The Hole 'Celebrity Skin' Poll & Discussion

Reasons to be Beautiful deserves a vote!

This album has really withstood the test of time huh? Listening to it right now and it’s so good. Also a good document on where alt rock and the music industry was at the end of the 90’s, huge budget, glossy production and Love becoming finally a big, mainstream rockstar.

yeah it still sounds so warm & ~lush~

This month, my wife weighs in on "Awful." https://celebrityhole.wordpress.com/2018/02/28/2-awful/

oh i love it!
it shows how much older i am than she is because i totally identified with this "a big sister who’s gone through the wringer"
i never really thought about how it would sound to someone younger than me, it's way more powerful than i gave it credit for!
when i was 16 i had "sixteen blue" :-/ everything drags and drags

Man I have to listen to this record again. I've been on a Nirvana kick lately but on balance Live Through This + Celebrity Skin is about as good as Nevermind + In Utero.

Musically I'd still give the edge to Nirvana but lyrically the decision goes to Hole, no question. Did Kurt ever write anything as profound or with as many bons mots as "Awful"? And there's more where that came from.

If I was to draw up a list of essential '90s American alternative rock albums, both of those albums would be no-brainers to include!

Next entry on the Celebrity Skin blog: Hit So Hard. https://celebrityhole.wordpress.com/2018/03/31/3-hit-so-hard/

OK, didn't quite make my April deadline for this, but here's Malibu: https://celebrityhole.wordpress.com/2018/05/03/4-malibu/.

<3

Next! This month, Jody Beth considers “Reasons to Be Beautiful.” https://celebrityhole.wordpress.com/2018/05/10/5-reasons-to-be-beautiful/

Courtney’s miles and miles of perfect skin are not contiguous: they start around the blonde yoginis of Sunset Junction and flow out to in-home glam squads of the Palisades, and they start around the Korean spas of Wilshire Center and zoom off to the surgeons in Westwood high-rises and get stuck in traffic en route to a sugaring session in Santa Monica, and they twist up the 101 through the restful shade trees of Laurel Canyon and bounce over the potholes outside every specialty chemist and dermatologist on Ventura Boulevard until the Valley peters out in Kardashian Kountry somewhere. There’s imperfect skin, of course, but it lives to the side of the step-and-repeat. It opens the mail and sends the rejections. It knows that Bar Keepers Friend gets unusual stains out of porcelain. You tip it a pittance at holidays, maybe.

And for June, "Dying." (Which is about surviving.)

https://celebrityhole.wordpress.com/2018/06/26/6-dying/

This month, Anthony Easton has thoughts about Courtney, Kim Gordon, Olympia and L.A.

https://celebrityhole.wordpress.com/2018/07/26/7-use-once-and-destroy/

(their innocence tastes like candy, yeah / get so fat on it it's a tragedy, yeah ) <--- one of CL's career highlights imo. Rarely listen to it because the verses are kinda irritating to my ears, but so very exhilarating.

the best rock album of the ‘90s

IT'S FUCKIN WONDERFUL THEY SOLD YOU OUT

― a 'catch-all', almost humorous, 'Jeez' quality (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, August 15, 2011

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 19, 2016 7

This poll should be redone, I suspect many many people didn’t see it and thus didn’t vote

Not sure if I voted at the time. Would’ve been “Malibu” for me.

i’m happy to repoll this one even though deciding between “boys on the radio” and “petals” should be illegal

This poll should be redone, I suspect many many people didn’t see it and thus didn’t vote

― Legalize Suburban Benches (Raymond Cummings),

oh make me over?

I’m all I wanna be

Poll Twice and Destroy

the best rock album of the ‘90s

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Sunday, 12 June 2022 15:37 (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

miles and miles of perfect posts!

the revive reminds me that I need to go back and finish that song by song project. I started a business in the middle of that and never went back to it.

I voted for Awful in this poll, I think I'd probably go Boys on the Radio now.

The production sounds kind of close to nevermind but a notch below

There’s some very weird vocal manipulation happening here and there

I never warmed to this record the way I did to the one before TBH

(I guess I prefer “punk” Hole to Fleetwood Mac Hole, or whatever)

Not sure if I voted at the time. Would’ve been “Malibu” for me.

I love the Runaways vibe of "Awful."

It wouldn't be my number one choice but I feel like "Hit So Hard" is weirdly underrated by virtue of being so obvious in its Corganisms (whereas "Malibu" feels sui generis even though it's not really). Melissa's sighing harmonies are A+. A perfect album pretty much.