Malibu is a song by Hole. It is the fourth track and second single from the band’s third studio album, Celebrity Skin, and was released in December 1998, on DGC Records. The song was written by vocalist and rhythm guitarist Courtney Love, lead guitarist Eric Erlandson and Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, who contributed to four other songs on Celebrity Skin.
The single was released on vinyl and compact disc in multiple countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Japan. The standard releases of the single feature “Drag” as well as a cover of Bob Dylan‘s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” as B-sides.
Malibu was one of Hole‘s most commercially and critically successful songs. The song peaked at number 3 on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart, and garnered a Grammy nomination in 1999.
Love has stated that the song was actually written about her first boyfriend, Jeff Mann, whom she lived with in Malibu in the late mid-1980s. In 2018, Love revealed at a concert with Smashing Pumpkins that the song was initially written for Stevie Nicks.
Directed by Paul Hunter, the music video for Malibu was shot in the eponymous city on a beach. The video features burning palm trees and the band performing the song. Eric Erlandson is also seen waxing a surfboard, and Melissa Auf der Maur lies on a rock over the ocean. The video also alludes to Baywatch at its conclusion, featuring a mass of lifeguards holding plastic dolls on the beach while Courtney Love walks into the ocean. Samantha Maloney, who replaced drummer Patty Schemel, appears in the video.
Tracklist:
- Malibu
- Drag (Love, Erlandson, Auf der Maur, Zadorozny)
- It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob Dylan)
Hole
Courtney Love: lead vocals, guitar
Eric Erlandson: guitar
Melissa Auf der Maur: bass, backing vocals
Guest musicians
Deen Castronovo: drums
Production
Michael Beinhorn: producer, programming
Eric Erlandson: additional producer
Paul Northfield: engineer
Chris Lord-Alge: mixing
