Adhesive
All in the Suit That You Wear
Art School Girl
Atlanta
Dead & Bloated
Down
Heaven & Hot Rods
Interstate Love Song
No Way Out
Plush
Sex & Violence
Sex Type Thing
Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart
Vasoline
Wicked Garden
McParadigm wrote:Also, of the "generic 90s rock bands"...of which STP is definitely one...I like them more than most (which is still not a huge compliment).
There is a distinct lack of Lounge Fly love in here.
I first heard STP in early 93 when I was bed bound for 5 months with a slipped disc (yay 17). I heard Piece of Pie on a sampler and my gf got me Core within the week. I lived music especially at that time and Core was played to death. When Purple came out I preordered and got a 4 track cassette advance ep. It had Vaseline, Big Empty, Kitchenware and Meatplow (from memory). It was played to death before the Cd came out. They didn't tour Australia in the 90s but I saw them in London in 2010. Glad I did.
Post of famed Kevin Davis length to follow:
Listening to lots of STP over the last 36 hours or so -- a lot of great songs in this small body of work, a lot of little moments I'd forgotten about.
When I was a kid, I always got a weird, almost physical nostalgia from the soft "na-na-na..." parts in "Art School Girl" which divide the heavy "five or four times" part, and for years I never understood it, but a few years back I realized why: that melody is virtually identical to the verse melody of "Shattered Dreams" by Johnny Hates Jazz, a one-hit wonder from the '80's that for whatever reason I loved as a small child. That was a fun mystery to reconcile, and I still get the feeling.
"Adhesive" has got to be their best song, and "Tiny Music" their best album, though only in relistening just now does it strike me just how superior it is to "Purple," their clear number two. My memory of the two albums is that they were both strong but relatively equal records, but there is a sense of artistry, a sense of really reaching out to a broad spectrum of influences, which I hear on "Tiny Music" that isn't as evident to me on "Purple." In my mind it's a masterpiece fit to stand up musically to any record from the era.
Dean Deleo is an incredible lead guitarist, though I wish there were more moments of his deep, melodic playing dispersed throughout their catalog, as in songs like "Lady Picture Show," "And So I Know," and "Bi-Polar Bear" (a wonderful lead passage buried in an unfortunately average song). I would love to hear him and Robert do an entire album of songs like "Daisy," jazz-tinged instrumental stuff that features a lot or harmony, melody, and suspension. I would overwhelmingly prefer that to anything else they may do that is just another excuse for a new karaoke Weiland to trot out the hits.
"Shangri-La" seems pretty clearly to me their low point (not including the comeback album, which I've never heard). By this point heavy grunge tracks (like "Dumb Love" and "Coma") were really beyond their sell-by date, and the acoustic tracks were a bit on the sentimental side. I have never looked it up but is it pretty commonly understood that "Too Cool Queenie" is about Courtney Love? If so, it's a great pop song hampered by its transparency -- it's almost too literal and mean. I really love Weiland's singing in the last verse, though.
So. a quick ranking:
Tiny Music (masterpiece)
Purple (great eclectic rock album, no bad tracks)
No. 4 (very solid self-contained hard rock album that would get tiresome if it was longer, with a few moments of gentility to break things up)
Core (mostly solid self-contained hard rock album that does get tiresome for being longer, needs a few more moments of gentility to break things up)
Shangri-La (a nice mix of styles that never really congeals but is worth cherry-picking a few favorites from -- my personal favorite is probably "Black Again")
VinylGuy wrote:Bi Polar bear is such a gem. Wonderful too....man, i adore Shangri La...is their Tiny Music from the 2000.
That album really grew on me.
When it came out i didnt get it. N4 was a natural comeback for them, and i expected more of that...and of course, they deliver a gem full of pop songs, just like with Tiny Music.
VinylGuy wrote:Bi Polar bear is such a gem. Wonderful too....man, i adore Shangri La...is their Tiny Music from the 2000.
That album really grew on me.
When it came out i didnt get it. N4 was a natural comeback for them, and i expected more of that...and of course, they deliver a gem full of pop songs, just like with Tiny Music.
Yeah I think KD's run down of the album is how I felt initially. The heavy songs were kind of dumb and the slower jams were overly sentimental. I guess the sentimentality really grew on me. The heavy songs are still pretty dumb but I kinda love Hollywood Bitch.
VinylGuy wrote:Bi Polar bear is such a gem. Wonderful too....man, i adore Shangri La...is their Tiny Music from the 2000.
That album really grew on me.
When it came out i didnt get it. N4 was a natural comeback for them, and i expected more of that...and of course, they deliver a gem full of pop songs, just like with Tiny Music.
Yeah I think KD's run down of the album is how I felt initially. The heavy songs were kind of dumb and the slower jams were overly sentimental. I guess the sentimentality really grew on me. The heavy songs are still pretty dumb but I kinda love Hollywood Bitch.
i LOVE Dumb Love and Coma. The intro of Coma is amazing.
Kevin Davis wrote:I preferred STP to all other '90's bands save Nirvana, PJ, and the Pumpkins -- they had a sunny, melodic side to offset their heavy, sludgy side which felt unique among bands that I listened to at the time, and I felt then and still feel now that they could go to places musically -- theorywise -- that were beyond most of their peers' abilities. I had and still have a deep connection with their music, and thought Scott was at best a tremendously passionate and versatile singer. Lotta sad feelings today.
Well said, friend. Totally agree on all points.
Except that I liked (and still like) them more than the Pumpkins.
durdencommatyler wrote:There's nothing wrong with remembering the good things.
Of course there isn't and I don't see any suggestion otherwise.
Perhaps not, but this comment:
McParadigm wrote:Honestly, every junkie seems to become rock legend genius the moment they die. I'm all for anybody who wants to stand in front and call bullshit...
sure came across that way to me and that's what I was reacting to. I'm sure my reaction was hyper sensitive but it really reminded me of Bill O'Reilly's rant about Cobain being nothing but a drug addict who deserved to die.
Birds in Hell wrote:It goes without saying that it's very sad that he died, particularly for those that knew and worked with him.
That said, I don't think it's surprising on a music board that something like this prompts people to chip in with what they thought of his work. It's not like anyone's taking obvious glee in running the guy down or posting anything in exceptionally poor taste.
Totally agree.
And I'm not upset at anything anyone has posted. I don't have a problem with people saying they weren't huge fans of STP or whatever. I mean, I think it's silly to post stuff like that without desiring to expand the conversation whether or not a member of the band died. There's an element of "then why are you here reading/posting, especially right now given the circumstances, if all you want to say is, nope?"
But I take no offense to anything anyone has posted so far.
durdencommatyler wrote:Purple and Tiny Music are two of my absolute favorite albums of the 90s. Great, brilliant records.
And I would have told you that even if he hadn't died at 48, McP.
I wasn't remotely saying that your appreciation is sudden and/or mortality-based.
Also, of the "generic 90s rock bands"...of which STP is definitely one...I like them more than most (which is still not a huge compliment). I actually like them more than Nirvana, whose first two studio records bore me to tears.
Kevin Davis wrote:I preferred STP to all other '90's bands save Nirvana, PJ, and the Pumpkins -- they had a sunny, melodic side to offset their heavy, sludgy side which felt unique among bands that I listened to at the time, and I felt then and still feel now that they could go to places musically -- theorywise -- that were beyond most of their peers' abilities. I had and still have a deep connection with their music, and thought Scott was at best a tremendously passionate and versatile singer. Lotta sad feelings today.
Well said, friend. Totally agree on all points.
Except that I liked (and still like) them more than the Pumpkins.
For all his faults, Scott Weiland is waaaay less annoying than Billy Corgan...
As for the music of the two bands, I would say that STP has a better batting average, but SP explored more sonically varied territory.
Outside of a handful of songs (read: the hits), SP never did much for me and I'm not sure why. All the components are there. I should adore them. Maybe I just never put in the time. Maybe they didn't have what I wanted at the time and I haven't given them the space in my taste to just be themselves. I don't know.
