Stone Temple Pilots were positively vilified once their 1992 debut,
Core, started scaling the charts in 1993, pegged as fifth-rate
Pearl Jam copyists. It is true that the worst moments of
Core play like a parody of the Seattle scene -- titles like "Dead and Bloated" and "Crackerman" tell you that much, playing like really bad
Alice in Chains parodies, and the entire record tends to sink into gormless post-grunge sludge. Furthermore, even if it rocks pretty hard, it's usually without much character, sounding like cut-rate grunge. To be fair, it's more that they share the same influences as their peers than being overt copycats, but it's a little disheartening all the same. If that's all that
Core was, it'd be as forgettable as
Seven Mary Three, but there are the hits that propelled it up the charts, songs that have remarkably stood the test of time to be highlights of their era. "Sex Type Thing" may have a clumsy anti-rape lyric that comes across as misogynist, but it survives on its terrifically lunk-headed riff, while "Wicked Garden" is a surprisingly effective piece of revivalist acid rock. Then, there's the slow acoustic crawl of "Creep" that works as well as anything on
AIC's
Sap and, finally, "Plush," a majestic album rock revival more melodic and stylish than anything grunge produced outside of
Nirvana itself. These four songs aren't enough to salvage a fairly pedestrian debut, but they do find
STP to be nimble rock craftsmen when inspiration hits. [
Stone Temple Pilots celebrated the 25th anniversary of
Core by releasing a Super Deluxe Edition of their debut containing three additional CDs and a DVD. The first bonus disc rounds up nine demos -- usually rough and recognizable versions of what made the album, plus the unreleased "Only Dying" -- adding remastered versions of B-sides, including the acoustic version of "Plush," which turned into a radio hit, and a "Swing Type Version" of "Sex Type Thing." The third disc is devoted to live performances from 1993 -- a set at Castaic Lake Natural Amphitheater from July, a set from the Reading Festival a month later -- and it's notable how much muscle and swagger the band had gained since the recording of
Core; they're starting to sound like themselves, albeit in a heavier version. Finally, there's a disc that contains the very good MTV Unplugged performance from November 1993. A fifth disc, a DVD containing 5.1 mixes of the album and the videos for the album's four singles, rounds up this plush package.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
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