Hole - Celebrity Skin (1998)

Celebrity Skin is the third studio album by American alternative rock band Hole, released worldwide on September 8, 1998 on Geffen Records and one day later in the United States on DGC Records. Hole intended 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 the band recording in California, New York and the United Kingdom.

The album was the band's only studio release to feature bassist Melissa Auf der Maur. Unlike the material on the band's previous albums, the songs on Celebrity Skin were composed by a number of musicians instead of only frontwoman Courtney Love and lead guitarist Eric Erlandson. The Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan helped write five songs on the album, and others, including Auf der Maur's former bandmate Jordon Zadorozny, contributed to its composition. Love named the album and its title track after a poem she had written, which was heavily influenced by T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland".[2]

Drummer Patty Schemel played the demos on this album, and was replaced with session drummer Deen Castronovo at the suggestion of producer 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. Celebrity Skin was the band's last album before their disbandment in 2002.

Celebrity Skin was Hole's most commercially successful album. To date, it has sold over 1,400,000 copies in the United States alone, has been certified as platinum in Australia, Canada and the United States and 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 the album was listed on a number of publications' year-end lists in 1998. 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.