STP reinvent themselves with new venture, grooves

By Kyle Boggs
Summer Reporter

After the release of their first album, "Core," Stone Temple Pilots were once described as another cookie-cut grunge band that would easily be forgotten when the trend faded out.

With the release of their fifth studio album, "Shangri-La-Dee-Da," it has become obvious that STP will never be devoted to any one scene.

STP has changed from the explosive hardrock/grunge sound of "Core" to the mellow '70's classic rock meets glam-rock sound of "Purple" and "Tiny Music…." to 1999's big drum and bass driven album "No. 4," to "Shangri-La-Dee-Da," an album that displays both hard and soft emotionally charged grooves.

As a band that changes so radically from album to album, it could be said that the music of Stone Temple Pilots has many qualities that resemble that of a chameleon. However, a chameleon changes along with its environment, but STP constantly changes with each album without ever being influenced by their environment.

The bulk of the bands change stems from the ups and downs of lead singer Scott Weiland's life. Recently, Weiland came home after a voyage of self-discovery, which began after he conquered a heroin addiction, got married and became a first-time father. "Shangri-La-Dee-Da" beautifully displays these recent changes in his life.

Weiland himself can also be called a chameleon because of the many times on the record that his voice changes, many times to fit the mood of the song. Throughout the record, Weiland may imitate the voices of Jim Morrison, Cheap Trick's Robin Zander and the high pitched vocals found in many Radiohead songs. Besides people, in the guitar crunching song "Coma," Weiland mimics the sound of a scratching guitar.

The fifth song on the album, "Wonderful," is written like a thank-you note to his wife, Mary, for being there for him during good times and bad. "Would you be my navigator, would you take me to a place we could hide. Wanna ask you to forgive me/ haven't been the best with all that I had." Weiland calls her the "everything that’s wonderful" in his life.

"Hello, it's late," is another song for his wife in which he sings of marriage and the permanence of it. "I'm just sittin' on this marry-go-round, and the music is too loud/ it's just a game that we used to play/ I didn't think we'd take it all the way."

The slow-paced acoustic, "A Song For Sleeping," is an emotional lullaby to his newborn son, Noah. Weiland strums chords slowly as if imitating a piano, singing, "There's so much I could teach you, if you only had the time."

The first single from the album, "Days Of The Week," is one of the strongest songs on the album. Like the song "Sour Girl" from their last album "No. 4," it has more of a pop feel to it than most songs. The song mixes both electric and acoustic guitars.

As a whole, "Shangri-La-Dee-Da" is lyrically the best album Stone Temple Pilots has released. However in songs like "Dumb Love" and "Regeneration," parts of the chorus and verse in the songs don't flow melodically well enough with how Weiland sings in the songs.