lambchops's Full Review: No. 4 by Stone Temple Pilots
I am above all other things musical, an unconditional fan of Stone Temple Pilots. Strange choice of bands, I know, but since I first heard them my sophomore year of high (mid 1992) I’ve been in lust with their brand of rock music. The mixture of what was at one time classified as “grunge” and more general types of rock and roll is divine and just what I needed that decade ago.
Stone Temple Pilots has spoken to me via their music a number of ways. Lyrically, the songs are tight and entertaining and easy to recite. Vocally, Scott Weiland possesses one of the most distinctive styles. Musically, Stone Temple Pilots has in the past been driving, innovative, and extremely entertaining. While some point to their third studio album, Tiny Music… as the moment at which the band really made a turn for the worse, I have to instead turn to No. 4. I do in fact enjoy much of No. 4, but the fact that MTV picked up on their songs so readily and exploited the band’s video for Sour Girl really pained me and left a sour taste in my mouth (no pun intended). I really wanted my old STP back.
For all these years, Scott Weiland has provided the vocals and many of the lyrics. He’s also provided media with fodder and the Enquirer with their share of stories as a result of a prison term after various heroin convictions. Very, very few bands can recover with the finesse that STP was able to and continue to be both popular and critically well-received.
Formed in first as Mighty Joe Young, the band was renamed for their superb major label debut Core in 1992. Weiland along with Dean DeLeo (guitar), Robert DeLeo (bass), and Eric Kretz (drums) teamed up again two years later to record and release their most important album to date, Purple. Tiny Music (1996) not only proved that STP could outlive the majority of grunge acts…it also proved that the band had more to them than just rock and roll. In fact, Lady Picture Show continues to be one of my favorite tunes from STP.
No. 4 hit shelves in late 1999 while Weiland was serving a sentence for probation violation resulting from the aforementioned heroin conviction. The album is in actuality a return to the lightly metal-edged style best explored earlier on Core. While I have a great deal of love and sentiment attached to Core, Four lacks that close emotional attachment. No. 4 recalled early influences like Kiss (whom the band at times dressed up like) and Led Zeppelin (whom I adore) with big guitar riffs and Weiland’s ridiculously perfect vocals. But where the album manages to come up short is with melody…or its lack thereof.
I desperately want to love No. 4…I really do. As an admitted fanatic of STP it somehow seems wrong that I can’t bring myself to enjoy all of their albums at least close to equally. Core is nearly perfect and was in 1992 a standout in grunge. Purple was an extension and refinement of the debut…an album that cemented Stone Temple Pilots at the top of rock and roll. Tiny Music… proved that STP had staying power and a heart. No. 4 did none of that. It was simply a rehash…a good one yes, but not at all a standout.
The 1999 Atlantic release of No. 4 was highly anticipated by fans and critics. Could STP pull it off with Weiland’s continued drug addiction? As I’ve already mentioned, yes and no. The “yes” part of that comes in songs like Down, Heaven & Hot Rods, No Way Out, Atlanta and MC5. The no comes in the mushy, gushy Sour Girl, Church on Tuesday, and Pruno. Most of the other songs fall somewhere in between the two poles. I know that my opinion of this album is probably very different than most other people. My heart just isn’t in it.
Sour Girl is a decent, trippy, pop song…just not what I want nor need on a STP album. It was exploited too much for it’s own good and ruined by top 40 radio. I, in fact, find it more difficult than about 95% of all other STP material. I can’t help but feel cheated by its utter lack of direction and inspiration and Weiland’s wholly unemotional delivery. If all were right in this world (which it’s obviously not), this song would have been completely ignored. Hell, the fact that the song one two American Music Awards should be proof that it’s overplayed crap.
On a more positive note, I do in fact enjoy Down. As the leadoff track, it’s amazing and as a single it really should have been more popular. But since the band was able to do very little touring and publicity in support of the album until mid-late 2000, the song went rather unnoticed by much of rock radio. Weiland growls in the manner that he’s best known for. He yelps, yowls, and even sings understatedly around and through the DeLeo’s riffs and Kretz’s thumping drums.
Wrapping up No. 4 on a positive note is Atlanta. Acoustic and touching, the song is a different turn on the band’s most typical kind of music. In reality, it’s actually a return to the sonically pleasurable sound throughout Tiny Music…. With that said, I do in fact love this tune. Weiland reminds me very specifically of Jim Morrison in every way. The addition of classical stringed instruments helps to make Atlanta an even more majestic and evocative track. Atlanta is in my opinion one of the best songs ever recorded by STP.
Sandwiched between the two songs I’ve just mentioned are nine tracks including Sour Girl. Of these nine songs there are a few more that I do in fact like. Heaven and Hot Rods represents another move toward hard rock for STP. It’s the sound that I most prefer. The track is unrelenting with a great bass line and a slowed and more melodic chorus. This is the formula that really helped to put the spotlight on the band to in the early 1990’s.
No Way Out has a slight Middle Eastern feel with a seriously hard-hitting rock edge. I like the band’s stop and go tempo and Weiland’s performance as a whole. What I don’t particularly enjoy about the track is that is has a distinctively nu-metal feel…a sound that has nearly turned me off of rock and roll completely in the past few years.
Finally, MC5 is rather loud and ruckus and sounds like a mix at times between classic rock and “classic” STP. The production is a bit scant, but the vocals are great with nonstop drums and guitars.
I find this album very difficult to speak about. I love the “old” Stone Temple Pilots; the band that morphed from grunge rock to rock to psychedelic rock in the course of just three albums. No. 4 is fine, nothing great. What is good about the album has been done before save for the absolutely lovely Atlanta. I can’t imagine listening to the melody and vocals of this track and not finding an appreciation for STP and their innate talent.
No. 4 should by no means be the first STP purchase. Buy Core, Purple, Tiny Music and even the more recent Shangri-La Dee Da before you explore this lackluster 1999 effort. You might even want to think twice about buying it unless you are a fan of the band as a whole or are looking to completely your STP collection.
Rating: 3/5 Stars
Track Listing:
1. Down
2. Heaven & Hot Rods
3. Pruno
4. Church on Tuesday
5. Sour Girl
6. No Way Out
7. Sex and Violence
8. Glide
10. MC5
11. Atlanta
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