
Speaking of Beatles-inspired STP songs: “Lady Picture Show” glides with a grace most pop songwriters can only grasp at. “Lady Picture Show” (from Tiny Music… Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop) Released on the historically ignored Shangri-LA DEE DA at the peak of nü-metal as STP’s career was stalling out, “Days Of The Week” was always destined for obscurity, but in another era it might have been as huge as it deserves to be.Ħ. One dimension of STP’s repertoire that never got much play was their knack for exquisite little power-pop gems like “Days Of The Week.” Although the predominant image of the band involves a shirtless Weiland doing his best Jagger/Bowie/Iggy/Rollins impression while the band roars behind him, they were just as adept at channeling the Beatles and Big Star. “Days Of The Week” (from Shangri-LA DEE DA, 2001) Kretz deserves a special shout-out for nailing the shifts between skipping, stuttering verses and those breathless ballistic refrains.ħ. The basic ingredients are almost rudimentary, but they sound far from amateurish thanks to the instrumentalists’ impeccable skills and Weiland’s elemental charisma. The midtempo ballad about the end of Weiland’s first marriage is impressive on its own terms, but even more so for demonstrating that STP’s basic hard-rock tropes worked just as well when toned down to a soft-rock dynamic.Ī song built for shimmying, “Vasoline” harnessed the power of repetition through a simple hammer-on riff and an intense staccato chorus.
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“Sour Girl” was the only STP song to ever crack Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart, which makes sense: It’s the band’s most conventionally pretty hit, and they got Cruel Intentions-era Sarah Michelle Gellar to be in the video. Still, the album’s knuckle-dragging opener was always a highlight of STP’s live shows, Weiland hollering through a megaphone and preening like a sloshed demigod as his bandmates piled on the sludge. Trendmongering 1992 debut Core was Stone Temple Pilots’ biggest album, but despite its thick selection of rightful rock radio standards, it wasn’t close to their best.

4, these guys spent a decade kicking serious ass. From the hair-grunge of Core to the raspy psych of Tiny Music to the power-and-finesse brilliance of No. So the omission of popular singles such as “Plush” and “Big Empty” is not an indictment of those songs so much as an acknowledgement of the STP catalog’s overflowing riches. This is by no means an exhaustive list of worthwhile Stone Temple Pilots music STP recorded several dozen amazing songs in their day, something you might not realize if you’re only familiar with their radio hits. And while Weiland made some bangers with Velvet Revolver, his work with STP is what will stand the test of time. Their albums spanned the spectrum from hard rock to glam to psych to grunge to pop to jazz to folk, all of it coalescing into a recognizable band identity thanks to the undeniable chemistry of men who sometimes drove each other mad. But Weiland’s cavernous vocal range and superhuman swagger were crucial components of the band’s success - watching him swirl and traipse with reckless abandon was a breathtaking experience - and anyone who’s heard his solo albums 12 Bar Blues and “Happy” In Galoshes realizes he probably played a part in STP’s stellar songwriting too. If we can agree on these things, can we all finally agree that Stone Temple Pilots are awesome?Ī big part of that awesomeness was the expert craftsmanship of Dean and Robert DeLeo and Eric Kretz, the power trio that provided STP’s musical muscle.

Bombast, if it’s catchy and melodic, is good. There ought to be some things all rock ‘n’ roll fans - no matter what subgenre or trend you’re currently aligned with - can agree on: Mixing Black Sabbath with the Beatles and glam-era Bowie is good. Club in 2008, rock critic Steven Hyden made a strong case for STP’s excellence, beginning with this opening blast: (Yes, even Shangri-LA DEE DA!) Writing for The A.V. But their discography is littered with genius, and each one of their first five studio albums holds up. It’s great music! For a variety of good and bad reasons, Stone Temple Pilots never quite got their due as one of the finest rock bands of the ’90s, something I explored when revisiting 1994’s Purple upon its 20th anniversary. Now he’s finally gone, and all we have left is his music. On the other hand, I had come to think of Weiland as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards rolled up into a single person, one of those freaks of nature who would outlive all of us no matter how badly he treated himself. In one sense, it’s amazing that a man who lived that hard managed to live this long. Scott Weiland died last night at the age of 48, the end of a life defined by rock ‘n’ roll excess at its most triumphant and destructive.
