Alternative Weekend: Focus on ‘Stone Temple Pilots'

I have been posting most weekends using @detlev’s #metalweekend tag, but my main love of music is progressive and alternative music. Some of my posts have included these songs, but I feel they are not keeping with the spirit of metal.

I will continue to post article’s using #metalweekend occasionally but feel I have more to offer regarding these other genres that I am more familiar with.

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Introducing #alternativeweekend. Post an article that highlights THREE great songs that are either progressive or alternative and use the tag #alternativeweekend or use the ‘Focus on’ series if you like. There are no rules, just make your own!

If you have a short story or something to offer regarding an opinion on your songs, then share it with us!

I remember in the Grunge years of the early nineties, a certain amount of hate about this band, and still am not sure what all that was about. Were Stone Temple Pilots not considered a grunge band?

Personally I don’t feel they are and would consider them more mainstream rock, but Grunge or not they did strike a chord with me when I encountered the single, ‘Plush’.

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To say I’m a hard core fan would be untrue, though I did buy the CD Album, ‘Core’ and picked up one of their other hits via the Guitar Hero games in the noughties.

It seems like many of the singers from this period of time are now dead and Scott Weiland falls into this category along with Chris Cornell (Soundgarden), Layne Staley (Alice in Chains) and Kurt Cobain (Nirvana).

We still have Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam), but being a singer in a nineties grunge band appeared to be a hazardous career choice in hindsight.

Stone Temple Pilots - Plush (Core – 1992)

The biggest hit from the most popular album was a winner for me.

It’s not generally the type of music that I’m attracted to now, but this was almost 30 years ago and my tastes have progressively gone stranger since then.

This is undoubtedly their most recognisable hit attaining chart success and mainstream radio coverage.

If you don’t like this song, then the band is probably not your cup of tea, so to speak.

Stone Temple Pilots - Sin (Core – 1992)

'Sin' is probably my pick of the album tracks from 'Core'.

A song that starts the same way as it finishes is with a great riff is always good, but most of it can be described as , 'A big dumb rock song'.

The quiet section in the middle has some great subtle guitar work and makes up in most part for the dumbness.

Stone Temple Pilots - Trippin' On A Hole In A Paper Heart (Tiny Music... Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop – 1996)

After the short names of the other songs and album referenced, it seemed they had to make up for it by having super long names for both single and album on this occasion.

I played this to death on Guitar Hero II and really got to the dig the chorus. The verses not so much.

Stone Temple Pilots - Creep (Core – 1992)

Not to be confused with the Radiohead song of the same name, 'Creep' is a slower song and more acoustic than the other offerings.

This doesn't make it any less attractive and is my final pick. If you prefer something a little easier to listen to then click this one first.

One of the comments on the YouTube comments section for 'Creep' says this:

RIP Kurt Cobain
RIP Layne Staley
RIP Scott Weiland
RIP Chriss Cornell
RIP Chester Bennington

Just why have we lost all these great singers to terrible tragedies?

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Stone Temple Pilots are still producing music with a new vocalist, 'Jeff Gutt'. I cant say I have listed to any of their new offerings since Scott died. Vocalist are hard to replace as they tend to epitomise a band sound.

There's no doubt in my mind that Scott Weiland had that 'grunge voice'. Perhaps that's why they were put down so much during the nineties. The voice was there, but the music was more rock.