lambchops's Full Review: Shangri-La Dee Da by Stone Temple Pilots
By the time Shangri-La Dee Da was released in 2001, I already knew Stone Temple Pilots was all but done. After five albums and years of internal disagreements (mostly due to enigmatic front man Scott Weiland’s drug addiction) the band’s spark had dimmed. The once creative, vibrant, and entertaining STP had basically faded back into musical obscurity.
In the early and mid-1990’s, STP released three great albums. Core and Purple are obvious hard rock classics while the psychedelic Tiny Music… is something of an acquired taste but definitely impressive in the end. These albums spawned a slew of hits--Plush, Sex Type Thing, Wicked Garden, Creep, Big Empty, Interstate Love Song, Big Bang Baby, and Lady Picture Show to name but a few. Even more impressive than album sales and hit singles however was the Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance awarded to STP for the fabulous rock track Plush.
Despite early comparisons to Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots was a unique entity in rock during the 1990’s. Indeed Weiland is one of the most appealing front men ever, but had it not been for Dean DeLeo (guitar), Robert DeLeo (bass), and Eric Kretz (drums) the band wouldn’t have amounted to as much as it did. Stone Temple Pilots is without hesitation my favorite rock band of the early and mid 1990’s. This fact makes it impossibly difficult to admit the fault in both 1999’s No. 4 and 2001’s Shangri-La Dee Da. I wanted to love both of these albums, but I could not. It all goes back to that spark.
Shangri-La Dee Da troubles me the most. Despite going top ten on Billboard and yielding two modest hit singles (Days of the Week and Hollywood Bitch, the album was a great disappointment to me. I wanted to love it with the same unerring intensity that I’d dedicated to STP only a few years earlier. Unfortunately, Shangri-La Dee Da doesn’t deliver much at all as far as music goes. It’s not the most miserable thing I’ve ever heard, but it is a big disappointment and puts something of a damper on my overall critical opinion of their overall body of work. It is easily the worst of STP’s five albums.
The biggest problem with Shangri-La Dee Da is that it doesn’t change anything from No. 4. STP was never content to rest on their laurels in the past, but Shangri-La Dee Da does just that. It settles for a formula that wasn’t even successful on the previous effort. On one hand, these songs are hard rockers full of dense electric guitars and bombastic percussion. On the other hand, these songs are modest and jangly pop-rock songs. I have no problems with either of these kinds of songs from STP, but when they exist on the same album, that album degenerates into a chaotic and purposeless mess.
There are but a few moments when I feel the “old” Stone Temple Pilots. Dumb Love is by no means a masterpiece but it is reminiscent of the thick, dark hard rock of Core. Hollywood Bitch is also moderately entertaining, but in much more a Tiny Music… sort of way. It have the great swagger which has always given STP an edge on competition but also lacks any real direction.
But it is both Wonderful and Black Again that are my favorites. STP has proven in the past that they have a heart (most notably on Atlanta) and Wonderful is another example of this. It’s a gorgeous, sweeping song that would have a place on any STP album including this one. Black Again on the other hand brings out Weiland’s inner lounge lizard. It’s an odd mid-tempo piece that shows the band did indeed grow (despite the overall lackluster quality of Shangri-La Dee Da).
There is little positive I can say about the second half of the album. Too Cool Queenie is a fine attempt, but in the end the pop influenced rock track proves completely unrewarding. Hell It’s Late and Regeneration are just simply unremarkable. The only awful songs are in the second half. Bi-Polar Bear entirely lacks direction and with a painfully slow pace and muffled vocals and instrumentation I am completely unimpressed. A Song for Sleeping is a mechanical sort of song featuring the usually gritty, gravelly Weiland whining. I can’t take it.
Despite my feeling that Days of the Week (the biggest single from Shangri-La Dee Da) is a waste of space, I do understand why people like it. A mix between pop melody and rock instrumentation, it appeals to folks on many levels. What I don’t like is that it seems to be a conscious effort to appeal to MTV audiences. STP never needed to do anything so purposeful in the past.
Stone Temple Pilots should have probably wrapped things up before recording this disappointing album. Instead, we’re stuck with it to taint the memories of the once-great band. My suggestion would be to steer far clear of this confusing album. There are moments which are good (bordering on great) and others which are truly awful. If you really want to hear something great from STP, may I suggest starting from the beginning of their discography and working forward? Core, Purple, Tiny Music…, and No. 4 are all superior efforts to Shangri-La Dee Da.
Rating: 2.5/5 stars
Track Listing:
01. Dumb Love
02. Days of the Week
03. Coma
04. Hollywood Bitch
05. Wonderful
06. Black Again
07. Hell It’s Late
08. Too Cool Queenie
09. Regeneration
10. Bi-Polar Bear
11. Transmissions From a Lonely Room
12. A Song for Sleeping
13. Long Way Home
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