1998: Hole, Celebrity Skin
By Madison Jamar
Revisiting Hole’s 1998, Celebrity Skin
“People in 1998 wanted me to make a widow record and I’ll be damned if that’s what I was going to do,” declared Courtney Love Cobain in her 2010 Behind the Music special.
Instead, she and her band, Hole, had delivered Celebrity Skin, the glitzy follow-up to their 1994 breakthrough Live Through This. Described as a love letter to Los Angeles, the album showcased Love’s ambitions to achieve commercial success and reflected her ascension within the ranks of the A-list Hollywood circuit.
While Live Through This was an extension of the greasy rock that exploded out of the Pacific Northwest in the early nineties, Celebrity Skin was a bombastic pop record with calls back to Rumors era Fleetwood Mac. If Live Through This was cracked porcelain dolls, smeared lipstick, ripped tights and tattered dresses, Celebrity Skin was Malibu Barbie, shiny and aware, donning designer labels, and perfect lip liner rounding radiant smiles.
By the time of the 1998 release, Love had revitalized her image, transforming it—in some eyes—from a drug-addled provocateur to a Golden Globe nominated actress with a Golden Globe winning boyfriend (Edward Norton). She was on track to becoming a Serious Woman & Artist. Though how the co-writing of two successful albums had not already afforded her that categorization, has always been, to me, a thinly veiled mystery.
The album opens with the title track. Its riff, written by Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, swoops in and breaks as Love sings, “Oh make me over,” in a wink to her and the band’s evolution as well as their LA setting. In the video, they play onstage to an empty room with the exception of several mannequins. Instead of original member Patty Schemel, Samantha Maloney drums, her face intentionally obscured. Typically reserved guitarist Eric Erlandson grins and his tongue briefly slips out his mouth like a shy Paul Stanley.
Two staircases spiral up on either side of a stage that hovers over an oil slick floor, giving the impression of a VMAs rehearsal. But the chandeliers and heavy blue curtains adorning the space along with retro microphones signal to an old Hollywood glamour. Dancers in purple gowns descend from the ceiling in flurries of glitter. Sparkles cascade from Love’s blonde hair as she headbangs over her hot pink guitar. Shots cut to bassist Melissa Auf de Maur and Love lying in identical coffins, gazing up flirtatiously as they sing. The message couldn’t be any clearer than if they stuck out their tongues and shouted “Grunge is over.” At least for them; at least for now.
***
The making of Celebrity Skin is a tale perfectly fashioned for a glossy magazine cover. Its lore is an accidental replication of some of the same themes the songs captured. Before it had reached stores, Corgan, former boyfriend and forever frenemy of Love, announced that Hole were all indebted to his genius, without which, he claimed, the album would exist only in oblivion. He was, however, already credited on five of its twelve songs, two of which were singles. Whatever truths may have been couched in his proclamations, they were bolstered by misogynistic rumors that Love never wrote her music. Such tirades erased the contributions of the rest of the band, particularly Erlandson, Love’s primary co-writer. Speculation circulated that perhaps Corgan was frustrated with lukewarm reception to the Pumpkins own ‘98 release, Adore.
“Usually, [Michael] gets on a project and then he wears the drummer down,” Schemel said in 2017, discussing how she was replaced during final recording at the behest of producer Michael Beinhorn. The decision led to Schemel’s publicized departure. Love later described the ousting as a “very ‘classic rock’ horrible thing” that “ruined [Schemel’s] life for two years” in an interview with Carrie Fisher.
Hole continued on without the drummer who had helped cultivate their sound and reputation as a powerful and rugged but synchronized unit. In press runs they were guarded about her leave, citing personal problems. The studio replacement, Deen Castronovo, with his experience touring with various hard rock bands including Ozzy Osbourne, almost seemed symbolic in their transition to anthemic arena rock. Perhaps, they saw the move as a necessary casualty in the reach for stadium stardom.
Besides, what’s celebrity without a little scandal anyway? One could ask Bill Clinton, whose televised impeachment was so global it was the subject of a question for Hole during an interview for Big Day Out in Australia. Or look to MTV, who had learned that musical television was not the only lucrative draw as the seventh season of the Real World (Seattle) aired the same year as Celebrity Skin’s release.
On stage, Love was charming ingenue, emulating Stevie Nicks as she flitted a tambourine during 70’s reminiscents, “Heaven Tonight” and “Boys on the Radio.” She was also cool and chic, smoking cigarettes, and chiding the crowd of thousands as if she were speaking to a room full of close acquaintances. She could have been the woman having the most fun at a bar, presiding over a circle of hopefuls desperate to be important in her eyes. She was the face of a new kind of caustic fame—glam but with an illusion of obtainability.
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I came to Hole in my early teens during the late aughts, over a decade after Celebrity Skin was released. They disbanded in 2002 without their contracted follow-up, though in 2010, Love assembled a new band under the same name. Music downloading software like Limewire and iTunes were prevailing, but I was suspicious and still committed to CDs. For the physical albums I couldn’t procure, YouTube allowed me to hear the rest of their records, watch live performances, and argue with various usernames.
Whatever starlet buzz Love had accumulated in the 90’s dissipated with every publicly endured relapse and recovery. Below the lyric videos I relied on to decipher her vocals, others commented relentlessly, ignoring the music entirely to fixate on her late husband, Kurt Cobain. According to these account holders, every song was about him and/or written by him. In my teenage adulation and angst I countered, hoping the keyboard could convey my sneer, “A man could NEVER write these lyrics.” It was a statement I thought profound and wiser than my years but perhaps was ultimately meaningless.
Uploads of old interviews with Love garnered more negative commentary. “People go back to work. This is what I do, I gotta make a living,” Love said in a 1994 interview with Kurt Loder. People analyzed her body language, charging that she was “on something.” Both perceived stoniness and expressed joy indicated an apathy to Cobain’s death, proving her culpability.
A woman, a mother, continuing to work through devastation may have seemed strange to some. But I remembered watching my mother peel potatoes one evening after she’d returned home from the hospital. At the hospital she and her sisters were tending to my sick uncle, her eldest brother. I remembered her sobbing as she walked through the front door of our apartment and into the kitchen. She didn’t tell me why but I knew that my five living aunts and uncles had become four. I stood near her while she cried and peeled, then fried the potatoes. I didn’t dare offer help but instead, hoped my silence and motionlessness could absorb the gravity of her grief. I don’t remember what accompanied the potatoes, only that she finished cooking dinner because it had to be done.
Now look, I’m not saying the situation of Love, a single mom but also millionaire rockstar with access to paid caretakers is the same as my own single mom of two, who worked several difficult jobs and utilized state welfare and strained familial relationships to keep us secure. But I am saying that sometimes, moving forward in any capacity, especially for the sake of another, is the only way to survive. While many found Love’s anger and public mourning inconceivable, I recognized her trying to make sense of the irrational reality of loss.
***
Despite my loyalty, I didn’t care for much of Celebrity Skin upon my earliest listens. I wanted Love’s soft vocals to veer into screams as on Hole’s two prior albums. Or to at least grant me the gothic snark my adolescence yearned for. I got closest with “Awful,” which opens with a spin on classic gospel hymn “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.” Instead of fantasizing about being swept away into the heavens, Love sings about the music industry’s manipulation of young girls and how easily we all fall for it. Though in one of the most outright bubblegum pop tracks, I was comforted by Love’s scolding, “Oh just shut up you’re only sixteen.”
“Reasons to Beautiful” felt most evocative of Live Through This. Erlandson’s leaden riff underscores its sardonic lyrics. “Love hangs herself / With the bedsheets in her cell.”
Written like a tabloid headline, Love mocks the media's representation of her while also pointing to its detrimental effects as well as her own participation, however unwilling. Desperate vulnerability permeates the song. Conscious of the torment fame can and has already inflicted, she navigates the performance of it all.
But I was seeking the outright rage I had learned to associate with Hole and the raw aggression that had cradled my own sadness. It wasn’t a surprise to discover that Celebrity Skin and all its aims of mainstream success had alienated some longtime fans when it was released. Even members of Hole were initially skeptical. Erlandson was against collaborating with Corgan at first. For Rolling Stone feature in 1998, Auf de Mar confessed to David Fricke that she worried, “God, this is going to be so polished, so anal.” It was easy for me to write it off as a technically fine album, but also one made with the intention of selling out—a term overly and misused even during the 90s. I deemed much of the album too plasticky and overproduced, failing to grasp that it’s grandness is actually what allowed it to be soulful.
***
“I can’t remember not wanting to be famous,” Love once said in Behind the Music. In a 1995 interview with Barba Walters, she described herself “as someone who always wanted to be a poet, but there’s never any money in it.”
In an industry where the collision of fame and success are supposed to look accidental, Love’s brashness about her desire to be in the spotlight may have seemed obscene, justifying their ridicule of her. Of course, none of her contemporaries became famous completely by happenstance regardless of their unconvincing claims, but could shield themselves with empty statements rejecting their commercialization. Really, who could blame Love for reaching beyond the underground scene that at times depicted her as a woman who stumbled into songwriting by way of marriage? Perhaps the opulence of Celebrity Skin was an attempt to become larger than the shadow casted by the myths surrounding her.
Looking back, it’s shocking that my teenage self, in search of punk and the macabre, didn’t see enough of it in Celebrity Skin. In “Dying,” Love sings, “Remember you promised me / I’m dying, I’m dying, please / I want to, I need to be / Under your skin.” As if reaching for someone or something that has long been out of arm's length, her voice shifts from whispers to anguished pleas as the music builds into orchestral crescendo.
“Use Once & Destroy” and “Playing Your Song” both blister in offerings of the rage. Drums lead the former, pulsating along Auf de Maur’s bass through layers upon layers of winding guitar suggestive of Queen. “Playing Your Song” is a straightforward indictment pointing to the mounting tension and eventual dispute over her late husband’s estate.
Fire and burning are mentioned throughout the album. “Threw myself on fires for you,” on “Reasons to Be Beautiful;” “Innocence was our fire,” on album closer, “Petals;” “They crash and burn / They fold and fade so slow,” on “Boys on the Radio.”
Burning bright and fast alludes to an idea of Hollywood and stardom, how quickly those who rise are snuffed out by the power of corporations and audiences with short memories and swift and punishing judgements. But it also speaks to a more ubiquitous experience of burnout and the instantaneous moments of loss that linger forever.
The theme is most notable on the enchanting single, “Malibu.” “Crash and burn / All the stars explode tonight,” Love sings on the first verse and on the second: “How are you so burnt / When you're barely on fire?” “Malibu” is hopeful as it is wistful. Now one of my favorites, the song is an appeal to save a loved one from their own fire, a wish often unfulfilled in reality.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, a month after Celebrity Skin’s release, Erlanson explained why they dedicated the album to the “the stolen water of Los Angeles and to anyone who ever drowned.”
“...there were all these things going on while we were making this album, like Jeff Buckley drowning. And years before [bassist] Kristen [Pfaff] died in a bathtub. My father died basically drowning in his own body, he couldn’t breathe, and Melissa’s father died of lung cancer. Those were literal things, but drowning became a metaphor for this record and for all the people we had lost.”
Wrapped in its lustrous veneer, the album was in part, the band’s process of facing their incomplete mourning.
***
“Someone should have helped her through her grief,” my mother once said of Love while I watched her Behind the Music documentary the first time in high school. Walking through the living room, she had paused as she heard Love tearfully talk about being a single parent. In my mother’s voice was an understanding, tied to her own similar experiences—the death of a partner, my older sister’s father, to the throes of addiction. This knowledge rippled underneath our small family unit. It surfaced at times, such as when kids at school asked why my sister and I had different last names. Or when I glimpsed the white wedding veil that hung in the back of my mother’s closet.
“Why wasn’t I taken to a bereavement counselor or even given a recommendation for one?” Love asked. She was tasked with managing the pain of her husband's many fans—who loved him as they may, only knew him as a figure—alongside her own, then condemned when it was too much to shoulder. In the nineties and aughts, there was less sympathy and understanding for addiction as a mental health issue. In my teens, I didn’t have the language to unpack living in its aftermath.
Part of my appreciation for Celebrity Skin in adulthood (I mean, besides it just being a perfect album and masterpiece) stems from a better ability to comprehend devastations that occurred in my childhood and new encounters of loss. Beautiful boys gone too soon and their stories subsumed into narratives that prioritize tragedy over their real and lived lives. And we navigate our own guilt of being and surviving while also finding ways to honor who they were as people, beyond the cause they’ve been allotted.
Still, Celebrity Skin isn’t simply meditations on grief or addiction anymore than it is a “widow record,” as Love denounced. It’s joyous in its theatrics and confident in its sonic shift. Prior to their break-up, Erlanson said his goal was to “make Hole a huge, touring rock band.” Big was always the aim and Celebrity Skin’s success—big in sound and ambition as well as in its depths of sincerity. It stands now like a sharp exaltation at the (almost) end of a century; a monument in a bygone era of rock ‘n’ roll.
Bio: Madison Jamar is a writer from Columbus, OH. She currently lives and works in Queens, NY. You can find her on Instagram @black_carrie_bradshaw and on Twitter @midwestemo_gf.