The Hole 'Celebrity Skin' Poll & Discussion

Three way tie between "Awful", "Malibu" and "Boys On The Radio".

Love this album so much.

Those were my exact choices as well, but I finally settled with Boys on the Radio.

Such a great album.

Awful! Love this album so much.

have to vote "awful" since i know for sure it's the one i hit repeat on most. but yeah, much love. my favorite thing billy corgan's ever been involved in.

title track is total killer too. opens the album like a cannonade.

Not enough love for "Playing Your Song," which I contend has the most awesome "fuckin'" in rock. And what a yowl on the chorus!

i'm thinking malibu or reasons to be beautiful

this was a big album for 8th-grade me

what's the "miles and miles of perfect skin" song again.

?

RTBB

"Boys On The Radio" has probably emerged as my favorite over time... the trem on the chorus, the moment on the bridge where it all hangs suspended for a beat...

also this video because despite overdramatic lyrical revision you can actually see with yr naked eye the WAVES OF CRAZY coming off her

but it would be a damn shame if "Reasons To Be Beautiful" goes voteless so maybe that.

weirdest thing is how a nice young man like erlandson got mixed up in all this

such a great album. 'malibu' is my default answer but it could be so many others at any given point.

voting for "petals" but really, could be "malibu" or "boys on the radio" as well. love this album

HE'S DRUNK / HE TASTES LIKE CANDY / HE'S SO BEAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTIFUL / HE'S SO DEEP / LIKE DIRTY WATER / GOD HE'S AWFUL

how many references to candy are there on this album exactly? counting the part on the title track where she complains "it's all so sugarless".

i voted for the winning option, but in retrospect i realize it's a song title and not the description of the album i most agree with

you should have thrown "use once & destroy" a vote

I wish I didn't hate Courtney's voice so much, I greatly respect the things she did with Hole even if I never ever want to hear them

I was in a bad mood yesterday so I flew down PCH blasting TI's "What You Know" on a loop and then put this on once I got to Malibu, because duh. The back end works really during dusk/sunset.

As a native Los Angeleno this is still my favorite album about L.A. (it helps that I was 17 and just driving when this came out). The numerous refs to candy are completely in line with her view of the city, all sensory pleasure that disguises deep rot and decay--not for nothing that soon after this Hollywood success she'd spiral into coke and crack. Courtney is such a great chronicler of Los Angeles, but I won't forgive her for ruining "Pacific Coast Highway" (at least the demo remains stunning).

IT'S FUCKIN WONDERFUL THEY SOLD YOU OUT

that "fuckin wonderful" god, what a great singer

Not enough love for "Playing Your Song," which I contend has the most awesome "fuckin'" in rock. And what a yowl on the chorus!

― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, May 29, 2009 9:17 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark

best backing vocals of the '90s: melissa auf der maur

the harmonies are the rich hidden text of this record

word Auf der Mar was so good I wanted to buy her solo record on principle, then I heard the single and no longer wanted to. Her vocals on this sound like waves at Leo Carillo.

whatev northern star is sweet

saw the patty schemel doc the other day, it's great. the story about the producer for this record making her do re-takes over and over for two weeks so that she would quit and he could bring in deen castronovo was crazy.

billy upthread otm re. this album and LA.
We also had a pretty good discussion here:
Recommend me something similar to Hole's 'Celebrity Skin'

i watched the patty schemel documentary, which was pretty good but the whole time i was kind of like "why does this movie exist?"

that shit about the asshole producer of celebrity skin was crazy.

i started to watch this, thinking the same question, but turned it off after 5 seconds, when she pointed at a graveyard from the tour bus like it was an amazing moment of profound spiritual meaning

i mean, it was kinda good! i guess. there was some cool footage of kurt cobain just being goofy and stuff, lots of video of what the 90s really looked like.

she seems like a nice person overall, as did Erik from Hole and Roddy from Faith no More

uhm not sure where to put this but this is pretty cool footage (even if publicizing it may be less cool, I don't know if CL cares) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-xUwDARVb4

that's the worst guitar playing I've ever heard – unless she's going for Arto Lindsay.

hey this is the best album ever

HE'S SO DEEP
LIKE DIRTY WATER

If only she sang every Corgan song

BEST. ALBUM. OF. MY. LIFE.
really.

malibu and boys on the radio are favs, but i have a deep admiration for heaven tonight as well.

"Malibu" and "boys on the radio" for me too but that drumming on "awful" doe

best backing vocals of the '90s: melissa auf der maur

the harmonies are the rich hidden text of this record

― mutant slow drum (BradNelson), Monday, 15 August 2011 15:27 (3 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

miles and miles of perfect skin

I love how this album hires Billy Corgan to write songs about feminine lust.

Not sure much of that is Billy. The lyrics seem pretty pure Courtney to me. So many great lines on this record.

I'm referring to the music.

actually the best songs are Erlandson-Love.

Ah, right. Yeah, I've always thought Billy's role on this album was exaggerated (mostly by him). He's obviously part of it, but not much of it really sounds like him.

Erlandson definitely the unsung hero of Hole.

That sequence from "Boys on the Radio" to "Playing Your Song" is immense.

It's too bad Michael Beinhorn was such a jerk to Patty Schemel, but he sure made the record sound amazing.

i don't if i ever read a decent review/thinkpiece about this record. It deserves.

we don't talk about this album enough

IT'S FUCKIN WONDERFUL THEY SOLD YOU OUT

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

idk what i was talking about with the poll; "dying" and "use once and destroy" is def my favorite section of this record

brad was right of course, great harmonies record. great guitar record too.

I realized a few weeks ago that this album will be 20 next year, and if anything deserves a big anniversary retrospective it does. So I've started a blog to go through the 12 songs, one each month.

https://celebrityhole.wordpress.com/

My wife's going to write at least one (she claimed "Awful") and there are a few that I feel strongly about myself (title track, Boys on the Radio), but if anyone wants to contribute a 500-1000 word entry on a song of your choice, hit me up -- jmayshark AT geemail. I haven enough thoughts about the album to write them all myself, but I'm also partial to group projects.

how many references to candy are there on this album exactly?
so many, and when you add in the "sugar coma"/"boys on the radio factor" i think the whole thing is about sweetness and decay and boys

oops i put the quotation marks in the wrong place
i don't want to write 1000 words about any of the songs but i do have feelings about it

also i love her singing -- it's so expressive
maybe not pretty but very expressive. "malibu" almost always makes me cry.

Yeah I think she's hugely underrated as a singer. Will definitely get into that in zee blog.

there were a few albums that came out around the same time that had a similar sugar-pop-leaning -- GBV had Do the Collapse (with a song on the Buffy sdtk iirc?), Wilco released Summer Teeth (featuring "Candy Floss", another song about candy) -- I'm sure there were others. On a personal level, I was just meeting and getting to know my partner (<3) which I think adds to the sweetness/sugar coma feeling of these albums for me.

Great idea, tipsy!

I listened to this loads at the time but now it's mainly Awful that sticks in my head <3

20 years tho

can't hear 'miles and miles of perfect skin' without instead thinking 'miles and miles of carpet tiles'

Around the time “Awful” came out I went to a nightclub for fun for like, the 2nd time in my life. It was one of those alternative-music nights called like, Clockwork Orange or something.

Anyway they played Awful & i just remember being thrilled by the poppiness of it & how new it sounded, and how great Courtney sounded too. No-one was dancing & I had the dancefloor to myself & i just lost myself in the song, it felt so good. Man I love that song.

HE TASTES LIKE CANDY

aw that is a sweet memory VG!!

i have a lot of memories around this time -- it's kind of hard for me to separate them from the songs

"Awful" was great then, and just gets better with age.

First proper blog entry is up -- https://celebrityhole.wordpress.com/2018/01/13/1-celebrity-skin/. One of my favorite album openers of all time.

(I didn't even get to some of my favorite lines in the song, because I realized I could write a paragraph each on nearly every one.)

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)