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[miko2]

Today's Song: Celebrity Skin by Hole

Despite getting a lot of critical acclaim for their music, Hole tends to bashed a lot by local Northwest critics. I've never been completely clear why. Courtney Love is a polarizing figure, loudmouthed, combative, a spotlight-seeker, but it's often suggested that she owes all her success to Kurt Cobain and then later to Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, and that without their help Love and the band Hole would have been nothing. This is patently absurd -- even if you were to assume that Courtney wrote none of the songs credited to her, and that's a pretty big if in my book, she and her band still performed them, and did that exceptionally well.

Sometimes I think all of the Courtney hate stems from her obvious desire for fame and celebrity status, which is antithetical to the traditions of the music scenes she came from -- grunge, and the riot grrl scene. Few of the musicians from those scenes sought the spotlight or were comfortable in it. Even Eddie Vedder wasn't entirely comfortable being held up as the voice of his generation (at least, after Cobain was gone). But Love always sought the spotlight, which leads people to suspect that she married Cobain only because he was a rock star, and for no other reason (like, maybe they loved each other? Nah!) A lot of people even believe that Love had Cobain murdered -- as if the manic depressive drug abuser could never have actually killed himself.

Whatever. Hole often gets lump into the cateogry of bands that jumped on the Northwest grunge train to success and were never a part of the scene itself. Candlebox certainly deserves that label. Grunge wannabes like Silverchair, Seven Mary Three, and Bush deserve that label. I give Stone Temple Pilots some slack because they were actually a very talented band who eventually developed their own sound. Everclear gets tarred with that label too, although I'm not certain why, if they were latecomers to the Northwest, or if their frontman was just a jerk that everybody hated (which was apparently true). I always thought they were a talented band though, too.

As for Hole, I think their music speaks for itself, and they were around before the grunge explosion so I don't think you can accuse them of jumping on the bandwagon. Eric Erlandson was Hole's main guitarist from the moment they formed until they finally disbanded, but people tend to forget that Hole was anything but Courtney Love. I also find it funny that people criticize Love for basically being a tortured, self-destructive drug addict, while they immortalize Cobain for being essentially the same thing.

But enough about that. All of this is actually leading up to this: of any artist I can think of, Courtney Love is probably the best template for my fictional character Vashti Ahandra. I created Vashti before I'd ever heard of Love, and I'd like to think that Vashti eventually becomes a better, wiser person than Love is probably capable of being, but on the whole early Vashti is a lot like Courtney Love, wild, vain, out of control.

So back when I first heard the song Celebrity Skin, I thought it was a perfect theme song for Vashti. Previously I'd picked Noticeable One by Missing Persons as my favorite Vashti theme song, but Celebrity Skin tops it by a mile:

Oh make me over
I'm all I want to be
A walking Study
In Demonology

Hey, so glad you could make it
Yeah, now you've really made it
Hey, so glad you could 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 really made it
Hey, theres only us left now

When I wake up
In my makeup
It's too early for that dress
Wilted and faded somewhere in
Hollywood
Im glad I came here
With your pound of flesh
No second billing cause youre 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
What you wish for
It better be worth it
So much to die for

Anyway, with me listening to all of this grunge-era Northwest rock, I was surprised that I didn't actually have any of my Hole cds ripped to my hard drive. I fixed that, and I've been listening to this song, as well as Violet and a couple of others for the last day or so.

Celebrity Skin
Violet
Gold Dust Woman