Alan Sparhawk Defends Stone Temple Pilots
STP underrated? That's what we've said all along. Now we have someone a helluva lot cooler than us to back it up! The Onion's A.V. Club spoke with Low guitarist Alan Sparhawk about other bands' songs. His thoughts on "Big Bang Baby":
AS: Great song. I think there are three or four songs on that record that are underappreciated gems of the late grunge years.He's right; Tiny Music... Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop was uneven, but the songs that worked ("Lady Picture Show," "Trippin' On A Hole In A Paper Heart") were classics for that time. But Purple? In a thoroughly thrashed genre that had its share of disposable mediocrity, that record's a sure shot; the DeLeo's were at their riff-writing finest, and Scott was on just the right amount of heroin (it's all about moderation, kids).AVC: So this isn't a guilty pleasure? It's an actual pleasure?
AS: I don't listen to the whole record. There's definitely some stuff that's not quite as solid, but this song is just great. They were doing some original things, and I think it's unfortunate that they'll be remembered as just another in the pool of bands that was around at that time.
AVC: That wasn't even their big record, right?
AS: No, this is kind of the nail in their coffin with their record company. I think after that, the heroin thing started getting more attention than anything they were actually making.
Meanwhile, Low's forthcoming record Drums And Guns is out 3/07 on Sub Pop, which is in Seattle, which is where grunge is from, but not STP, who were from San Diego. So, almost full circle.
Posted at 5:28 PM
Tags: Low | Stone Temple Pilots
-->
-->
Yeah, "Big Bang Baby" is an inarguable classic. Anyone who steps to me on this one gets a knuckle sammich!
Score = 0
Oooh .. I want to keep the streak of positive comments about STP at two. We forget that there were still such a thing as mainstream rock radio bands that wrote good songs back then, kids.
Score = 0
Streak broken. STP is to Pearl Jam is to Mudhoney as Jon Cryer is to Jonathan Silverman is to Matthew Broderick. A third generation of something that blew to start with. Positive is cool but truthfulness is cooler.
Score = 0
terrible band. sorry. not interesting. bad singing. bad power chord rock. these guys couldn't even rip off zep right.
Score = 0
So now it's cool to bash on the bands that we grew up on? Go Sparhawk (who, by the way, has the album of the year this year with his Solo Guitar).
I still break out Purple and Tiny Music from time to time. Hell, I even dug the Talk Show album (which is what the 3/4th playing with the Filter dude should be doing with their time. Call the Canadian Weiland wannabe and make alterna-pop and not shitty grunge retreads).
I think it's easy for people to piss on the music of the mid-90s now because they've somehow cut their attachment to it. I think half my generation wussed out and started listening to David Gray and Sufjan Stevens in lieu of keeping their foot in the unsafe musical fire.
Score = 0
Steve, I think you have Cryer and Silverman backwards.
Aah, you know what? It doesn't matter.
Score = 0
Nope, Justin, we all just grew up and realized it was fucking garbage.
Score = 0
Tiny Music is, to this day, the one STP album I ever bought. I think I still have it somewhere.
I always was partial to "Art School Girlfriend," myself.
Score = 0
it all ends with tiny music but i can still appreciate core, purple, and tiny music.
sometimes i even listen to scott weiland's solo album.
Score = 0
Tiny Music was definitely my second favorite, but No. 4, probably they're hardest rocker, was my favorite. I don't get all the STP bashing going around. Scott Weiland's solo album's decent too.
Score = 0
Purple is such a damn good album. A paragon of '90s alterna-rock (not the vaguely folkish kind of alterna-rock that you see Beck playing on Futurama). I can't think of an album that holds up today (Sorry R.E.M.'s Monster) that was such an influence on me to stop listening to Top 40 radio as a kid.
And just for posterity, it's just the DeLeos in Army of Anyone (their uninspiring Filter/STP attempt at Audioslave). No Eric Kretz.
Score = 0
you ever try to play an STP song on guitar? They're pretty hard, but unfamiliar's a better word. The riff to their break out single (plush) has nary a 5th chord- it's all Dsus2, F/Gmaj7, Bmin/E and shit. I remember getting the grunge issue of guitar world and having the STP tabs stick out like a sore thumb for being so oddly complex.
Score = 0
STP were Pearl Jam without all the pretentiousness. They'll have a longer life on commercial radio than PJ will, if you want to consider that a compliment.
Score = 0
I still listen to Purple and Tiny Music on occasion, which both broke out of the PJ/MH mold of Core. Not a huge fan of Four but liked "Sour Girl." As it is, when I caught STP touring behind their 5th album, it was the Core genera-grunge that got the crowd most excited. But then, the Boston show was 35% New Hampshire mulletheads, so what do you expect?
Score = 0