If celebrity is the new religion and we all abase ourselves in worship at Planet Hollywood, then Courtney Love has walked among the Gods. You can see her as the obvious - a hanger-on Nancy Spungeon wannabe who turned her back on all she purported to hold dear when lured away by the bright, tacky lights of the MTV Movie Awards. There must be some fallout from Love's intensly corrupt Hollywood makeover. But perhaps, as the songs here would suggest, she's playing the part of Gonzo journalist having made the ultimate sacrifice. She's been the enemy, if ony to report back the reality. In a sane world there's little you could do but condemn her transformation from punk rock outsider and real woman (raw lookig, real emotions, fearless) to airbrushed, Rhinoplastied, Versace-wearing, champagen-quaffing apostate. But this is no sane world, and Celebrity Skin says more about the lifestyles of this new superclass than any gossip column or Star is Born-style morality tale. "When I wake up in my makeup." she sings on the title track )which reas like a study in the album's themes), continuing, "Have you ever felt so used up ats this?" The glam rock-out of the musical base is juxtaposed with the severe, bereft lyrics and their recurring themes of souls sold and hardened.
Love has been reinvented by the mythology of the Kurt/Courtney love story, and thids album could hardly be released without some examinstion of its connection with the grunge Godhead. A line like "When the fire goes out you better learn to fake.It's better to rise than fade away" (from "Reasons To Be Beautiful") could hardly be delivered without reference to Cobain, while "Every note of it is wrong/They've taken it and built a mall," reflects on the obvious wrongness of alterna-rock post-Nirvana (though no one's allowed to ask what these references may mean).
Musically it's a more diverse and pop-oriented work than Live Through This, with tight, drive performances in the place of dark metallica. There's breezy acousitc pop on "Malibu," "Heaven Tonight" is upbet and sugar sweet, "Northern Star" moves from acousitc two chord simplicity into the apocalyptic, nasal, unrefined power of her earlier voice. "Hit So Hard" is a stunning ambling winner, while "Celebrity Skin" is pure edgy pop. There was never any confirmation of the persistent rumours that in a vault somewhere there are tapes of Live Through This with Kurt Cobain singing lead rather than Love, but amidst the fuore between Love and credited co-writer Billy Corgan you can hear shades of the head Pumpkin.
Beyond that, fans fearing an album floundering in compensatory trickey will be satisfied that this is a simple, melodic rock record.
The vaso-focus artwork brings us back to the point at hand, though. We see a grunge band that looks like clotheshorses on the catwalk next to the Smashing Pumpkins, guitarist Eric Erlandson trying to come across as Tom Petty, drummer Patty Schemel the lesbian archetype, Melissa auf der Maur and Love taunting with loosely concealed breasts, the former a vaguely ambiguous Goth, the latter a corruption of the Virgin Mary meets Stevie Nicks. If this is the celebrity skin, we can at least be sure it's a knowing indulgence, rather than a misconception suffered in ignorance.


special thankyou to EMMA.