Stone Temple Pilots, "Purple"

Mitch says ‘whatever’ to the rules of the game

, and

Jul 05, 2023

Mitch’s Pitch:

It's weird that I've become the "grunge guy" at EONS because I was actually a slow adopter to grunge back in the early '90s. I was heavy into the Dead and the Crowes and most grunge was way too heavy for me. The first wave of grunge that broke through - Temple of the Dog, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains - sent me running back to my precious Maxell XL-IIs. Apparently I saw Alice in Chains open for Van Hagar in 1991, but I have no recollection of that show whatsoever. (If you can remember it you probably weren't there, maaaaan!)

At the time we liked to praise grunge as being some revolutionary new form of rock music, but in retrospect it was just a mash-up of punk and metal wrapped in angst and flannel, and out of those four things I definitely liked flannel the most. Except for in the summer. Flannel sheets are way too hot in the summer.

It wasn't until grunge itself evolved that I got more interested. More specifically, when the Smashing Pumpkins provided a dash of delicious prog rock, when Pearl Jam cranked up the classic rock vibe, and when Stone Temple Pilots added some artsy glam rock. That's when I got on the ~~bus~~ sensible subcompact.

1994 was an excellent vintage for grunge albums, specifically second albums that not only avoided the dreaded sophomore slump, but demonstrated real growth from their predecessors. Having already covered Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream, I was left with the impossible choice between Pearl Jam's Vs. and Stone Temple Pilots' Purple - two of the best albums of the genre.

I decided to resolve my dilemma in the most Gen X way possible - by giving up and not making a choice at all. Whatever.

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Presenting...The Showdown: Stone Temple Pilots' Purple vs. Pearl Jam's Vs.

Title: Vs. feels adversarial while Purple seems regal. However, neither band anticipated how poorly those titles would fare from an SEO perspective. Push.
Cover: Obviously I'm going to pick an adorable cherub riding on the back of an equally adorable dragon over an angry sheep, even if said sheep has great teeth. Advantage STP.
Rockers: Both albums are full of rockers and bursting with big riffs. I think STP is more consistent - all of the songs are very good but only “Meatplow" and "Vasoline" are truly great. Pearl Jam reaches a little higher - "Animal", "Glorified G" and "Dissident" are truly fantastic - but they also have more filler with garbage like "Go" and "Blood". Advantage PJ.
Ballads: This is a tough one. "Daughter" and "Elderly Woman..." are both excellent, but "Interstate Love Song" and "Big Empty" are pantheon-level songs. Just like with hair metal, grunge ballads are always secretly the most enjoyable songs. Advantage STP.
Experimental Nonsense: Thankfully there's nothing as bad as "Wet My Bed" (STP-Core) or "Sexymophandle" (PJ-Vitology) on these two albums. The two most "out there" songs - "Pretty Penny" and "WMA" aren't all that weird and the hidden track "Second Album" is pretty fun. Push.
Lyrics: I have no idea what the hell anyone is talking about on either of these albums. I'm not sure if they were trying to be oblique on purpose, but it's all gibberish to me. You would think that Eddie going on and on about smelling some old lady's breath would be the creepiest thing but Weiland upstages him with the dead girlfriend under the floorboards. I'm giving this one to Pearl Jam because at least it seems like they're trying (and failing) to be socially-conscious. Advantage PJ.
Vocals: Scott Weiland was a gifted singer and a captivating performer. His voice was incredibly flexible and he could sing the hell out of any type of song, which over time gave STP more sonic variety in their sound. Unfortunately he's being compared to one of the most iconic voices in rock history. Advantage PJ.
Music: No offense to Stone, Mike, Jeff, or the 47 drummers who have been in Pearl Jam, but Pearl Jam sounds like Pearl Jam because of Eddie Vedder. The vocals define the sound. Brothers Rob and Dean DeLeo are probably the most underrated duo in rock. Their songs define the STP sound plus they also have a terrific singer. Advantage STP.

You know what's not cool? Turning music into a competition. The only right answer is to put both of these legendary albums - that were typically bought at the Newbury Comics on Newbury Street - into the Newbury St. Collection.

CJ’s Response:

[Note: I’m going to focus on Purple in my response. You don’t get to pitch two albums at a time just because you were a latchkey kid. This isn’t Two for fucking Tuesday. I will say this, though. My two favorite Pearl Jam songs–”Rearviewmirror” and “Indifference”--are on Vs. Should Mitch have focused his attention on PJ? We’ll see.]

I’d be careful about conflating metal and grunge. Or at least asserting that grunge came out of metal and punk. Sure, there are similarities in style and volume, but the grunge movement did everything it could to distance itself from metal. Most metal fans didn’t care and were happy enough to support anything that was obnoxiously loud, fast and exciting.

“Here we are now. Entertain us,” we said.

In response, Kurt Cobain famously bemoaned the fact that kids in metal t-shirts came to their shows in droves after Nirvana broke through. He would purposely screw up “Smells Like Teen Spirit” just to spite them.

Stone Temple Pilots caught a lot of flak for being grunge knockoffs–the weak sisters of Nirvana and Mitch’s co-pitch Pearl Jam. At the time, I liked STP specifically because they weren’t those bands. There was a lot more structure and melody to their songs and a lot less taking of oneself so seriously, as evidenced by the goofball hidden track “Second Album” at the end of Purple. This record was a welcome relief from the unbearable heaviness of being that Seattle’s water-logged bands were promoting.

Mitch is spot on about the rockers and the ballads. (Unbeknownst to him, The Best of Rockers and Ballads is a Scorpions greatest hits album.) “Meatplow” and “Vasoline” are killers while “Interstate Love Song” and “Big Empty” are powerful pre-apocalyptic heart songs. I don’t know how experimental “Pretty Penny” is. To me, it’s just a basic Beatles homage. The real unsung gems here are “Lounge Fly” and “Still Remains”, They both take chances lyrically and musically and end up sounding fresh and original even 30-ish years later.

There’s a rift between metal and grunge in some circles, though there really needn’t be. I’m not here to solve that conflict today. But I am here to tell you that Purple is a great album no matter how you bang your head.

Purple-Pitch successful (I wish all kitchenware came with candybars.)
Vs.-N/A (Somebody has to keep order around here.)

Ken’s Response:

Contrary to what Mitch constantly says, I don’t hate grunge. There are tracks by Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains that I enjoy from time to time. My problem was with the “movement,” if you can even call it that. Kids in their 20’s (as I was in witnessing grunge in real-time) just a few short years before were gobbling up Debbie Gibson’s Electric Youth, Paula Abdul’s Forever Your Girl, and the most gawd-awful hair metal from the likes of Slaughter and Mr. Big like they were Funyuns at a 420 festival. And I’m supposed to believe that these same people reject all things popular and mainstream when Nevermind dropped? Nope, I’m not buying it.

But while I reject the grunge scene, I can’t reject the music, much of which is deep and meaningful, poignant and personal. It’s not the artists’ fault that their fans were (not so much anymore) a bunch of poseurs.

Like CJ, I’m not playing Mitch’s game. Pearl Jam is a decent band but there’s no three musicians that rode coattails harder in the ‘90s than Stone Gossard, Mike McCready, and Jeff Ament. Without Eddie, they never make it past playing suburban high school gyms in the greater Seattle area. (and yes, I know they had already made it past that point by the time they started PJ, I was just making a point that Eddie IS Pearl Jam). On to Purple…

Admittedly, I didn’t know this entire album until this week. It starts out slow with “Meatplow”, a sort-of-pathetic attempt to join the grunge club. It’s a weak effort; fortunately, the album takes a quick 180 after that. In fact, by my calculations, that’s the only true weak point throughout the entire 47 minutes. I most likely won’t return to this album ever, it’s just not my thing and nothing about it gets me excited to hear more. I will say that it’s somewhat more intricate and complex than most other grunge albums, it’s played very well with excellent vocals, and the production is excellent.

So while this probably won’t grace the shelves of my personal collection, it’s good enough and interesting enough that I would be doing the world a disservice by keeping it away from Newbury St.

Pitch Successful (my youthful angst has been replaced by aged empathy)

Mitch’s pitch was successful and Stone Temple Pilots’ Purple will be added to the Newbury St. Collection (although the jury is still out on Pearl Jam’s Vs., since those two cops wouldn’t accept a double pitch.) What’s your take? What Top 20 album from 1994 would you have pitched? Please let us know in the comments section.

Exile on Newbury St.

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