The Definitive 1000 Songs Of All Time 1955 to 2005: Number 507

Number 507

Hole

"Malibu"

(1998)

Genre:Alt Pop

Yeah ....its her, Mrs Cobain. Most people think of her as the Yoko Ono of the 90's. Also a lot of people probably think she pulled the trigger too, but I really can't subscribe to that type of thinking. Actually, I had a bit of fun with Courtney (no, not literally) when I wrote about her in Mellow Mix Vol 1 # 30 where I mused about Mrs Cobain and her alternative lifestyle per say. As I said in that article she has produced "two world class songs" (hey, watch where your throwing that tomato buddy) One being "Celebrity Skin" in MM Vol 1 and this song here "Malibu". Since the Definitive countdown is "Poll" driven I am quite aware she might be voted out. If she is voted out and the dreaded Britney replaces her or that damned Frog.... well then, you've only got yourselves to blame. Oh and hey, while I remember, Mellow Mix Vol One (circa 2000) is almost finished ... only 8 songs left. It will be my first completed set .... might have a party for that one. On Malibu.

wheres my glass?

Love her or loathe her, the opinionated, brutally straightforward, and seemingly always controversial Courtney Love is one of the most notable figures in alternative rock. Born on July 9, 1964 in San Francisco, CA, Love was raised in Oregon. As a teen, Love began listening to new wave and punk, musical styles that would influence her band Hole. After traveling to countries like Ireland, Japan, and England, Love moved to Los Angeles, CA. In 1986, Love appeared as Nancy Spungen's best friend in Sid and Nancy, director Alex Cox's film about Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and his lover Spungen. Love was also cast in Cox's Straight to Hell. Neither picture brought Love the stardom that she craved. Love then relocated to Minneapolis, MN, and formed the all-female post-punk group Babes in Toyland with Kat Bjelland. Bjelland eventually tossed her out of the band. After working as a stripper in Alaska, Love returned to Los Angeles and started Hole in 1989 with Eric Erlandson (guitar), Jill Emery (bass), and Caroline Rue (drums).

mr & mrs cobain

Hole released their debut album, Pretty on the Inside, in 1991. A year later, Love married Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. Rumors of drug use between the two began surfacing in the press, and a Vanity Press article revealed that Love was using heroin while she was pregnant with their daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. In April 1994, Kurt Cobain committed suicide; two months later, new Hole bassist Kristen M. Pfaff died from a heroin overdose. Although it was recorded before those personal tragedies, Hole's second album, the ironically titled Live Through This, captured the searing pain and violent anger of somebody undergoing a tragic loss. Rumors persisted that Cobain co-wrote a large portion of the album, a claim that Love vehemently denied despite claims to the contrary by many of Cobain's closest friends. No concrete evidence was ever released to back those claims, and she maintained a semi-professional relationship with his former bandmates by formering a partnership with them called Nirvana L.L.C. The organization would control all Nirvana related releases and try and protect the interests of the three parties, but strife between Love and the rest of the band developed through nasty press comments made by both sides.

black wings, hmmm?

Meanwhile, Hole released Celebrity Skin in 1998, but the album came nowhere near the popularity of her previous effort. Despite the band's best promotional efforts (which Courtney dove headfirst into, as always), sales were discouraging enough for band members to start dropping off, essentially dissolving the group while her acting career was taking off. In 1999, Love was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in the movie The People Vs. Larry Flynt. She would stay relatively quiet for a few years, making a few film appearances and bragging up various projects with Louise Post and Kat Bjelland that never surfaced. But when former Nirvana members Kris Novoselic and Dave Grohl announced a 45 song Nirvana retrospective that would include two never released tracks, Love immediately brought them to court in an attempt to wrestle away the rights to the material. Manager/boyfriend Paul Barber tried to become the peacekeeper in the situation, even showing up to the studio for the mixdown of one of the unreleased songs. But Love moved to dissolve Nirvana L.L.C. and managed to stop the release of the album until the matter could be brought to court.

love to growl

The box set was aborted and the three individuals began to hype the upcoming court hearings like a boxing match, inviting the press out and making sharp barbs at one another in interviews. She announced her intentions to spearhead a Nirvana "greatest hits" album a la the Beatles' #1's, and claimed that she had hundreds of home tapes to go through and a journal that she planned on publishing. Love also began to speak out on musician's rights, suing her record company and bringing to light unfair business practices on the part of the industry. She began making her interviews and speeches platforms for her newfound cause, and created quite a stir at the South by Southwest Conference in the spring of 2002 when she directly announced her intentions of starting a music-industry revolution. All that was forthcoming, however (beside more eccentric publicity), was a solo album, 2004's America's Sweetheart, released on Virgin. ~ [Michael Sutton and Bradley Torreano, All Music Guide]

For more Hole visit Mellow Mix Vol 1 #30

For Dave Grohl see Number 535

For more Dave Grohl visit Mellow Mix Vol 1 #012

For the Beatles see Number 947, #894 & #587

The Song & It's meaning

"Malibu" is the second single by Hole from the Celebrity Skin LP and was written about Kurt Cobain's stay at a rehabilitation clinic in Malibu, California. It also includes "Drag," an outtake from Celebrity Skin which was replaced by "Malibu." The song was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal field, losing to Put Your Lights On by Santana. Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins contributed to the composition for several Celebrity Skin tracks. ~ [Source:Wikipedia]

For Santana see Number 781

For Smashing Pumpkins see Numbers 864, #811, #680 & #568

What does gRolling StonEd think about Courtney?

Hey, there's only us left now," Courtney Love notices on the title rocker that opéns Hole's new album, the band's first since 1994's Live Through This. Her co-stars are a bassist, Melissa Auf Der Maur; a drummer, Patty Schemel; and one pent-up guitarist, Eric Erlandson, who keeps going for the throat. Love sounds sick of people who don't miss vinyl, who don't understand how to use records as ways to make sense of their lives. Celebrity Skin – an album about fame, beauty, life and their opposites – is Hole's passionate response. It's sprung, flung and fun, high-impact, rock-fueled pop with the body and flexibility of really good hair. Hole are immediately in your face with the cheese-metal riffs and cuddly dissolves of "Celebrity Skin," a track full of cloudless energy that seems to explode the malaise that has surrounded Love since husband Kurt Cobain's death. "If the world is so wrong," Love insists next on "Awful," "Yeah, you can break them all/With one song."

were u there?

The album teems with sonic knockouts that make you see all sorts of stars. It's accessible, fiery and intimate – often at the same time. Here is a basic guitar record that's anything but basic. On high points like "Awful" and the gorgeous "Malibu," Hole act as though making big radio-ready hits smart now equals pure punk rock. Love herself is a combination of Los Angeles messiness and London obliqueness, a mix of the ungovernable expressiveness of Stevie Nicks and the refracted psychedelicism of a British loner like Julian Cope. Producer Michael Beinhorn – who steered Soundgarden through the wiry heavens of guitar rock on Superunknown – helps pull together these two unlikely sides of Love's artistic personality. The result is more shiftingly special than the heavy-handed grunge of Live Through This. Celebrity Skin is all minimalist explosion, idiomatic flair and dead-on rhythms. On "Malibu," a ballad about separation and escape, Erlandson's guitar changes from silveriness to something rougher in a heartbeat. This is rock & roll that's supple enough to handle Love's amphitheaters of emotion.

age 43 & still kicking

As Erlandson switches from strum-y verses to exquisitely fucked-up chords ever so slightly behind the beat, Love's unreal vocal attitude – sensuous but distant, as though she's tugging at the pop nation, her life and your heart, from Venus – takes the song someplace else altogether. She considers "endless summer nights" that she knows are illusions but that she craves anyway. With its odd angle on heartbreak, the song is an end-of-the-century "More Than a Feeling." And as Celebrity Skin keeps arguing, that's something the world can sure use. You don't need to know or love Courtney Love – to care about her highly chronicled trek from ripped cropped tops to Versace gowns – to enjoy this album. Even Love herself, though, can't deny her own myth: In the album's very first verse, she casts herself as "a walking study/In demonology." Love has not seized the occasion of the third Hole album to force her thoughts into a meticulous memoir, a well-put apology or even a clear explanation. On Celebrity Skin, she isn't especially after journalistic precision, and she isn't devising some glam plan to seem brilliant. She just knows exactly the kind of rock star she wants to be, and is it. ~ [Source:RS 795 JAMES HUNTER]

For Stevie Nicks see Number 707

Other songs with reference to Courtney Love #547, #780

Rolling Stone Top 500 Songs ranked this song at Number (are you serious?) and the Album ranked at Number (However 1 album did @ 466)

This song has a crowbarred rating of 75 out of 108

Hole - Malibu
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