Stone Temple Pilots: Tiny Music

     Since I began this blog last Fall, I've spent a considerable amount of time digging through my music collection. Which albums and bands will I post about and which won't make the cut? Many of them I haven't listened to in years. One of those bands is Stone Temple Pilots. For reasons I can't explain, I had forgotten how many outstanding songs they recorded. Maybe it's because it's depressing to think "grunge" was twenty years ago. Is that even possible?
     Alright, I have another confession to make. I was never really into "grunge" that much. Until Nirvana, I had never heard of Mudhoney, Tad or the Melvins. I HATE Pearl Jam. I hate Alice In Chains. I'm ambivalent about Soundgarden. I love Nirvana, but it was more about Cobain. Anyhow, Stone Temple Pilots get lumped in with grunge and I'm not sure why, other than the fact they debuted in 1992. I guess their first album, Core, was fairly grungy with songs like "Wicked Garden", "Dead And Bloated" and "Plush". It's my least favorite S.T.P. album, although I like "Sex Type Thing" and "Creep". I feel their second album, Purple, demonstrated that they had more in common with arena rock than grunge. Kind of like what Foo Fighters would become. The songs were well-written and structured. There was also a great range of material, from "Vasoline" to "Interstate Love Song" to "Big Empty" to "Unglued". One of my favorite S.T.P. lines is from "Vasoline": Flys in the vasoline, we are, sometimes it blows my mind. Keep getting stuck here all the time.
     In 1996, they released what I feel is their masterpiece, Tiny Music...Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop. It's a flawless hard rock album. Unfortunately, when it came out, Scott Weiland flamed out. The double-edged sword with someone like Weiland is that his demons make his art great, but his self-destructive behavior sabotages it. In the song "Adhesive", he wrote the lyric "sell more records if I'm dead". At the time that line could have been perceived as a commentary on Cobain, but I think he was speculating about himself and his legacy. The good news, I guess, is he's still alive making music and going in and out of rehab. Bottom line, I highly recommend Tiny Music to my kids. Here are my track by track thoughts. Peace.

1) Press Play- Opens with the first of two instrumentals. Sounds more like Rush than grunge.

2) Pop's Love Suicide- Straight up, sneering rocker.

3) Tumble In The Rough- Sounds like he's trying to deal with rehab.

4) Big Bang Baby- When this song came out I thought it was the greatest song ever. Now it's only my third or fourth favorite on this album. "Does anybody know how the story really goes, how the story really goes or do we all just hum along".

5) Lady Picture Show- I LOOOOOOOVE this song. It should have been on my top 50 list, but I forgot. Extremely Beatlesesque. Great guitar and hand clap song.

6) And So I Know- Great take on 70's AM radio. Hopefully that's what they were aiming for:)

7) Trippin' On A Hole In A Paper Heart- Second favorite song on this album. "I'm not dead and I'm not for sale". "Let go it's harder holding on. One more trip and I'll be gone".

8) Art School Girl- "I told you five or four times".

9) Adhesive- Beautiful...Sweeping...Epic

10) Ride The Cliche- Just a really good song.

11) Daisy- The other instrumental. As much as it pains me to say, the instrumentals are the weakest part of Tiny Music.

12) Seven Caged Tigers- Third favorite song. I just like how it sounds.