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Rating: Our fellow Caparezza says that the second album is always the hardest in an artist's career. Nothing more true. The second album is a mathematical test, it's there where you understand everything... unless you play in Hole.
In fact, you can never know what might happen the day after or the day before the album's release. In that April of '94, the month "Live through this" was released, terrible things happened for Hole and for the whole scene, destined to mark a musical era. "Live through this" was considered the best rock CD of the year by "Rolling Stone" magazine... well, what to say then... it seemed the test was passed. But it wasn't so for Hole. After such events, at this point, it wasn't the second CD that was the most difficult in their career.
After such storms, we all were waiting for them at the bend, we all wondered if the warning LIVE THROUGH THIS had been beneficial if they were able to live beyond all this. The answer came to us in September '98, after 4 years of analysis, depression, and a phone call to Billy Corgan. The CD starts with a nice riff... you immediately think of Eric... the song proceeds...: "look at me, I'm everything I want to be, a living study of demonology" and then it goes on attacking Hollywood and other aspects of show-business... you think immediately of Courtney, but you notice there is something new in the atmosphere... you think of Billy Corgan, who spent more than two weeks in the studio with Hole to collaborate on this album.
However, despite his influence, you realize it is quite a personal CD. Personal for Courtney and all of us. At this point in the story, we wanted to know something from her who lived it inside, not only for Kurt but for all the grunge that vanished with him. She tells it to us between a sixties-pop song and an alt-rock one.
It all started with the riot grrls, good carefree times of dreams and female battles, see AWFUL, in which she says: "it was all perfect, now it's something awful..." to make you understand how it was all an illusion, but warns you that those battles were not unfounded...: "They steal the souls of girls like you to control you...", and closes with disillusioned hope: "they bought it all to build something new,... make it beautiful..."
The story continues... HIT SO HARD, MALIBU, perhaps you understand that from those distant '90s, musically nothing can be repeated, so it's worth letting grunge go, venturing into a carefree pop-rock melancholy, sweet that leaves a bitter taste. So too BOYS ON THE RADIO or HEAVEN TONIGHT, where joy is mixed with the deepest bitterness. The personal bitterness of Courtney. Towards Kurt, towards society, towards the same grunge scene... towards those who didn't understand her in the midst of this pain, towards those who misinterpreted her... who accused her.
The story becomes more intense, REASONS TO BE BEAUTIFUL, NORTHERN STAR or USE ONCE&DESTROY, completely confessions full of rancor, hatred and overall love. Sad and ironic songs, full of melancholy and perhaps also full of fatigue. The scene is dead, love is dead ("...and now i know that love is dead, you've come to bury me..." — Dying), and admiring the glories and joys of the recent past, you see everything disappear, like a flower withered in the loveliest season. Kind of like saying that youthful dreams are destined to remain dreams, but how sad it is when you wake. So, this album, released in 1998, thus in full post-period, is the precise x-ray of the state of health of rock, a genre that, having reached the peak of its development in the nineties, now ages and tends to fade.
"Celebrity skin" closes a chapter of a long-lasting story, which, at the end of the millennium, must increasingly come to terms with the remains of the past, unfortunately without finding ways of renewal. What will become of rock in the 2000s will be told to us by Courtney in her solo CD "America’s sweetheart" released in 2004, an album full of memories, which claims with irony, a prominent place in the scene for the last true innovators of rock.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Heaven Tonight (04:45)
Here comes a sign in the form of a girl
She's the finest, sweetest thing in the world
Oh, take you to Heaven tonight
I feel the horses coming galloping In the summer's end
Take you to Heaven tonight Oh, because I love you For what you are
I'll gallop to you Tonight, tonight I will ride
I'll give it to you We'll go to Heaven tonight Tonight
I don't know why? Oh baby, I was heading for Heaven tonight
I'll go to Heaven tonight I feel the horses coming galloping
I'll never grow old, I'll go to Heaven tonight
Because I love you For what you are
I'll gallop to you Tonight, tonight I will ride
I'll bow down to you We'll go to Heaven tonight Tonight
I can't believe that I could be happy Summer will come again, I could be happy
Oh, stop your crying, you could be happy Go to Heaven when you make me happy
Here comes a kiss that I never had
Nothing feels like this, headed to Heaven tonight
I love you Here comes a storm in the form of a girl
She's the finest, sweetest thing in the world
Oh, I'll go to Heaven tonight For what you are
I'll gallop to you Tonight, tonight I will ride
I'll bow down to you We'll go to Heaven tonight Tonight
03 Northern Star (06:15)
And i cry and no one can hear
In hell
The blinded eyes that see
The chaos
Bring the pitiful to me
Even though i'm wide-awake, i will,
& blackest night and i wait for you
It's cold in here there's no one left
& i wait for you
& nothing stops it happening
& i knew, i'd cherish all my misery alone
And i wait staring at the Northern Star
I'm afraid it won't lead me anywhere,
He's so cold he will ruin the world tonight
All the angels kneel into the Northern Lights
Kneel into the frozen lights
And they paid, I cry and cry for you
Ghosts that haunt you with their sorrow
I cried 'cause you were doomed
Praying to the wound that swallows
All that's cold and cruel
Can you see the trees, charity and gratitude
They run to the pines
It's black in here blot out the sun
And run to the pines
Our misery runs wild and free
And i knew, the fire and the ashes of his grace...
And i wait staring at the Northern Star
I'm afraid it won't lead you very far
He's so cold he will win the world tonight
All the angels kneel into the frozen lights
Feel their hearts they're cold and white
And i want you
And blessed are the broken
And i beg you
No loneliness, no misery is worth you
Oh tear his heart out cold as ice it's mine
And i wait praying to the Northern Star
I'm afraid it won't lead you anywhere
He's so cold raining on the world tonight
All the angels kneeling to the Northern Lights
And i pray begging to the Northern Star
I'm afraid it won't lead you anywhere
He's so cold he will rule the world tonight
All the angles kneeling to the Northern Lights
Kneeling to the frozen lights
Feel their hearts they're cold as ice
04 Awful (04:12)
Swing low sweet cherry
Make it awful
It's your life, it's your party, it's so awful
Let's start a fire
Let's start a riot! Yeah it's awful
It was punk
Yeah, it was perfect now it's awful
They know how to break all the girls like you
And they rob the souls of the girls like you
And they break the hearts of girls
Swing low, cherry, cherry
Yeah it's awful
He's drunk, he tastes
Like candy, he's so beautiful
He's so deep like dirty water
God, he's awful
You're lost, oh, where's your daddy -it's so awful
And they royalty rate all the girls like you
And they sell it out to the girls like you
To incorporate little girls
Hey, run away with the light
Run away its divine
Let's run away, yeah, tonight, and
We'll steal the light of the world
Swing low, sweet cherry, yeah its awful
You're gonna ripe for the picking, it's so awful
You've got your youth
Don't waste your money
Yeah its awful
I was punk!
Now I'm just stupid
I'm so awful
Oh, just shut up you're only 16
If the world is so wrong
Yeah you can break them all
With one song
If the world is so wrong yeah you take it all
With one song
Swing low sweet cherry
Make it awful
hey bought it all, just build a new one.
Make it beautiful...yeah
06 Celebrity Skin (03:00)
Oh, make me over
I'm all I wanna be
A walking study
In demonology
Hey, so glad you could make it
Yeah, now you've really made it
Hey, so glad you can make it now
Oh, look at my face
My name is might have been
My name is never was
My name's forgotten
Hey, so glad you could make it
Yeah, now you've really made it
Hey, there's only us left now
When I wake up in my makeup
It's too early for that dress
Wilted and faded somewhere in Hollywood
I'm glad I came here with your pound of flesh
No second billing, 'cause you're a star now
Oh Cinderella, they aren't sluts like you
Beautiful garbage, beautiful dresses
Can you stand up or will you just fall down
You better watch out
Oh, what you wish for
It better be worth it
So much to die for
Hey, so glad you could make it
Yeah, now you've really made it
Hey, there's only us left now
When I wake up in my makeup
Have you ever felt so used up as this
It's all so sugarless, hooker/waitress
Model/actress, oh just go nameless
Honeysuckle, she's full of poison
She obliterated everything she kissed
Now she's fading somewhere in Hollywood
I'm glad I came here with your pound of flesh
You want a part of me
Well, I'm not selling cheap
No, I'm not selling cheap
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