You'd be hard-pressed to convince me that Courtney Love has ever had an original idea in her manipulative little mind or heart--and Celebrity Skin will do little to dispel that notion. There are "borrowed" rock 'n' roll phrases all over the music (a Patti Smith rip so obvious that it's almost embarrassing) and the album title, itself, was probably lifted from the porno magazine, Celebrity Skin, or from an actual band that was one of the hottest unsigned acts in Hollywood during the last decade.
And yet, you don't have to like Love--you can probably even hate her--to appreciate the fine pop album that is Celebrity Skin. That's right: "pop." It was often argued that no band could evolve from Pretty On The Inside (pure riot grrrl noize) to Live Through This without lots of "help," which led to speculation that an uncredited Kurt Cobain had written most of the music on his wife's sophomore outing. Likewise, it's hard to believe that the Hole of Live Through This could evolve to the new Hole featured here, but at least the person giving some of the assistance, Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corgan, gets some recognition this time. The five tunes featuring his co-credit--"Malibu," "Dying," "Hits So Hard," "Petals," and the title track--are among the album's best and most musical. In fact, the title track--a little sleaze-of-Hollywood ditty--opens the album with a bang; it's a pop hit right out of the box.
The other thing that's changed is that Courtney's taken vocal lessons--or at least studio technology has gotten really good. On "Awful," you might be shocked to hear how much she now sounds like the Go-Go's meeting the Runaways. Of course, money can buy you almost anything these days--and yet even though the album's two throwaways ("Use Once And Destroy," "Northern Star") don't include Corgan's byline, neither do some of the album's other highlights, including "Boys On The Radio" and "Heaven Tonight," which lead the album to a pure pop conclusion.
Eric Erlandson's guitars are uniformly excellent throughout and "Playing Your Song" is a great rock tune, both musically and lyrically. The album's other outstanding rocker is "Reasons To Be Beautiful," which features not one, not two, but five co-writers (not including Corgan). This self-serving, confessional elegy to Kurt Cobain is the track that concludes with the aforementioned Patti Smith (see: "Elegy," most of Gone Again) rip-off. And like I said, you almost feel embarrassed for her--but, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you feel about Ms. Courtney), this album's probably too good for that kind of sympathy.
