Stone Temple Pilots
“I like how we have just enough talent to play their songs, but not Pearl Jam. We’re like a Pearl Jam wannabe band.” – The Moonman
“I just think their name is kinda odd, like they pilot giant flying stone temples or something. Like, what the heck is it all supposed to mean?” – Al
“I really want to make the stage feel like my recording studio, which is like a Turkish den.” – Scott Weiland
Albums Reviewed:
Tiny Music…Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop
Ah, The Stone Temple Pilots. Schlock purveyors! Coattail riders! Defamers
of all that was good about grunge rock!
Just generally bad motherfucking assholes! Originally called Shirley Temple’s Pussy!
At least that’s what critics tended
to think of the band when they first came out.
Do I agree? Well…no, though the
last part’s true (gee, can’t see why they wanted to change that…). I can sort of see their
argument, though, as much of Core does come off as “cut-rate grunge” or
whatever term they liked to bandy about.
After their debut, however, that sort of thinking begins to lose steam,
as, with their superb second album Purple, the band began to forge a more unique
sound. Or at least started ripping off
bands other than Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains. Depends which way you wanna look at it. Where are those naysaying critics now, you ask? Well, they’re too busy making fun of Creed,
Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit to notice STP.
Luckily for you, somehow I made time in MY busy schedule of making fun
of Creed, Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit to give the band their due as a good
(though not great), solid, consistently decent (and
occasionally excellent) nineties rock band.
And EVERY ONE of their four albums after their debut sounds absolutely nothing like it. If you wanna jump on
the “let’s diss the Pilots!” bandwagon, start and finish that gravy train with Core. But “Plush” fucking rules,
dude. Come on.
Oh, right, lineup. Fuck you, it’s late! Anyhoo, from left to right we first have the
infamous, drug-inhaling Scott Weiland, the band’s frontman and main
lyricist. He’s been clean for a few
years! Good for him. I still don’t get all the pseudo-glam shit
he does, though, with the makeup and whatever.
Dude, you’re not David Bowie!
Get over yourself. Good voice,
though. He started out sounding like
Eddie Vedder, but now he sounds like Scott Weiland. And NOT like Geddy Lee (thank GOD). Now, moving on, we’ve got bassist Robert DeLeo, drummer Eric
Kretz (neither of whom will have anything said about them because they’re
boring…I guess Kretz has a good knack for when to play the hi-hat open or
closed…that’s about it though…he’s just an average drummer), and Rob’s brother,
guitarist Dean Deleo, who, if nothing else, has a fucking FAT guitar tone a lot
of the time, so he’s got that going for him, which is nice. Pretty good band. I don’t think I’m that big of a fan myself, but good band. A worthy addition to the collection of
anyone who likes fucking Candlebox and stuff.
And onto the reviews!
Core (1992)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “Plush”
As I mentioned in my intro, back when they came out, the Stone Temple Pilots were pretty much trashed by the “general critical establishment” as nothing more than 2nd rate Pearl Jam ripoffs. I guess I can see that a LITTLE in this record, but not much, especially in my current predicament of being SURROUNDED by shitty, shitty, SHITTY 456th rate Pearl Jam knockoffs like, oh, hmm…CREED (my favorite whipping boys)! If the Pilots were a piece of shit knockoff riding the coattails of the “grunge” explosion, then Creed would, by extension, be something akin to a pile of rotten, old and fetid baboon excrement that has been strategically placed under a dirty, old bridge so that it may be sat on my homeless people and comically ugly trolls who live under bridges. While this isn’t that far from the truth (substitute rhesus monkey for baboon and you’re pretty much right), it DOES serve to illustrate a certain philosophy of mine: if you think something sucks NOW, just wait six months, because a knockoff of whatever you think sucks will come along and suck TEN TIMES MORE.
But even though I just defended the Stone Temple Pilots in that paragraph, I’m NOT about to claim I’m a big fan of theirs. I like ‘em, for sure, but no more than that. This record, their debut, isn’t bad though. Not especially great, but decent, especially to one such as myself who grew up during that big ball of fun knows as the “grunge explosion,” and so this was one of the first bands I ever really heard a lot from. One is apt to slightly overrate that which one is surrounded by growing up, isn’t one?
Yes, one is. But there’s one problem I have with this album. MONOTONOUSNESS. Obviously they were a young band (they’d get MUCH more diverse sounding later on), but can’t you vary up the tone/speed/attitude of the songs a LITTLE? It’s not like they’re all the same quality, either. Some are real good, some are average, and some suck, just like any decent album, but they obviously knew what was H-H-H-HOT back in 1992, so the opening troika of “Dead And Bloated,” “Sex Type Thing,” and “Wicked Garden” all have the EXACT same guitar tone and chug-chug-chug along at pretty much the EXACT same speed. The only reason I can tell them much apart is that I’ve heard them all on the radio 6,000 times. I like “Wicked Garden” a good bit, though, and the other two are nice as well. The band obviously didn’t want to stick FOUR nearly identical-sounding songs in a row, so at least they stuck in a little acoustic interlude (“No Memory”) before launching into “Sin,” also a solid yet unspectacular song, which wouldn’t stand out in my consciousness at ALL were it not for an acoustic break (“Still shackled to the shadow…”) they plop in near the end. YES! A little diversity! That’s what we need, boys.
Now, at about this point the record shifts from “consistently pretty decent but monotonous” to “alarmingly, sickeningly uneven.” Tracks 6, 8 and 11 (“Naked Sunday,” “Piece Of Pie” and “Crackerman”) are all morosely AWFUL piles of SHIT. However, tracks 7, 9, and 12 (“Creep,” “Plush,” and “Where The River Goes”) are my three favorite tunes on the album (I left out track 10…it’s a stupid interlude called “Wet My Bed” where Scott is looking for his cigarette and ANNOYING me). So, from here on out you get jerked around between nausea and pleasure. They could have cut out the three crap songs and the record would have been about forty minutes long, so THERE’S something that could have yanked the rating up a point. Whatever. Doozies. I’ll skip over the flaming piles of feces, just leave my description of them as “they blow,” and move on to the good tracks. “Creep” is the “Take time with a wounded hand…” song. It’s (partially) acoustic! More diversity! Kick-ASS! And I don’t have to tell YOU that “Plush” is one of the best overplayed alternative rock singles of the ‘90’s, along with “Smells Like Deodorant” and “Today I’ll Ride An Ice Cream Truck” and “Black Hole Up My Ass” and whatever other clever re-titlings you want to come up with. What makes it good is that they changed the guitar tone just a LITTLE. It’s not quite as heavy. I mean, it’s still heavy and all, but it’s lightened up JUST ENOUGH to stand out from the rest of the sludge on here. That and it fucking rules. What a cool chord sequence! “Where The River Goes” is somehow (I’ve just discovered this…I never realized it was this lengthy!) over eight minutes long, and actually manages to keep my attention for the entire time (enough that, obviously, I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT WAS THAT LONG!). It’s nothing super-spectacular, but anything that can entertain me for eight minutes deserves a pat on the back.
However, it’s not like it’s a GREAT song. I’m just saying that many bands are incapable of holding my attention for eight SECONDS, let alone minutes, so I must give it its “props,” even if it’s nothing special. Word. “Plush” really is the only great song on here. “Creep” is quite good, too. The rest is either a) solid and decent, but no better b) a weird linking thing or c) dogshit. “Plush” is good enough to garner a 7 for the record, though. A weak 7, yet a 7 just the same. If you took out “Plush,” though? Hmm…not so good.
Purple (1994)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “Interstate Love Song”
Now,
as I’ve said a bunch of times, I don’t consider myself a huge fan of this band,
and I do prefer some of their more critically-respected contemporaries (Hello,
Soundgarden! How are you?). However, I will put this excellent record up against any other early-mid 90’s “grunge” album (except Superunknown, Siamese Dream, Mellon
Collie, and anything by Nirvana)
any day of the week and FOUR times in Tuesday.
I mean, it’s just a quantum leap from Core in nearly EVERY
imaginable area. Diversity (THERE
ACTUALLY IS SOME!), songwriting, studiocraft…it’s all here. In one 45-minute, easily-digestable package.
*Burp*
Most of this quite honestly sounds
like a completely different band from the last album (actually, every fucking
album they ever made sounds like a completely different band from Core…maybe they just needed an overly-derivative hit first). The only tunes that sound like they could
have been on Core are the opener “Meatplow” (which would’ve
been the second best song on the album) and like half of “Silvergun
Superman.” The other half, as I’ve
mentioned, sounds like a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BAND! There’s goodness, tastiness, deliciousness, and
so-good-it-feels-like-oral-sex-ness all over this sumbitch.
Where? Oh, how about the goofy intro and kick-ASS pounding percussion of
“Lounge Fly?” The prettiness of “Still
Remains?” The relaxing acoustic
plucking-ness and bongo-ness of “Pretty Penny?” Which is then counteracted by the MONSTROUS riff that opens
“Silvergun Superman?” See, this is all
good stuff here. Core had some nice songs, but they all sounded the same. Like that keyboard intro to “Army Ants”
that’s then counteracted by the super-fast (almost punkish!) energy of the main
part of the song? If that were on Core, there would have been no keyboard intro, and the main part of the
song would have been played about 2/3 the speed. Then it would have sounded like the same midtempo sludgy
riff-fest that every song on that album was.
Except “Creep,” I guess. Oh, and
“Plush.” THAT SONG IS AWESOME!
I’ve only mentioned like half the
songs so far, so there’s more good stuff to come. Like “Vasoline!” That
guitar riff? IT’S TWO FUCKING
NOTES! WHAT THE FUCK??? Yet, see, it works. Because there’s other stuff
going on. Like bongos and stuff. There’s other stuff too. I just like bongos. They’re cool. And, like, isn’t “bongo” just a fun word to say? “Hello, how’s your bongo?” “Well, fine thank you.” “Big Empty” is a real winner, too. I’ve never liked the lyrics in the chorus
(“Her dizzy head is conscience-laden?”
The fuck does that mean?), but it’s a BIG ol’ hook, it is. And the closer, the stupidly-titled
“Kitchenware And Candybars,” now THAT is the way to end an album. All slow and “oh, look at me, I’m angsty and
deeply pondering stuff,” then the guitars get a little louder, then the
ORCHESTRA comes in, and gives you that huuuuuuuuge ending string orgasm that I
like albums to end on. Then they fuck
it up with that dumb lounge-jazz “12 Gracious Melodies” hidden track (which the
band must have dug, because they tried to rewrite it two or three times on the
next album for some reason), but no biggie.
Oh, I almost forgot. “Interstate Love Song” is on this album,
too. It’s the best song the band ever
did, and has one of the catchiest, poppiest riffs ever written by mortal man. Just thought I’d mention it.
So, why no 10? Well, a few reasons, and not because Mark
Prindle would probably send me a virus-carrying, computer-killing email if I
gave The Stone Temple Pilots a 10. Not
that he reads my page. Not that ANYONE
reads my page. Besides Al. And my sister. Oh, and Al. But I’ve lost
my train of thought. Fuck, what was I
talking about again? Oh yes. Why no 10?
Well, first, “Unglued” sucks. I
mean, sucks balls. Tough to give a 10
to an album with a song that sucks so much balls. Not that there’s anything wrong with sucking balls. I just prefer to not suck them. I’d rather have my balls sucked. Preferably by a chick, but eventually I’ll
probably go to prison, and I’d gladly offer up my balls in lieu of getting
gang-assraped in the shower. And
second, because this record is not cohesive.
At all. Now, I know I LIKED it
so much because of its diversity and its willingness to try all sorts of new
shit, but in the end the album seems like nine really good songs, one orgasmic
song, and one ball-sucker just tossed together with no rhyme or reason. “Unglued” is on the same album as “Silvergun
Superman” is on the same album as “Still Remains” is…you get the idea. It’s not that big a deal, though. Mainly no 10 because “Unglued” ain’t that
great. Great fucking album,
though. Start your Pilots collection
HERE. I used to say “end it here, too,”
but their latest album’s pretty damn good!
Who knew! Oh well. Suck my balls.
No, not you, the hot chick behind
you. Hey there!
Nick Collings (crawlaway@lycos.co.uk) writes:
You
hit the nail on it's head, STP's 'Purple' is simply a great rock record - certainly
won't go down in rock history as a obvious masterpiece, but I would rank it
amongst the '90s best with Still Remains my favourite track. And Unglued
does not suck, it's a great energetic number.
Tiny Music…Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop (1996)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “Lady Picture Show”
OK…what the fuck is this? I remember when this thing came out in
199-whatever, when I bought it, I rushed home and put it on and said exactly
that. “OK…what the fuck is this?” Back then, my bullshit stupid reason for
saying that was “DUDE! THEY WENT
SOFT!” Nowadays, because I’m all smart
and such, I don’t care about that so much.
So what do I say? “Dude…what a
fucking mess.”
Seriously, it’s a mess. Listening to it a few more times for
reviewing purposes, it has grown on me, enough to give it a 7 (call it
roughly even with Core, but in quality, not at ALL in style),
but…yeah. What a fucking mess. I don’t even know what genre to call
it. It’s not like weird in a Kid A way or anything. It’s all perfectly accessible.
Very poppy. But…yeah. What the fuck. I guess one problem I have with the record is the guitar
tone. I mean, say what you will about
their first two albums, but Dean DeLeo had a SUPERBLY fat guitar tone on those
babies. This time, the band is going
for “textures” and whatnot, and bringing in some keyboards and things. I’m a fan of diversity, and this album is very
interesting (maybe even more so than Purple), and the songwriting, while it’s definitely slipped a level from Purple, is probably higher than Core (it’s just that the fat guitar tone is
gone). It’s just…weird. I mean, it confuses me. It sounds like a grunge album mated with
lounge jazz. I don’t know what to call
this thing.
OK, enough of my rambling. Let’s get to the songs. A few are real winners (and, no, NOT the
useless little instrumentals “Press Play” and “Daisy.” I don’t know what the fuck Weiland and the
Deleos (don’t fool yourself, Kretz does nothing) were smoking when they came up
with the “Hey! Let’s open the album
with a keyboard-pop instrumental!” idea).
You’ll find the best stuff at the beginning and end of the album. The middle is VERY choppy. Three of the best songs (for my complete
lack of money) actually come right in a row, tracks 3-5 baby. “Tumble In The Rough” is incredibly simplistic, but incredibly catchy as well (It’s actually the first
song I ever figured out how to play on guitar, although I’ve forgotten
now. Number of songs I can currently
play on guitar? One. Green Day’s “Brain Stew.” I took up drums instead. It’s just banging stuff. That’s easy). “Big Bang Baby” was the “big, opening single,” and the chorus is
a direct ripoff of the Rolling Stones (“Big bang baby it’s a crash crash crash”
= “Jumpin’ Jack Flash it’s a gas gas gas”), but that doesn’t mean it’s not
cool, and the goofy “nothing’s for free” bridge makes up for it. “Lady Picture Show” is just pure pop, and
excellent pure pop, which from this point forward is almost exclusively what
the Pilots are good at (YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!).
Best song here, too.
The rest is spotty. “Pop’s Love Suicide” is an odd choice for
first song on the album, although pretty much every song on here is. Maybe that’s why they started it with a one-minute
instrumental. “And So I Know” is
bullshit lifeless lounge-pop that puts me to sleep, which is odd because the
fast, energetic “Trippin’ On A Weird Fucking Title For A Song” comes directly
after it, which is odd because there’s a synth that sounds like E.L.P. that
comes in at the end for no reason. “Art
School Girl” is (hopefully intentionally) nonsensical bullshit (“I got a girl
friend, she goes to art school, I got an art school girlfriend, yeah…FIVE OR
FOUR TIMES! I TOLD YOU FIVE OR FOUR
TIMES!!!!!!”) “Adhesive” is actually
quite nice, despite being half lazy lounge-pop stuff and half “Big Empty”
rewrite. The “Adhesive
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE…adhesive!” line gives me an aural (not oral, you dirty
motherfucker) orgasm, but it goes on too long, and the trumpet (?????) solo just makes no sense whatsoever. The album actually closes out with two nice, catchy rockers,
“Ride The Cliché” and (especially) “Seven Caged Tigers,” and the other useless
little instrumental that has no reason to exist (“Daisy” this time, “Press
Play” was the album-opener with no reason to exist) goes in between. “Seven Caged Tigers” is really the lost gem
on this thing. Why is it at the end? Would’ve been a GREAT choice for a single, I
think. Eh. And there you go. That’s
the album. Interesting, confusing, yet
poppy and catchy upon further listens.
Still its fair share of crap.
Solid 7. OK, maybe it’s a little
better than Core.
It’s close, though. I mean, Core had fucking “Plush” on it, dude.
Oh, and, as you can see, there’s a
hot chick on the cover, but if you take out the liner notes and unfold the damn
thing, she has goat legs. Personally,
I’d still do her. Just forget about the
furry legs and hooves. She’s pretty
cute waist-up. Not that I’m picky or
anything.
No. 4 (1999)
Rating: 6
Best Song: “Church On Tuesday”
Problems.
Weiland becomes a drug addict, goes into rehab, comes back, goes back
into rehab, comes back again, and then the Pilots splotch out album no. 4,
creatively titled, um, No. 4.
The problem I have with this one is this: In terms of songwriting and general cohesive,
let’s-try-not-to-make-this-thing-a-mess-ness, they’re still just about where
they were with Tiny Music, but here they’re trying to
RAWWWWK out in a way they haven’t done since Core, and a way they
haven’t been especially good at, since…um…ever. This doesn’t really surprise me allllll that much, since I bet a
sizeable contingent of their original, Core-era fans HATED Tiny Music because “like, they went soft, DUDE!”
Including me. What can I say, I
was (When did Tiny Music come out again? 1996? OK, thanks,
anonymous stat man) 14! Anyhoo, they
made “Down” the first track and lead single to emphasize this re-found
rawwwwkingness, and I have to say it BLOWS.
I actually wrote the Pilots right off in 1999 when I first heard
“Down.” “Trying to recapture old
glories, they’re done,” I said to my imaginary friend Carmelo Anthony when I
heard it on the radio. “Bullshit,” I
then added cleverly.
I wasn’t COMPLETELY right,
though. See, this hard sort of sludgy
grunge was never their forte, so “Down” sucks, “Heaven and Hot Rods” isn’t much
to look at either, “No Way Out” (the worst song they’ve ever done, not even close) sounds like B-rate nu-metal and is AWWWWWFUUUUUL, and “MC5” isn’t
that great either. “Sex And Violence”
pretty much rules my ass though (love that frantic “NO SEX OR VIOLENCE!!!!”
chorus), and the Pilots didn’t go ALLLLL retro-Core-but-without-the-fat-guitar-tone-and-with-the-schizo-Tiny Music-songwriting on us. No, they filled
out about half the record with some sorts of pop, and most of it is pretty darn
solid, bringing the rating up to the 6 where it stands. And NO, I do NOT mean “Sour Girl.” I can’t say I’m a big fan of that song. It does NOTHING. It goes NOWHERE. If it
didn’t have Sarah Michelle Gellar in the video (mmmmm…you can slay me anytime, baby…) there’d be nothing to discuss about the song. What the fuck kind of album IS this where
the two singles are two of the weakest tracks, especially coming from such an
unabashed singles band as the Pilots?
Blerf me up the ge-schmack if I know.
However, what I DO mean by “pretty
darn solid” is the sort of hazy pseudo-psychedelic pop tune “Pruno,” the
gorgeous (yet messy) “Glide” and a few other things. And what I DO mean by “fucking insanely catchy and easily the
best song on the album” is “Church On Tuesday,” which really has no excuse for
not being the single off this album.
It’s more or less the prototypical example of the expertly-written, superbly-catchy midtempo guitar pop that
has ALWAYS been (“Plush,” “Interstate Love Song,” “Lady Picture Show”) what the
Pilots are best at. By “prototypical,”
I don’t mean “best.” I mean, the song
can’t fucking touch “Plush” or “Interstate,” but it’s got a
slight lead over “Lady Picture Show,” for whatever that’s worth, I guess.
I’ve mentioned every song on this
record except two so far, and the main reason for that is because I just
haven’t gotten around to mentioning “I Got You” and “Atlanta” yet. Nick Karn makes the comment that, although
both of these ballads are solid (and they are), “I Got You” sounds a little TOO
much like The Rolling Stones and “Atlanta” sounds a little TOO much like The
Doors. And I have to say I wholeheartedly
agree. Besides the general feel of the
songs, it’s that, lyrically, they sound a LOT like songs from these
bands. “I Got You” sounds country-ish
and has the line “I got you to paint the roses on my grave” in it, which is
more or less a direct lifting from “Dead Flowers” by the Stones. “Atlanta” sounds slow and dark, and Weiland
slooooowly enunciates the word “bungalow” a lot, which I can’t place to a
specific Doors song, but I can’t think of another band that uses the word
“bungalow.” Oh, I got it! “L.A. Woman” has “bungalow” in it! I bet a few others do, too. Not that I know anything about stuff.
This is the weakest Pilots album out
there, but it’s still decent. It’s not
like you should be surprised it’s weak, though. If someone walked up to me and said “hey, how about combining the
dunderheaded sludge of half of Core with the schizo songwriting of Tiny Music?” I’d reply that this person should probably stick a crowbar up their
warm, moist ass. “Sex And Violence” and
the pop songs (ESPECIALLY “Church On Tuesday”) make this worthwhile. I still say “Sour Girl” ain’t much of a
song, though.
Shangri-La Dee Da (2001)
Rating: 8
Best Song: “Days Of The Week”
I would start this review by saying “TOTAL FUCKING
COMEBACK!” but I don’t think anyone actually bought this album. And that is a MISTAKE. This is EASILY their best since Purple, the second record of theirs I can unabashedly and wholeheartedly
recommend, and trust me, NO ONE is more surprised about that than
me. And I’m also the most surprised
person in the world that “Days Of The Week” is up there as “best song.” I thought the thing blew when I first heard
it! Ofcourse, I was biased against the
Pilots then. Now I like them again, and
now I like the song. It’s SOOOO fucking
commercial, but, like, that’s what these guys are GOOD at! Blatantly commercial, ridiculously catchy
midtempo guitar pop! That’s their bread
and butter! They probably wrote “Days
Of The Week” in their fucking sleep, too.
It’s the style of song they could churn out in like five minutes. They’re great at it.
It’s not really any better than
“Church On Tuesday” or “Lady Picture Show,” though, but that’s what makes this
album so good. Consistency. This is, to me, the only Pilots album with
no real, obvious standout track, unless you wanna smoosh the first five
together into one uber-track. That’d
rule ass. Because the first five songs
on here (“Dumb Love,” “Days Of The Week,” “Coma,” “Hollywood Bitch,” and
“Wonderful”) are a string of Purple-quality material, and I do
mean that. “Dumb Love” is the best
dunder-headed heavy rocker they’ve done since…um…EVER. It’s just so wonderfully catchy, and
TIGHT. And “Wonderful” is the best
ballad they’ve done since…um…EVER. It’s
just so pretty, and catchy, and TIGHT.
That’s what really stands out about
this record. Everything is so
TIGHT. The last two albums were both
(albeit interesting and fun in their own ways) just fucking messy. Whichever DeLeo plays guitar,
which for some reason I can’t remember right now even though it’s mentioned in
the intro and at least one other review (mental note: check which DeLeo is the guitar player before you post this
review), has reclaimed the enormously FAT guitar tone he lost in the last two
albums for the rockers like “Dumb Love,” and in general it just seems like the
band has trimmed off the fat here. This
album is focused.
It’s cohesive.
It’s just TIGHT. Like the
opposite of your mother’s snatch. The
fucking slut. I mean, the Core band would NEVER have segued that last “she goes again!!!” from
“Hollywood Bitch” into the soft opening acoustic notes of “Wonderful,” because
that’s just such a CLEVER idea that makes the album seem so TIGHT and COHESIVE and GOOD. It would’ve been way over their heads.
You may have noticed I still haven’t
mentioned anything beyond the first five tunes yet. That’s because the album takes a noticeable dip after
“Wonderful.” I mean, the songs are
still, for the most part, good and solid from that point on (exceptions: the closer “Long Way Home” sounds like it
should be on No. 4 next to “Down” and “No Way Out” and
shtinks, while the right-before-the-closer “A Song For Sleeping” rules my ASS
with its acoustic cuteness), but, if you’re still following me after that long
parenthesis, there IS a dip starting with track 6, starting with the good but
forgettable “Black Again.” Standouts of
this nebulous yet still good middle section of Shangri-La Dee Da include
the purty “Hello It’s Late,” the NEAT “Regeneration,” and the purposely schizo “Bi-Polar Bear,” with soothing parts alternating with manic
parts. Because the bear is
bi-polar. Like Rob Van Winkle. Man, did you see when Willis from Diff’rent
Strokes kicked his ass on Fox’s Celebrity Boxing? That was cool. The other
songs are cool, too. Not awesome, but
cool. There’s a weird synth effect in
“Too Cool Queenie” that’s cool. It’s
cooler than the weird synth effect in “Trippin’ On…There’s No Way I’m Typing
That Entire Fucking Title Out. Ever.” And everything’s tight. Because I said so. Cool.
Call this album “the anti-No. 4.” In terms of the types of
songs, the guy who wrote the review on the All Music Guide (Why, it’s Stephen
Thomas Erlewine again! Oh, happy day!)
is right. They made the same
album. BUT, everything else about the
two are different. No. 4 was a mess. This record is
tight and cohesive. The rockers, except
for one (“Sex And Violence”), SUCK on No. 4. The rockers, except for one (“Long Way
Home”), are quite good stuff on this one.
So, basically, the band re-made No. 4, but succeeded in
the areas where that one failed. And,
for that reason, I guess, call it “the anti-No. 4.” That doesn’t really make any sense,
actually. I should think before I come
up with sweeping generalizations.
Go ‘Cuse!
No, see, that wasn’t random! The album cover’s orange!
Go ‘Cuse!
Better run fast as I can, from the man, the dirty man, the
old man.