Miscellaneous - Stone Temple Pilots

  by Jeff Thiessen

published: 31 / 5 / 2010

intro

In the latest in his 'This Metal Sky' column, Jeff Thiessen writes an open letter to American hard rockers about their self-titled first album in nine years

Dear Stone Temple Pilots, Hey guys, how are you? I’m doing fine over here. Congratulations on the completion of the new album, creatively entitled 'Stone Temple Pilots'. The reason I’m writing you today, is four days ago, I came upon a startling realization that I’d be morally amiss if I didn’t bring to your attention as soon as possible. You guys now suck. Really bad. I wish this wasn’t the case. Wish the sucking was in much shorter supply than it currently is, but it’s like my old man used to say: “Wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills up first”. See the thing is guys, you didn’t always suck like this. The first three albums STP releases ranged from gabba-gabba-hey fun stupidity ('Core'),to overly experimental and not enough power chords but still an overall terrific effort ('Tiny Music'), to the straight-up awesome ('Purple'). So where did the wheels fall off? It certainly happened before your new fucking awful eponymous album. I think the key here is, to figure out when your music turned from fairly righteous rock n’ roll to an all you can eat, FM radio cock buffet. Let’s take a look! Now, I’m sure even you guys can agree that 'Shangri-La' made Rod Wood solo material sound orgasmically transcendent, but I maintain the seeds of shittiness were firmly planted before that abomination came out. Since I already established the relatively high quality of the first three albums, that leaves us with only one place to examine: the fourth effort, brilliantly titled 'No. 4'. First of all, let me just say, it wasn’t all bad. I mean the first and last tunes on the record are pretty damn good! Of course we all have a problem with the songs sandwiched between those two, ie essentially the entire goddamn album. The grinding grungefest that was 'Core': gone. The drugged-out alt-rock staple with a soul that was 'Purple': gone. The playful experimentation of Tiny Music: gone. In their place: a bunch of horse slop that’s impossible to actively recall, even seconds after listening to it. Sure, nothing stuck out that was as blatantly awful as 'Days of the Week', but for better or worse, if 'No.4' was an insane asylum, it could only be categorized as "seriously understaffed." So with 'No.4', you guys sorta started to suck, but not so obviously that I could stand on a street corner and shout “Hey everyone! Stone Temple Pilots now suck!” Well I could. But I don’t think I could do it convincingly enough to the point of receiving loose change from passing civilians. No, you saved that sort of ghastly conviction for your next release, 'Shangri-La'. My theory with that album is this: yes Scott was high as a kite during the making of that album, but the rest of the band had to be in absolute lunar orbit to allow a song like 'Days of the Week' to not only be a staple of their storied discography, but a single as well. Is this true guys? I hope so, because it sounds like the kind of tune you’d write for a girl’s Bat Mitzvah you were performing at. I won’t beat the incredibly dead horse that is 'Shangri-La' forever though. You guys obviously knew it blew; after all, you broke up right after it. This new album though....I mean you guys had a fresh start. The epic shittiness of 'Shangri-La' was so far in our rear-view mirrors it was just a tiny shit smear dot in the distance. We were willing to love this album and forget past atrocities! Then you go and put this thing out. Again, I won’t go into details regarding why the 2010 album is god-awful, but I will say if I was locked in a crawlspace for the remainder of my days, and was given a choice between 'Kiss: Alive III' and the new STP to listen to for the rest of my days...well I’m 92% certain I’d be rocking out to the live cut of 'Lick It Up' until I breathed my last breath. Sorry to be harsh guys, but I feel I’m in a unique position to throw some tough love your way. I actually wrote an article a couple years ago defending your group, standing behind my belief they were one of the most underrated bands of the nineties (key phrase there, "of the nineties"). Hell I even made myself out to be one of the biggest jerks in print media when I drunkenly wrote 'Interstate Love Song' is a better track than 'Smells Like Teen Spirit'. I put my journalistic career in serious jeopardy with absurd comments like that, and how do you guys repay me? “Monday.....back from the dead/Wednesday....she’s looking for a friend!” Damnit guys! Do you know how stupid lyrics like that make me look, not to mention the pixie song surrounding them? And Scott, I don’t want to hear you talk about how you "used to take drugs." Sobriety has apparently made your band sound like an opening act for the Monkees, so don’t be applauding your new ‘one day at a time’ mentality, at least not on the first single on an album we waited seven long years for. I met a guy at a party a week ago who told me it’s a "fun album". Maybe his idea of fun is getting his gums scraped, but either way, I wanted nothing more at that moment than to punch his nostrils into his brain matter. That was my dream. Unfortunately, I settled on replacing his light beer with regular lager. Hopefully when he notices that extra calorie intake, he’ll know not to mess with the likes of Jeff Thiessen! So in conclusion guys, just stop sucking ok? It’s too late to change the outcome of this last effort, the die has been cast, but please don’t think the future holds no masterpiece for your canvas, just because you spent the last two records colouring outside the lines with crayons. Remember guys....just take it one day at a time. Oh and Scotty, you looked like a withered up pederast doing a slow motion Syrtos dance in the 'Sour Girl' video. Just so you know. Sincerely, Jeffrey Thiessen