Celebrity Skin.

Hole * DGC 

There are as many reasons to hate Courtney Love as there are to adore her--the same reasons: She's a wiseass who says exactly what she thinks, she's utterly focused on herself and yet totally out of control, and she's an unapologetic mess with a chip on her shoulder that's almost as large as her ego. If she weren't a star, she'd be unbearable.

Yet you can't ignore her any more than you could a car wreck. Even when Love's bad, she's good--or at least fascinating--and she's often great, particularly on record. The first album with Hole since the suicide of her husband (Nirvana's Kurt Cobain), the drug overdose of her band's former bassist Kristin Pfaff, and her nearly perverse Hollywood makeover, Celebrity Skin is even more compelling in light of her careless yet calculated legend. She's made countless enemies eager to see her fall (virtually no one in the notorious documentary on her life with Cobain, Kurt and Courtney, says anything nice about her), and although she lacks the grace of a born star, this pointedly awkward exhibitionist has worked harder than any other '90s rock icon to be one. You can bet Love's not going to give that up without a fight.

Miss Hole and friends (including lesbian drummer Patty Schemel) go into battle with their catchiest, most accessible album. The controversy, of course, is that they achieve it with a heavy metal producer (Michael Beinhorn) and songwriting assistance on five of the best cuts from Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan. These outsiders' involvement is a blessing: The tunes are now as crafted as Love's caustic lyrics, and the fuller sound fleshes out the pop.

Although her surfaces are a lot slicker, Love packs an even sharper poetic punch. "He hit so hard, I saw God" goes one of many key phrases with multiple meanings both brutal and philosophical: Even when she's flaunting psychic damage, this loose-cannon laureate can blow away most of rock's royalty through the force of her language. Anyone who sends out special thanks to Echo and the Bunnymen, Stevie Nicks, and Miss Joan Crawford can't be all bad, despite her desire to be.

Walters is a pop-music critic for The Advocate.