowned. The album is both melancholy and angry at times, Courtney wears her heart on her sleeve and the lyrics reflect her life and experiences at that time. She is angry at being left alone, she is angry at the media bandwagon that had become her life, and she is angry at what had happened to Kurt's legacy (Playing your song).
Sharp eared Hole fans may recognise the start of Boys on the Radio, as part of Sugar Coma from MTV Unplugged's Hole session.
This is an excellent album, and it is musically beautiful with haunting, spine tingling moments throughout. This is possibly their finest album, it is the most telling of the life of Courtney and displays the Hole line-up at its best, the addtion of Melissa Auf de Maur on this album for me compliments the gritty, raw qualities of Courtney's voice. I would advise this album, especially the two disc version with a live performance from the band at Big day out in Australia with Courtney in fine form, heckling the audience, having a dig at Oasis and performing some excellent live material, their cover of Guns N' Roses classic Paradise City has to be heard!!!!!
Brilliant, breathtaking and a excellent final album for the legendary band that were Hole!