Geffen Records, September 1998

This is the first single, (an import as usual) to released from Hole's 3rd studio album, Celebrity Skin. It was released on September 1st, 1998, a week before the album was released. This EP was only released in the UK and England. It debuted on the U.K. charts at #19 and made it as high as #3. A U.S. released was pondered over, but no action was taken. Surprisingly, I found this single at a mall in Dallas, Texas, which had a Virgin Megastore inside of it. The Virgin store had a whole selection of imports, and this is where I found this single/EP. Before I found it at this import store, I tried to order it off the Internet, with no avail. It's funny how when I tried to get it off the Internet, the people whom I ordered it from couldn't find it and had it on backorder, yet I find it in Texas, at a mall. Talk about irony. A blue and white Virgin "IMPORT" sticker was on the front, and I could've taken it off, but I didn't want to. The CD itself was $9.99, as seen above.

I immediately recognized the cover in the store as I had seen it numerous times on the Internet. A black and white photo of a Hollywood walkway/movie set is on the front cover. The inside photo is one of the first Celebrity Skin promo pictures. The band is dressed in their own gothic way, Melissa with poofed poodle-hair, Courtney with roses in her hair, wearing a cut off shirt. Patty and Eric look normal, Patty with her left hand in her pocket and Eric with a green shirt with a black leather coat over it. Behind the band are two burning palm trees, inspired by the L.A. scene and perhaps the new sound of the album.

This EP consists of 3 songs, 2 of which are previously unreleased. The song "Celebrity Skin" is the only song most of us found familiar.

Celebrity Skin-Since this song's name is the name of the EP, of course it would be the first song listed. It's the LP version, nothing new to the UK fans. A great song, has alot of new, metal/rock feel, all twisted into 3 and a half minutes of music.

Best Sunday Dress-This song is one of the previously unreleased songs on the EP. It only appeared on the Japanese version of the full-length album as a bonus track. It appears on this EP also. We Hole fans were first introduced to this song on the 9th track of Hole's first album, Pretty On The Inside called "Star Belly." In the last 6 seconds of this song, we hear a part of an original Hole/Sugar Babylon song, "Best Sunday Dress." Next we heard it in Hole's MTV Unplugged in April 1995, it was the second song they performed acoustically. Now it appears a third time, as a studio version, with revised lyrics and bridges. The song opens the same as it did on Unplugged, same opening verses, until the lyrics change to the chorus "/pale blue eyes so young/pale blue eyes so far away/watch me wear his sorrow/forgive me all his pain/." The tempo of the song has changed too, it's picked up a bit. Violins are also heard on this song, making it more mystical you could say. I still like the Unplugged version better, but this version is just as good.

Dying (Original Demo)-This song, or demo, is most likely to show up on the Celebrity Skin bootlegs in the future. Most demos do. This song starts out with a drum machine tapping out a little beat (it kind of sounds like a rap sound at first) then Eric's opening riff comes in. This riff is slightly different from the album version of this song. This song was in its "infant" stages then, obviously. The lyrics weren't fully formed, and later, on the album version, newer lyrics and instrumental violins were added. This song is so demoish, it sounds almost cute. The guitar is well-tuned and sweet-sounding. As demos go, the song is simplistic compared to the later, more advanced album version, but this demo has quality in itself, so, understandably, it was added to the trio of songs on this EP. It was mostly likely recorded sometime in late 1997, when the Celebrity Skin album was being worked on extensively. Great demo, great EP.

Email: frankie_82@yahoo.com