Hole - Celebrity Skin

Hole traded the noise of their first two albums for widescreen California pop on Celebrity Skin, and the gamble worked. Released in 1998 and co-written in part with Billy Corgan, it is a glossy, sun-bleached record about fame, damage, and Los Angeles, and it gave the band the biggest hits of their career.

The title track is a perfect three minutes of power pop menace, "Malibu" and "Boys on the Radio" show Courtney Love's underrated melodic instincts, and "Awful" and "Hit So Hard" keep the teeth in. The album earned multiple Grammy nominations and went platinum.

For a band built on catharsis, it is a surprisingly polished record, which is exactly what makes the bitterness underneath land so hard.

Pressed on black 180-gram vinyl.