This is an accepted version of this page
125-468: 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
250-465: A Serge modular system, an ARP 2600 and a Moog modular system with a Bode frequency shifter. The other side included a Watkins Dominator, which "provided tons of low end", and generators that were later used during the production process. Recording was officially completed in London in late February 1998. Despite receiving credit on the album, Patty Schemel only recorded drum tracks for its demos, and
375-616: A 2013 poll by NME magazine and was featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die . 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
500-484: A confessional tone. Rites of Spring has been described as the first "emo" band. Former Minor Threat singer Ian MacKaye founded Dischord Records which became the center for the city's emo scene. Gothic rock developed out of late-1970s British post-punk . With a reputation as the "darkest and gloomiest form of underground rock", gothic rock uses a synthesizer-and-guitar based sound drawn from post-punk to construct "foreboding, sorrowful, often epic soundscapes", and
625-523: A cynical response to an "authentic" rock movement. Bush , Candlebox and Collective Soul were labelled almost pejoratively as post-grunge which, according to Tim Grierson of About.com , is "suggesting that rather than being a musical movement in their own right, they were just a calculated, cynical response to a legitimate stylistic shift in rock music." Post-grunge morphed during the late 1990s and 2000s as newer bands such as Foo Fighters , Matchbox Twenty , Creed and Nickelback emerged, becoming among
750-539: A flurry of British bands emerged that wished to "get rid of grunge" and "declare war on America", taking the public and native music press by storm. Dubbed " Britpop " by the media, and represented by Pulp , Blur , Suede , and Oasis , this movement was the British equivalent of the grunge explosion, in that the artists propelled alternative rock to the top of the charts in their home country. Britpop bands were influenced by and displayed reverence for British guitar music of
875-473: A guy on retainer the whole time [...] I ruined her life for two years because I kicked her out of the band for the duration of the record. Celebrity Skin marked a major shift in Hole's musical style, emphasizing a more mainstream alternative rock sound. Jael Goldfine of Paper magazine notes that the album "defined the post-grunge power pop sound of the '90s." Rolling Stone ' s James Hunter observed that
1000-571: A headliner in 1998. In light of the festival's troubles that year, Spin said, "Lollapalooza is as comatose as alternative rock right now". Despite these changes in style however, alternative rock remained commercially viable into the start of the 21st century. During the latter half of the 1990s, grunge was supplanted by post-grunge . Many post-grunge bands lacked the underground roots of grunge and were largely influenced by what grunge had become, namely "a wildly popular form of inward-looking, serious-minded hard rock."; many post-grunge bands emulated
1125-636: A late night new wave show entitled "Rock and Roll Alternative". " College rock " was used in the United States to describe the music during the 1980s due to its links to the college radio circuit and the tastes of college students. In the United Kingdom, dozens of small do it yourself record labels emerged as a result of the punk subculture . According to the founder of one of these labels, Cherry Red , NME and Sounds magazines published charts based on small record stores called "Alternative Charts". The first national chart based on distribution called
1250-420: A majority of groups that were signed to indie labels drew from a variety of rock and particularly 1960s rock influences. This represented a sharp break from the futuristic, hyper-rational post-punk years. "Alternative music is music that hasn't yet achieved a mainstream audience, Alternative isn't new wave any more, it's a disposition of mind. Alternative music is any kind of music that has the potential to reach
1375-461: A new wave of post-rock bands such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Sigur Rós emerged who further expanded the genre. In 1993, the Smashing Pumpkins' album Siamese Dream was a major commercial success. The strong influence of heavy metal and progressive rock on the album helped to legitimize alternative rock to mainstream radio programmers and close the gap between alternative rock and
SECTION 10
#17328731107781500-516: A newspaper. Whitemeyer also stated that Schemel was forced to drum in the studio eight hours a day for over two weeks, and that Beinhorn "wanted Patty to give up". Schemel later likened the recording sessions to "athletic training". After Schemel completed over two weeks of recording, Beinhorn brought Love into the studio and had her listen to recorded loops of Schemel's "weakest playing", and then suggested Castronovo as an alternative. Beinhorn also claimed to Love that Schemel would get "red-light fever" in
1625-411: A number of genres, including Krautrock , progressive rock , and jazz . The genre subverts or rejects rock conventions, and often incorporates electronic music. While the name of the genre was coined by music journalist Simon Reynolds in 1994 referring to Hex by the London group Bark Psychosis , the style of the genre was solidified by the release of Millions Now Living Will Never Die (1996) by
1750-488: A wariness of its "macho" aesthetic. While indie rock artists share the punk rock distrust of commercialism, the genre does not entirely define itself against that, as "the general assumption is that it's virtually impossible to make indie rock's varying musical approaches compatible with mainstream tastes in the first place". Labels such as Matador Records , Merge Records , and Dischord , and indie rockers like Pavement , Superchunk , Fugazi , and Sleater-Kinney dominated
1875-560: A wider audience. It also has real strength, real quality, real excitement, and it has to be socially significant, as opposed to Whitney Houston, which is pablum." —Mark Josephson, Executive Director of the New Music Seminar speaking in 1988 Throughout the 1980s, alternative rock remained mainly an underground phenomenon. While on occasion a song would become a commercial hit, or albums would receive critical praise in mainstream publications like Rolling Stone , alternative rock in
2000-487: Is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s with the likes of the grunge subgenre in the United States, and the Britpop and shoegaze subgenres in the United Kingdom and Ireland. During this period, many record labels were looking for "alternatives", as many corporate rock , hard rock , and glam metal acts from
2125-625: Is accessible, fiery and intimate – often at the same time," while Spin reviewer Joshua Clover referred to the album as "a record filled with quotation and reference, backtalk and revision" and said "there are too many great songs, and this is a magnificent pop record." A review published in Musician also praised the album, particularly Erlandson's guitar contributions, noting: "Erlandson's tireless, monomaniacal guitar wizardry gives Celebrity Skin its gorgeous textures and resonant power." Entertainment Weekly reviewer David Browne said "the music
2250-455: Is also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (2010). Celebrity Skin was nominated for Best Rock Album at the 1999 Grammy Awards . Celebrity Skin was a commercial success, charting in various countries within a week of its release. In the United States, the album debuted at number nine on the Billboard 200 with sales of 86,000 copies in its first week. The album
2375-581: Is an album by Ric Ocasek , released in 1997. The album was produced in part by Billy Corgan . Melissa Auf der Maur contributed backing vocals and bass. It was recorded at Electric Lady Studios . AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine called Troublizing Ocasek's "best solo album since This Side of Paradise ." The A.V. Club called it "a vital album that recalls the driving rock of Ocasek's much-loved former group while sounding fresher than many acts currently being passed off as cutting-edge." The Sun Sentinel wrote that "Ocasek's music
2500-455: Is not their best." Tom Edwards of Drowned in Sound was more critical in a retrospective review, referring to "Awful" as "gorgeous, pure blues" and "Hit So Hard" as "the best song about love since ' Retard Girl '," but concluding that "it's a weak record full of empty music either way." Several publications included Celebrity Skin in their year-end periodical lists, including Time , who listed
2625-505: Is often difficult because of two conflicting applications of the word. Alternative can describe music that challenges the status quo and that is "fiercely iconoclastic, anticommercial, and antimainstream", and the term is also used in the music industry to denote "the choices available to consumers via record stores, radio, cable television, and the Internet." However alternative music has paradoxically become just as commercial and marketable as
SECTION 20
#17328731107782750-490: Is sleeker and more taut than anything Hole have done". The Guardian ' s Caroline Sullivan awarded the album three out of five stars, writing that "Love and Hole have always been about feeling rather than technique... well, a bit of technique actually creeps in, too. Technique is the only word for whatever process made certain segments of Celebrity Skin sound so confident, so smooth." Of retrospective assessments, AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that
2875-594: The Billboard 200 album chart. Soundgarden 's album Badmotorfinger , Alice in Chains ' Dirt and Stone Temple Pilots ' Core along with the Temple of the Dog album collaboration featuring members of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, were also among the 100 top-selling albums of 1992. The popular breakthrough of these grunge bands prompted Rolling Stone to nickname Seattle "the new Liverpool ". Major record labels signed most of
3000-643: The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), peaking at number four, with sales of over 140,000 copies. In the United Kingdom, it peaked at number 11 with 124,221 copies sold, and was certified Gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). Additionally, the album peaked at number 15 on the Austrian Albums Chart ; on Switzerland's Albums Chart at number six; on Sweden's Albums Chart at number 10; and on
3125-499: The Billboard charts. Pearl Jam also continued to perform well commercially with its second album, Vs. (1993), which topped the Billboard charts by selling a record 950,378 copies in its first week of release. In 1993, the Smashing Pumpkins released their major breakthrough album, Siamese Dream —which debuted at number 10 on the Billboard 200 and sold over 4 million copies by 1996, receiving multi-platinum certification by
3250-520: The Indie Chart was published in January 1980; it immediately succeeded in its aim to help these labels. At the time, the term indie was used literally to describe independently distributed records. By 1985, indie had come to mean a particular genre, or group of subgenres, rather than simply distribution status. The use of the term alternative to describe rock music originated around the mid-1980s; at
3375-582: The New Zealand Music Chart at number 15, where it was also certified gold. All lyrics written by Courtney Love . All tracks produced by Michael Beinhorn . Credits adapted from the liner notes of Celebrity Skin and Hit So Hard: A Memoir . Hole Guest musicians Production Technical Design Shipments figures based on certification alone. Alternative rock Alternative rock (also known as alternative music , alt-rock or simply alternative )
3500-610: The RIAA . In 1995, the band released their double album, Mellon Collie & the Infinite Sadness — which went on to sell 10 million copies in the US alone, certifying it as a Diamond record. With the decline of the Madchester scene and the unglamorousness of shoegazing, the tide of grunge from America dominated the British alternative scene and music press in the early 1990s. As a reaction,
3625-495: The hair metal that had dominated rock music at that time fell out of favor in the face of music that was authentic and culturally relevant. The breakthrough success of Nirvana led to the widespread popularization of alternative rock in the 1990s. It heralded a "new openness to alternative rock" among commercial radio stations, opening doors for heavier alternative bands in particular. In the wake of Nevermind , alternative rock "found itself dragged-kicking and screaming ... into
3750-551: The "grunging of America" to the mass-marketing of punk rock, disco , and hip hop in previous years. As a result of the genre's popularity, a backlash against grunge developed in Seattle. Nirvana's follow-up album In Utero (1993) was an intentionally abrasive album that Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic described as a "wild aggressive sound, a true alternative record." Nevertheless, upon its release in September 1993 In Utero topped
3875-553: The 1970s, which served as a progressive alternative to top 40 radio formats by featuring longer songs and giving DJs more freedom in song selection. According to one former DJ and promoter, "Somehow this term 'alternative' got rediscovered and heisted by college radio people during the 80s who applied it to new post-punk, indie, or underground-whatever music." At first the term referred to intentionally non-mainstream rock acts that were not influenced by "heavy metal ballads, rarefied new wave" and "high-energy dance anthems". Usage of
Celebrity Skin - Misplaced Pages Continue
4000-479: The 1980s was primarily featured on independent record labels, fanzines and college radio stations. Alternative bands built underground followings by touring constantly and by regularly releasing low-budget albums. In the United States, new bands would form in the wake of previous bands, which created an extensive underground circuit filled with different scenes in various parts of the country. College radio formed an essential part of breaking new alternative music. In
4125-552: The 1980s were beginning to grow stale throughout the music industry . The emergence of Generation X as a cultural force in the 1990s also contributed greatly to the rise of alternative rock. "Alternative" refers to the genre's distinction from mainstream or commercial rock or pop. The term's original meaning was broader, referring to musicians influenced by the musical style or independent, DIY ethos of late-1970s punk rock . Traditionally, alternative rock varied in terms of its sound, social context, and regional roots. Throughout
4250-463: The 1980s, alternative bands generally played in small clubs, recorded for indie labels, and spread their popularity through word of mouth . As such, there is no set musical style for alternative rock as a whole, although in 1989 The New York Times asserted that the genre is "guitar music first of all, with guitars that blast out power chords, pick out chiming riffs, buzz with fuzztone and squeal in feedback." More often than in other rock styles since
4375-402: The 1980s, magazines and zines , college radio airplay , and word of mouth had increased the prominence and highlighted the diversity of alternative rock's distinct styles (and music scenes), such as noise pop , indie rock , grunge , and shoegaze . In September 1988, Billboard introduced "alternative" into their charting system to reflect the rise of the format across radio stations in
4500-736: The 2000s with multi-platinum acts such as Fall Out Boy , My Chemical Romance , Paramore and Panic! at the Disco . Bands such as the White Stripes and the Strokes found commercial success in the early 2000s, influencing an influx of new alternative rock bands that drew inspiration from garage rock , post-punk and new wave , establishing a revival of the genres. In the past, popular music tastes were largely dictated by music executives within large entertainment corporations. Record companies signed contracts with those entertainers who were thought to become
4625-468: The American indie scene for most of the 1990s. One of the main indie rock movements of the 1990s was lo-fi . The movement, which focused on the recording and distribution of music on low-quality cassette tapes , initially emerged in the 1980s. By 1992, Pavement, Guided by Voices and Sebadoh became popular lo-fi cult acts in the United States, while subsequently artists like Beck and Liz Phair brought
4750-530: The American dream". The band entered Conway Recording Studios in Los Angeles in April 1997 to begin the recording sessions of the album. The original plan was to have Billy Corgan as executive producer , who was a second choice after Brian Eno , however, Corgan did not initially participate in, or contribute to the recording process. Michael Beinhorn was hired as head of production instead. Recording sessions for
4875-505: The British indie scene through the end of the decade, as various bands drew from singer Morrissey 's English-centered lyrical topics and guitarist Johnny Marr 's jangly guitar-playing style. The C86 cassette, a 1986 NME premium featuring Primal Scream , the Wedding Present and others, was a major influence on the development of indie pop and the British indie scene as a whole. Other forms of alternative rock developed in
5000-700: The British music press at the end of the decade along with the Madchester scene. Performing for the most part in the Haçienda , a nightclub in Manchester owned by New Order and Factory Records , Madchester bands such as Happy Mondays and the Stone Roses mixed acid house dance rhythms with melodic guitar pop. The Amerindie of the early '80s became known as alternative or alt-rock, ascendant from Nirvana until 1996 or so but currently very unfashionable, never mind that
5125-580: The Chicago group Tortoise . Post-rock was the dominant form of experimental rock music in the 1990s and bands from the genre signed to such labels as Thrill Jockey , Kranky , Drag City , and Too Pure . A related genre, math rock , peaked in the mid-1990s. In comparison to post-rock, math rock relies on more complex time signatures and intertwining phrases. By the end of the decade a backlash had emerged against post-rock due to its "dispassionate intellectuality" and its perceived increasing predictability, but
Celebrity Skin - Misplaced Pages Continue
5250-513: 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
5375-855: The Lollapalooza festival became the most successful tour in North America in July and August 1991. For Dave Grohl of Nirvana who attended the festival at an open-air amphitheater in Southern California , "it felt like something was happening, that was the beginning of it all". The tour helped change the mentalities in the music industry: "by that fall, radio and MTV and music had changed. I really think that if it weren't for Perry [Farrell], if it weren't for Lollapalooza , you and I wouldn't be having this conversation right now". The release of Nirvana's single " Smells Like Teen Spirit " in September 1991 "marked
5500-613: The Replacements upended a number of underground scene conventions; Azerrad noted that "along with R.E.M., they were one of the few underground bands that mainstream people liked." By the late 1980s, the American alternative scene was dominated by styles ranging from quirky alternative pop ( They Might Be Giants and Camper Van Beethoven ), to noise rock ( Sonic Youth , Big Black , the Jesus Lizard ) and industrial rock ( Ministry , Nine Inch Nails). These sounds were in turn followed by
5625-510: The Story) Morning Glory? (1995), went on to become the third best-selling album in the UK's history. Long synonymous with alternative rock as a whole in the U.S., indie rock became a distinct form following the popular breakthrough of Nirvana. Indie rock was formulated as a rejection of alternative rock's absorption into the mainstream by artists who could not or refused to cross over, and
5750-580: The Top 40 and spawned a number of jangle pop followers. One of the many jangle pop scenes of the early 1980s, Los Angeles' Paisley Underground revived the sounds of the 1960s, incorporating psychedelia, rich vocal harmonies and the guitar interplay of folk rock as well as punk and underground influences such as the Velvet Underground . American indie record labels SST Records , Twin/Tone Records , Touch and Go Records , and Dischord Records presided over
5875-459: The UK during the 1980s. the Jesus and Mary Chain 's sound combined the Velvet Underground's "melancholy noise" with Beach Boys pop melodies and Phil Spector 's " Wall of Sound " production, while New Order emerged from the demise of post-punk band Joy Division and experimented with disco and dance music . The Mary Chain, along with Dinosaur Jr. , C86 and the dream pop of Cocteau Twins , were
6000-600: The US Billboard Hot 100 , and entered the top 20 of the United Kingdom, Scotland, and Iceland. It also topped the US Alternative Songs chart and the Canadian Rock/Alternative chart. The single was nominated for Best Rock Song and Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group at the 1999 Grammy Awards . It was followed by " Malibu ", released on December 29, 1998. The single peaked at number 81 on
6125-592: The US Billboard Hot 100, and entered the top 40 of Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. "Malibu" was nominated for Best Cinematography at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards and nominated for a Music Video Cinematography Achievement provided by the Music Video Production Association. The single also received a nomination for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group at the 2000 Grammy Awards . The third and final single, " Awful ",
6250-577: The US by a more pop-oriented focus (marked by an equal emphasis on albums and singles, as well as greater openness to incorporating elements of dance and club culture) and a lyrical emphasis on specifically British concerns. As a result, few British alternative bands have achieved commercial success in the US. Since the 1980s, alternative rock has been played extensively on the radio in the UK, particularly by disc jockeys such as John Peel (who championed alternative music on BBC Radio 1 ), Richard Skinner , and Annie Nightingale . Artists with cult followings in
6375-610: The US received greater exposure through British national radio and the weekly music press, and many alternative bands had chart success there. Early American alternative bands such as the Dream Syndicate , the Bongos , 10,000 Maniacs , R.E.M. , the Feelies and Violent Femmes combined punk influences with folk music and mainstream music influences. R.E.M. was the most immediately successful; their debut album, Murmur (1983), entered
SECTION 50
#17328731107786500-485: 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
6625-508: The United States by stations like KROQ-FM in Los Angeles and WDRE-FM in New York, which were playing music from more underground , independent, and non-commercial rock artists. Initially, several alternative styles achieved minor mainstream notice and a few bands, such as R.E.M. and Jane's Addiction , were signed to major labels . Most alternative bands at the time, like the Smiths , one of
6750-473: The Velvet Underground , which influenced many alternative rock bands that would come after it. Eccentric and quirky figures of the 1960s, such as Syd Barrett have influence on alternative rock in general. The Dead Kennedys formed the independent record label Alternative Tentacles in 1979, releasing influential underground music such as the 1983 self-titled EP from the Butthole Surfers . By 1984,
6875-553: The advent of Boston 's Pixies and Los Angeles' Jane's Addiction. Around the same time, the grunge subgenre emerged in Seattle , Washington, initially referred to as "The Seattle Sound" until its rise to popularity in the early 1990s. Grunge featured a sludgy, murky guitar sound that syncretized heavy metal and punk rock. Promoted largely by Seattle indie label Sub Pop , grunge bands were noted for their thrift store fashion which favored flannel shirts and combat boots suited to
7000-475: The aesthetic to mainstream audiences. The period also saw alternative confessional female singer-songwriters. Besides the aforementioned Liz Phair, PJ Harvey fit into this sub group. In the mid-1990s, Sunny Day Real Estate defined the emo genre. Weezer 's album Pinkerton (1996) was also influential. Post-rock was established by Talk Talk 's Laughing Stock and Slint 's Spiderland albums, both released in 1991. Post-rock draws influence from
7125-544: The album at number nine on its Best of 1998 Music list, Spin , who listed the album at number 11 on its Top 20 Albums of the Year list, and The Village Voice , who listed the album at number 14 in the Pazz and Jop Critics' Poll. Los Angeles Times ' s Robert Hillburn ranked it number five on the list of Top 10 Albums of the Year. The 2013 NME ' s The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time ranked Celebrity Skin 265th on their list. It
7250-421: The album features shifts in guitar sounds that alternate from "silveriness to something rougher in a heartbeat," adding that it is teeming with "minimalist explosion, idiomatic flair and dead-on rhythms." The Independent later referred to the album as having ushered in a pop rock "era" for Hole. In 2018, Melissa Auf der Maur reflected "That wasn't something I was striving for but it was something Courtney and
7375-536: The album reference, and sometimes directly quote, multiple literary works: The album's title track directly quotes The House of Life by Dante Rossetti ("my name is might-have-been"), as well as William Shakespeare 's The Merchant of Venice ("So glad I came here with your pound of flesh"). "Awful", the album's third single, references Neil Diamond 's " Cherry, Cherry ", as well as the American spiritual " Swing Low, Sweet Chariot ". Various lyrical references to Hollywood and California culture are present throughout
7500-417: The album was "a glaze of shiny guitars and hazy melodies, all intended to evoke the heyday of Californian pop in the late '70s," awarding the album three and a half stars out of five. In a piece celebrating the album's 20th anniversary, Stereogum critic Gabriela Claymore characterized it as a "polished, decadent rock [record] with something rotten at its core... Hole's most sonically accomplished album but it
7625-492: The album was to "deconstruct the California Sound " in the L.A. tradition of bands like The Doors , The Beach Boys and The Byrds , but she was struggling with the composition of the record and felt like she was "in a rut". After sending early recordings of the songs to Corgan, he decided to join the band in the studio for a total of twelve days in an attempt to help Love with her songcraft. Love compared Corgan's presence in
SECTION 60
#17328731107787750-458: The album were spread out over the course of eight to nine months in various locations. The majority of the album was recorded at Conway Recording Studios, however, additional recording was done at Record Plant West in Los Angeles and Olympic Studios in London, United Kingdom . The final recording sessions were completed at Quad Studios in early 1998. These sessions were also video-taped by a friend of
7875-583: The album's packaging, with the back cover displaying a cropped version of the painting Ophelia Drowning (1895) by Paul Steck . Photographs of the Modesto Arch (which reads "Water, Wealth, Contentment, Health") and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power figure in the liner notes, keeping in theme with the album's preoccupation with California. The liner notes dedicate the album to "the stolen water of Los Angeles and to anyone who ever drowned",
8000-726: 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
8125-404: The album. Whereas the band's debut, Pretty on the Inside , had dealt with the "repulsive aspects of L.A.—superficiality, sexism, violence, and drugs", Celebrity Skin examined the more opulent elements of Los Angeles—specifically from the perspective of Love, who at the time had risen as an A-list star— but "deconstructed the concept, picking off the healing scab of her public reinvention to rehash
8250-429: The album: Patty, who's been my drummer for years and years and years, she had like a two-year living-in-a-tent crack existence [in] downtown [Los Angeles]. I did this very "classic rock" horrible thing where I let the producer tell me that she sucked, let him play me a tape—this is so, like, out of the rock bad cliché book—let him play me a tape of her sounding the worst, that he had basically cobbled together. He'd kept
8375-529: The alternative rock community" including Henry Rollins , Butthole Surfers , Ice-T , Nine Inch Nails , Siouxsie and the Banshees (as second headliners) and Jane's Addiction (as the headlining act). Covering for MTV the opening date of Lollapalooza in Phoenix in July 1991, Dave Kendall introduced the report saying the festival presented the "most diverse lineups of alternative rock". That summer, Farrell had coined
8500-437: The alternative/independent scene and dryly tore it apart." David Lowery , then frontman of Camper Van Beethoven, later recalled: "I remember first seeing that word applied to us... The nearest I could figure is that we seemed like a punk band, but we were playing pop music, so they made up this word alternative for those of us who do that." DJs and promoters during the 1980s claim the term originates from American FM radio of
8625-444: The band, as noted in an October 1998 article in Spin magazine. Auf der Maur characterized the sessions as being based around Love's busy schedule at the time: "It was her Hollywood phase", during which she would "chain-smoke Marlboro lights ", "go to the beach at 7AM with a personal trainer and auditioning. She'd just done [The People vs.] Larry Flynt ." According to Love, her vision for
8750-482: 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
8875-410: The big-budget videos that accompanied its singles, the songs remain raw and cynical, as wary and worn as they are defiant." While writing the lyrics for Celebrity Skin , Love aimed to "marry great hooks with a dense [lyrical] vision... I want to be as perverse as I'd like to be—while making you hum along with it." She cited an array of literary influences, including T. S. Eliot . Several songs on
9000-411: The cover art. Joe-Mama Nitzberg, the album's art director, recalled that the palm tree and fire were in fact real, and that at one point during the shoot, a wind gust led the tree to topple over. Nitzberg stated that the unifying visual theme for the album's overall artwork and packaging was to highlight Los Angeles as an artificial "paradise." The lyrical themes of water and drowning were carried over to
9125-460: The death of Layne Staley and the subsequent disbanding of Alice in Chains in 2002, and the disbanding of both the Cranberries and Stone Temple Pilots in 2003. Britpop also began fading after Oasis ' third album, Be Here Now (1997), was met with lackluster reviews. A signifier of alternative rock's changes was the hiatus of the Lollapalooza festival after an unsuccessful attempt to find
9250-459: The decisions were business people dealing with music as a product, and those bands who were not making the expected sales figures were then excluded from this system. Before the term alternative rock came into common usage around 1990, the sorts of music to which it refers were known by a variety of terms. In 1979, Terry Tolkin used the term Alternative Music to describe the groups he was writing about. In 1979 Dallas radio station KZEW had
9375-453: The early 2000s, when indie rock became the most common term in the US to describe modern pop and rock, the terms "indie rock" and "alternative rock" were often used interchangeably; while there are aspects which both genres have in common, "indie rock" was regarded as a British-based term, unlike the more American "alternative rock". The name "alternative rock" essentially serves as an umbrella term for underground music that has emerged in
9500-553: 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
9625-507: The extreme measures undertaken by Hole's label, DGC Records , to prevent the album from leaking (including an "iron clad" agreement that prohibited music journalists who received advance copies from allowing anyone else to hear or record the album), the first single from the album, " Celebrity Skin ", was leaked three weeks before its intended release dates and played "nearly a dozen times" on New York radio station WXRK (92.3 FM) and their Los Angeles-based sister station, KROQ-FM (106.7 FM), on
9750-429: The formative influences for the shoegazing movement of the late 1980s. Named for the band members' tendency to stare at their feet and guitar effects pedals onstage rather than interact with the audience, shoegazing acts like My Bloody Valentine and Slowdive created an overwhelmingly loud "wash of sound" that obscured vocals and melodies with long, droning riffs, distortion, and feedback. Shoegazing bands dominated
9875-623: The former referring to the California water wars . Celebrity Skin received positive reviews from music critics . The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau said Love is "better punk than actress, better actress than popster" and listed the title track and "Awful" as the album's most notable songs. Robert Cherry of the Alternative Press described Celebrity Skin ' s sound as "meticulously orchestrated guitars, multilayered vocal harmonies, quantized drums and sheeny studio magic" and said
10000-430: The foundation for its large cult following. The key British alternative rock band to emerge during the 1980s was Manchester 's the Smiths . Music journalist Simon Reynolds singled out the Smiths and their American contemporaries R.E.M. as "the two most important alt-rock bands of the day", commenting that they "were eighties bands only in the sense of being against the eighties". The Smiths exerted an influence over
10125-457: The instigation of the grunge music phenomenon". Helped by constant airplay of the song's music video on MTV, their album Nevermind was selling 400,000 copies a week by Christmas 1991. Its success surprised the music industry. Nevermind not only popularized grunge, but also established "the cultural and commercial viability of alternative rock in general." Michael Azerrad asserted that Nevermind symbolized "a sea-change in rock music" in which
10250-498: The invigorating, mainstream coating would lead you to believe." Steve Sutherland of NME mentioned that "the first thing you think when Celebrity Skin smacks you in the nose is that you may never need to hear a rock 'n' roll record ever again," and compared the album's sound to Fleetwood Mac . James Hunter from Rolling Stone described it as "sprung, flung and fun, high-impact, rock-fueled pop" and noted that "it teems with sonic knockouts that make you see all sorts of stars and
10375-422: The key British alternative rock bands during the 1980s, remained signed to independent labels and received relatively little attention from mainstream radio, television, or newspapers. With the breakthrough of Nirvana and the popularity of the grunge and Britpop movements in the 1990s, alternative rock entered the musical mainstream, and many alternative bands became successful. Emo found mainstream success in
10500-436: The label were. At the time I was like, 'why are you making this so fancy?' but she had a whole vision for her art." Rebecca Nicholson of The Guardian observed a darker subtext to the album's glossy production, however, noting: " Celebrity Skin ' s aesthetic is caught up in that turmoil of competing identities, a push-pull of glossy glamour and its seedy underbelly. For all the slickness of Michael Beinhorn’s production and
10625-420: The local weather. Early grunge bands Soundgarden and Mudhoney found critical acclaim in the U.S. and UK, respectively. By the end of the decade, a number of alternative bands began to sign to major labels. While early major label signings Hüsker Dü and the Replacements had little success, acts who signed with majors in their wake such as R.E.M. and Jane's Addiction achieved gold and platinum records, setting
10750-489: The mainstream rock, with record companies using the term "alternative" to market music to an audience that mainstream rock does not reach. Using a broad definition of the genre, Dave Thompson in his book Alternative Rock cites the formation of the Sex Pistols as well as the release of the albums Horses by Patti Smith and Metal Machine Music by Lou Reed as three key events that gave birth to alternative rock. Until
10875-559: The mainstream" and record companies, confused by the genre's success yet eager to capitalize on it, scrambled to sign bands. The New York Times declared in 1993, "Alternative rock doesn't seem so alternative anymore. Every major label has a handful of guitar-driven bands in shapeless shirts and threadbare jeans, bands with bad posture and good riffs who cultivate the oblique and the evasive, who conceal catchy tunes with noise and hide craftsmanship behind nonchalance." However, many alternative rock artists rejected success, for it conflicted with
11000-494: The mainstreaming of rock music, alternative rock lyrics tend to address topics of social concern, such as drug use, depression, suicide, and environmentalism . This approach to lyrics developed as a reflection of the social and economic strains in the United States and United Kingdom of the 1980s and early 1990s. Precursors to alternative rock existed in the 1960s with proto-punk . The origins of alternative rock can be traced back to The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) by
11125-502: The mid-1980s, college station KCPR in San Luis Obispo, California , described in a DJ handbook the tension between popular and "cutting edge" songs as played on "alternative radio". Although American alternative artists of the 1980s never generated spectacular album sales, they exerted a considerable influence on later alternative musicians and laid the groundwork for their success. On September 10, 1988, an Alternative Songs chart
11250-460: The more melodic, diverse music of college rock that emerged. Azerrad wrote, "Hüsker Dü played a huge role in convincing the underground that melody and punk rock weren't antithetical." The band also set an example by being the first group from the American indie scene to sign to a major record label, which helped establish college rock as "a viable commercial enterprise". By focusing on heartfelt songwriting and wordplay instead of political concerns,
11375-490: The most popular rock bands in the United States. At the same time Britpop began to decline, Radiohead achieved critical acclaim with its third album OK Computer (1997), and its follow-ups Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001), which were in marked contrast with the traditionalism of Britpop. Radiohead, along with post-Britpop groups like Travis , Stereophonics and Coldplay , were major forces in British rock in subsequent years. Troublizing Troublizing
11500-448: The most popular, and therefore who could generate the most sales. These bands were able to record their songs in expensive studios, and their works were then offered for sale through record store chains that were owned by the entertainment corporations, along with eventually selling the merchandise into big box retailers . Record companies worked with radio and television companies to get the most exposure for their artists. The people making
11625-443: The music is still there. — Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s (2000) By the start of the 1990s, the music industry was enticed by alternative rock's commercial possibilities and major labels had already signed Jane's Addiction, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Dinosaur Jr. In early 1991, R.E.M. went mainstream worldwide with Out of Time while becoming a blueprint for many alternative bands. The first edition of
11750-434: The name from a short-lived band in Los Angeles named Celebrity Skin, as well as a bootleg pornographic magazine featuring nude candid photos of celebrities. Celebrity Skin was released internationally on September 8, 1998. It was the last album released by Hole before their dissolution in 2002, though frontwoman Courtney Love later revived the band with new members for the release of Nobody's Daughter in 2010. Despite
11875-556: The past, particularly movements and genres such as the British Invasion , glam rock , and punk rock . In 1995, the Britpop phenomenon culminated in a rivalry between its two chief groups, Oasis and Blur, symbolized by their release of competing singles " Roll With It " and " Country House " on the same day on 14 August 1995. Blur won " The Battle of Britpop ", but they were soon eclipsed in popularity by Oasis whose second album, (What's
12000-425: The people we had lost." Additional lyrical motifs include angels , stars, and heaven . Commenting on the recurring images throughout the album, Love said: "I'm a Cancer . I recycle." On the album's title, Love divulged that she initially wanted to name it Holy War , as she felt it was "a mission statement. It's a statement of such pretense and import. It's incredibly ambitious." Erlandson alternately wanted to name
12125-418: The prominent grunge bands in Seattle, while a second influx of bands moved to the city in hopes of success. At the same time, critics asserted that advertising was co-opting elements of grunge and turning it into a fad. Entertainment Weekly commented in a 1993 article, "There hasn't been this kind of exploitation of a subculture since the media discovered hippies in the '60s." The New York Times compared
12250-427: The rebellious, DIY ethic the genre had espoused before mainstream exposure and their ideas of artistic authenticity. Other grunge bands subsequently replicated Nirvana's success. Pearl Jam had released its debut album Ten a month before Nevermind in 1991, but album sales only picked up a year later. By the second half of 1992 Ten became a breakthrough success, being certified gold and reaching number two on
12375-439: The record Sugar Coma , which Love opposed, stating it was "pedestrian—it denotes the end of a cycle. Something deadly. If executives like it, you know it's bad." The final title, Celebrity Skin , was teased by Love during a 1995 interview with Jools Holland , in which she joked that she was considering naming their upcoming album Celebrity Skin because she had "touched a lot of it". She subsequently clarified that she had derived
12500-411: The record is water and drowning , as noted by Erlandson in a 1998 interview on the album's composition and recording sessions. Erlandson cited the drowning death of Jeff Buckley , as well as the deaths of both Erlandson's and Auf der Maur's fathers of pulmonary edema and lung cancer , respectively. "Those were literal things," said Erlandson, "but drowning became a metaphor for this record and for all
12625-421: The shift from the hardcore punk that then dominated the American underground scene to the more diverse styles of alternative rock that were emerging. Minneapolis bands Hüsker Dü and the Replacements were indicative of this shift. Both started out as punk rock bands, but soon diversified their sounds and became more melodic. Michael Azerrad asserted that Hüsker Dü was the key link between hardcore punk and
12750-572: 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,
12875-486: The songs "hit nerve centers like a thousand AM classics". The Austin Chronicle ' s Marc Savlov referred to the album as "end of the summer crunch-pop from the most enigmatic woman around" but criticized Love's "painful, quasi- Freudian vein" and "Michael Beinhorn's slick, SoCal production". The Los Angeles Times reviewer Robert Hilburn called the album "one wild emotional ride" and "a far more complex work than
13000-491: 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
13125-478: The sound and style of grunge, "but not necessarily the individual idiosyncracies of its original artists." Post-grunge was a more commercially viable genre that tempered the distorted guitars of grunge with polished, radio-ready production. Originally, post-grunge was a label used almost pejoratively on bands that emerged when grunge was mainstream and emulated the grunge sound. The label suggested that bands labelled as post-grunge were simply musically derivative, or
13250-514: The stage for alternative's later breakthrough. Some bands such as Pixies had massive success overseas while they were ignored domestically. In the middle of the decade, Hüsker Dü's album Zen Arcade influenced other hardcore acts by tackling personal issues. Out of Washington, D.C.'s hardcore scene what was called "emocore" or, later, " emo " emerged and was noted for its lyrics which delved into emotional, very personal subject matter (vocalists sometimes cried) and added free association poetry and
13375-473: The studio to "a math teacher who wouldn't give you the answers but was making you solve the problems yourself", and stated that he had her study key changes as well as melodies and phrasing from songs by Frank Sinatra and The Beatles : What [Billy's] great at for me— what he did for me has nothing to do with Eric and Melissa. It has to do with me. I was in a rut; I could not even get out of bed. I didn't want to make this record; I didn't want to do anything. I
13500-470: The studio, implying that she was incapable of remembering the correct parts to play during recording. Whitemeyer claimed that Castronovo had been asked by Beinhorn to play on the record before Love or any of the other band members heard Schemel's drum tracks, and that Beinhorn "had it all planned out" early on. Beinhorn's pressure, coupled with a feeling that Love wasn't supporting her, resulted in Schemel leaving
13625-416: The studio, requesting a settlement , and breaking ties with the band. Several months later, Schemel showed up to join the band for promotional photoshoots as per her original contract with the label, but refused to tour with the band to support the record. In 2002, Love admitted in an interview with Carrie Fisher that despite Beinhorn's meddling, it had ultimately been her decision to have Schemel replaced on
13750-513: The subgenre's lyrics often address literary romanticism, morbidity, religious symbolism, and supernatural mysticism. Bands of this subgenre took inspiration from two British post-punk groups, Siouxsie and the Banshees , and Joy Division . Bauhaus ' debut single " Bela Lugosi's Dead ", released in 1979, is considered to be the proper beginning of the gothic rock subgenre. The Cure 's "oppressively dispirited" albums including Pornography (1982) cemented that group's stature in that style and laid
13875-481: The suggestion of Beinhorn. This issue created a rift between Schemel and the band, resulting in her dropping out of 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
14000-644: The term Alternative Nation . In December 1991, Spin magazine noted: "this year, for the first time, it became resoundingly clear that what has formerly been considered alternative rock —a college-centered marketing group with fairly lucrative, if limited, potential—has in fact moved into the mainstream." In the late 1990s, the definition again became more specific. In 1997, Neil Strauss of The New York Times defined alternative rock as "hard-edged rock distinguished by brittle, '70s-inspired guitar riffing and singers agonizing over their problems until they take on epic proportions." Defining music as alternative
14125-514: The term would broaden to include new wave , pop, punk rock , post-punk , and occasionally " college "/" indie " rock, all found on the American "commercial alternative" radio stations of the time such as Los Angeles' KROQ-FM . Journalist Jim Gerr wrote that Alternative also encompassed variants such as "rap, trash, metal and industrial". The bill of the first Lollapalooza , an itinerant festival in North America conceived by Jane's Addiction frontman Perry Farrell , reunited "disparate elements of
14250-522: The time, the common music industry terms for cutting-edge music were new music and postmodern , respectively indicating freshness and a tendency to recontextualize sounds of the past. A similar term, alternative pop , emerged around 1985. In 1987, Spin magazine categorized college rock band Camper Van Beethoven as "alternative/indie", saying that their 1985 song "Where the Hell Is Bill" (from Telephone Free Landslide Victory ) "called out
14375-429: The track "Reasons to Be Beautiful". A wide variety of guitars, effect pedals and equipment were used during the recording of Celebrity Skin . Love used Fender tube amplifiers , Matchless amps , Ampeg amps and a Randall Commander that belonged to Love's late husband Kurt Cobain . Love's primary guitars during the sessions were her custom Fender Vista Venus and a Chet Atkins Gretsch . Erlandson's guitar set-up
14500-436: The type of rock played on American 1970s Album Oriented Rock radio. In the early 21st century, many alternative rock bands that experienced mainstream success struggled following the suicide of Nirvana 's Kurt Cobain in April 1994, Pearl Jam 's failed lawsuit against concert venue promoter Ticketmaster , Soundgarden 's break-up in 1997, the Smashing Pumpkins losing its original members in 2000, L7 's hiatus in 2001,
14625-405: The wake of punk rock since the mid-1980s. Throughout much of its history, alternative rock has been largely defined by its rejection of the commercialism of mainstream culture, although this could be contested since some of the major alternative artists have eventually achieved mainstream success or co-opted with the major labels from the 1990s onward (especially into the 2000s, and beyond). In
14750-428: The weekend of July 31 to August 2, 1998. DGC spokesperson Jim Merlis denied that the leak originated from them and issued WXRK a cease and desist order on August 3, 1998. Nevertheless, San Francisco radio station Live 105 (105.3 FM) played the single again the following weekend. The lead single, "Celebrity Skin", was officially released on September 8, 1998, the same day of the album release. It peaked at number 85 on
14875-562: The wounds of her past". Commenting on the themes, James Hunter of Rolling Stone notes that the album is lyrically obsessed with "the promises and the agonies of Southern California. Sold-out sluts, fading actresses, deluded teenagers, “summer babes” and hunks—all this “beautiful garbage” crowds the roadside of the album." Gil Kaufman, writing about the album for MTV , noted that "Love's crash-and-burn lyrics are full of provocative, self-referential phrases that might harbor double or triple meanings." Another prominent lyrical and aesthetic theme on
15000-502: Was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on October 13, 1998, and later certified platinum on December 21 for shipments in excess of one million copies. As of April 2010, it had sold 1.4 million copies in the United States. The album has also been certified Platinum by platinum by Music Canada (MC), peaking at number three with sales of over 100,000 copies, and two times Platinum by
15125-520: Was created by Billboard , listing the 40 most-played songs on alternative and modern rock radio stations in the US: the first number one was " Peek-a-Boo " by Siouxsie and the Banshees . By 1989, the genre had become popular enough that a package tour featuring New Order , Public Image Limited and the Sugarcubes toured the US arena circuit. Early on, British alternative rock was distinguished from that of
15250-585: Was dull, my blade was not sharp, and he's probably one of the only people on the planet that can challenge me. My craft was at this place and Eric and Melissa and Patty couldn't help me; they all have brilliance and craft, but because I'm in a band within a family context with them, they weren't outsiders enough to really just help me. Of the album's twelve tracks, Corgan shares instrumental songwriting credits on five. In addition to Corgan, Auf der Maur's former Tinker bandmate, Jordon Zadorozny , and Go-Go's guitarist and songwriter Charlotte Caffey helped co-compose
15375-422: Was much more complex, using numerous guitars through different effects in a set-up he arranged with Beinhorn. He used three of his Veleno guitars that were also used to record Live Through This , a 1968 Fender Telecaster and "numerous other guitars". Each signal from each guitar was split to two separate channels. One channel included a Tech 21 SansAmp, a collection of vintage analog synthesizers , including
15500-513: Was released on April 27, 1999. It peaked at number 13 on US Alternative Songs chart and entered the ARIA Top 100 Singles Chart and the UK Singles Chart. The front cover of the album features a black-and-white photograph of all four band members standing in front of a burning palm tree . The photograph was a Polaroid that had initially been intended as a test shot, but was ultimately chosen for
15625-439: Was replaced by session drummer Deen Castronovo during the final recording sessions; thus, her drumming does not appear on the finished tracks. According to Schemel, Beinhorn was actively "psyching her out" in the studio when she began recording. According to sound technician Chris Whitemeyer, Beinhorn would request endless takes of Schemel's drumming, only to then lower the volume in his booth to inaudible levels, sit back, and read
#777222