剥名人的皮 (1998)

Celebrity Skin is the third studio album by American alternative rock band Hole, released on September 8, 1998, in the United States on DGC Records and internationally on Geffen Records. It was the last album released by the band before their dissolution in 2002. Hole intended for the record to diverge significantly from their previous noise and grunge-influenced sound as featured on Pretty on the Inside (1991) and Live Through This (1994). The band hired producer Michael Beinhorn to record Celebrity Skin over a nine-month period that included sessions in Los Angeles, New York City, and London. It was the band's only studio release to feature bassist Melissa Auf der Maur. Drummer Patty Schemel played on the demos for the album but was replaced by session drummer Deen Castronovo at the suggestion of Beinhorn. This issue created a rift between Schemel and the band, resulting in her being kicked out of the band, dropped from the tour, and parting ways with the group, though she was still credited.

The band sought to use Los Angeles and the state of California as a unifying theme and began writing what they conceived as a "California album" in 1997. Unlike Hole's previous releases, the final songs on Celebrity Skin featured instrumental contributions from several musicians outside the band, primarily Billy Corgan, who co-wrote the musical arrangements on five songs. Auf der Maur's former bandmate Jordon Zadorozny, as well as Go-Go's guitarist Charlotte Caffey, also contributed to the composition of one track. Frontwoman Courtney Love, who wrote all of the lyrics, named the album and its title track after a poem she had written that was influenced by T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land". Motifs of water and drowning are also prominent throughout the album.

Celebrity Skin is Hole's most commercially successful album. It peaked at number nine on the US Billboard 200, number four on the Australian Albums Chart, and number 11 on the UK Albums Chart. To date, it has sold over 1.4 million copies in the United States alone, has been certified as double-platinum in Australia by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), and platinum in Canada by Music Canada (MC) and the United States by Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It garnered Hole a number-one hit single on the Modern Rock Tracks chart with the title track, "Celebrity Skin". Critical reaction to the album was very positive and it was listed on a number of publications' year-end lists in 1998, including those by Time and The Village Voice. The album was named the 265th greatest album of all time by a 2013 poll by NME magazine and was featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Production and composition

Recording history

In September 1995, Hole completed the final leg of their year-long tour in promotion for their second studio album, Live Through This (1994). During the hiatus that followed, the members of Hole began working on individual projects. Frontwoman Courtney Love was cast as Althea Flynt in The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996) alongside Woody Harrelson, lead guitarist Eric Erlandson collaborated with Rodney Bingenheimer and Thurston Moore on the short-lived project Rodney & the Tube Tops from 1996 to 1997, bassist Melissa Auf der Maur provided backing on Ric Ocasek's album Troublizing (1997), and drummer Patty Schemel played with the Lemonheads on the tribute album Schoolhouse Rock! Rocks (1996).

After Love completed her obligations promoting The People vs. Larry Flynt, the band reunited to write new material for their next album, titled Celebrity Skin. According to Love, the embryonic versions of the songs "weren't very good" and "not written well". However, the songs developed following the band's relocation to several parts of the United States, including Nashville, Memphis, and New Orleans. During their time in New Orleans, the band recorded a number of demos, including an early version of "Awful" (1999) and songs which later developed into "Dying" and "Hit So Hard". During these writing and recording attempts, Love had grown frustrated as she felt the songs were not coalescing into a unifying whole. Erlandson later said he felt that "everything was falling apart... Making that record was insane. There were obstacles at each step of the way." Because of this perceived lack of direction, Love decided to use California as a theme to build the songs around: "Let's tie this together with a concept, even if it's fake," she recalled, "for directional purposes." Specifically, Love sought to interpret California as "a metaphor for the American dream".