Musical Remembrances
I’ve been listening to the Stone Temple Pilots discography beginning to end over the course of the past few days.
Currently wrapping up No. 4. I remember being so excited about this album when it came out back in 1999. It brought back the heavy roots of STP after the poppy glam rock feel of Tiny Music three years earlier, though not fully departing from it (see Church on Tuesday, e.g.).
Listening to it now, 25 years after its release (holy shit), I hear the album for what it is — a failed attempt to regain the commercial success the band once had in the mid-90s. Unfortunately, between Scott Weilands legal and drug issues, and a music scene that mostly left grunge behind, they never were able to recover.
As I type this, the next album, Shangri-La Dee Da (such a ridiculous name), has started, and from the get-go, I’m feeling the nostalgia that the hard-core fan of the band in me had when it was released in 2001. But, again, in hindsight I can only hear it as the dying gasp of a band that I adored and followed diligently (and to many of my friends, annoyingly — sorry about that) for so many years. This album is where my love affair with STP ended.
The next three albums will be an interesting listen. I don’t think I’ve ever listened to any of them in their entirety.