"Down," "No Way Out," "Glide," and "Pruno" are as good as any of band's singles and even though I'm not personally a fan, "Sour Girl" scored STP possibly their biggest hit ever. 4" doesn't break any new ground, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing for straight-ahead rock fans, while listening I often find myself longing for the one-two power punch of "Purple" or the eclectic diversity of "Tiny Music." both of which are solid five-star records.Īll that said, the music here is actually really good for the most part despite its, uh, "familiar" sound. 4" is about as similar an album to "Core" as any, and that's really the only problem here. 4" does its fair share to contribute to the legacy, but comes up a little short in the long run.Ĭampaigned as a "back to basics" rock record, "No.
Very few rock bands out of the 90s have quite as solid a library packed with as many timeless hits as STP. With the release of their sixth studio album (first in 9 years) growing closer by the day, I find myself revisiting a lot of their back catalog. Well, it scored a bunch of major hits for the band, but I'm not sure it quite attained the lofty status they were hoping. "That's what Scott Weiland said of this album back in 1998 before its release. I don't know if Weiland was over his drug problems, or not by the time this came out, but it does show he was focused. I don't know if they had any Grammy nominations that year as everyone went ga-ga over Santana's "Supernatural", but it should've been considered. It's also got some other songs like "Atlanta" which is a ballad that can equal "Creep" anytime. I downloaded it, and burned it onto a cd, and now play it to death. However, the honors go to "Sour Girl", and "Glide" as I heard "Sour Girl" on Real Radio 104 one weekend, and that inspired me to go onto Napster, and check out the rest of the album.I sampled "Glide", and it was probably one of the most beautiful songs of the 90's. It starts off with "Drown" which is one of the grunge cuts, "Heaven and Hot Rods" is some more of the tight production of "Tiny Vatican". His vocal range is actually good on these tracks. The impressive thing here is Scott Weiland's vocals as he doesn't sound anything like Layne Staley, or Eddie Vedder here. It has the tight production of the "Tiny Vatican" album, but also the grunge of the first 2 albums. After the first 3 albums they found the right formula with this one.
However, I was wrong because on this one they finally found their sound. I dismissed it as another attempt at a comeback not worthy of even giving it a listen to. "I didn't know this album even came out until Jan.2000.