It’s somewhat difficult to fully explore
\nCore<\/i> without looking at the history that has followed. Back
\nin 1992, the debut of this SoCal quartet was met with critical
\nacclaim and success. Thanks to their two hits, “Plush” and “Creep,”
\nthe production efforts of Brendan O’Brian and solid word-of-mouth,
\nthe Pilots were thrust into the echelon of alternative’s new stars
\n— right alonside Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden and Alice In
\nChains. The future seemed bright for vocalist Scott Weiland,
\nbassist Robert DeLeo, guitarist Dean DeLeo and drummer Eric
\nKretz.<\/p>\n
As we all know, things didn’t pan out as fully as one may have
\nhoped. Due to Scott Weiland’s recurring drug abuse and drug-related
\nproblems, the band has been forced to stop, start and re-start
\nthroughout the 90s. They even tried a new vocalist and changed
\ntheir name to Talk Show, but that went as well as Scott Weiland’s
\nsolo effort. Currently, they’re back together and promoting their
\nlatest effort,
\nNo. 4<\/i>. Still one cannot deny their abilities nor the
\nstrength of their debut.<\/p>\n
The album kicks off with the hard, yet catchy, “Dead &
\nBloated.” It’s a proper intro to the album, mixing in the hard
\nrhythm set by Kretz and Robert DeLeo with the guitar licks of Dean
\nDeLeo and, on top of everything, the vocal delivery of Weiland.
\nFrom here you have the controversial hit, “Sex Type Thing.” A very
\nstrong song with a driving rhythm, it speaks of the mind of a
\nrapist – but not celebrating it, as many detractors would have you
\nbelieve.<\/p>\n
The Pilots carefully construct some of the best social
\ncommentary since early U2. Listen to songs like “Wicked Garden,”
\n“Naked Sunday” and “Wet My Bed.” “Naked Sunday” speaks of how God
\nis used for the creation of war, while “Wicked Garden” employs
\nimagery from the classic short story “The Secret Garden” to speak
\nof depression and breaking out of it. Granted, it’s not on the
\nlevel Rage Against the Machine plow through, but it’s
\nsomething.<\/p>\n
Amazingly, along with their rough and hard edges, the band also
\nmanages to create some very melodic songs. “No Mercy” is
\notherwordly and weird. The hit, “Plush” is very abstract and has
\nsome great melodies. The album-closing, “Where The River Goes”
\nseems to be the band’s epic song. It goes through nearly eight
\nminutes shifting and swinging from its hard edges to greater
\nmelody.<\/p>\n
Still, the bad does have some strong rock in here. “Crackerman”
\nis a very hard song about Chef’s favorite crackers (oops, sorry,
\nwrong show). It nevertheless is very cool. “Creep” mid-tempoes
\nthrough a song about creeping in life. Of course, it became famous
\nfor the line “I’m half the man I used to be” when Lorena Bobbit did
\nher thang. (OUCH!) Finally, “Sin” speaks about the power of vice.
\nIn retrospect it’s very prophetic about Scott Weiland’s own
\nproblems with powerful vices.<\/p>\n
So, what has happened to this once-promising band? Well, like I
\nsaid above, they’re still out there, still promoting their work.
\nIt’s a shame that their own problems have prevented them from
\nreaching the levels of success that they seemed destined to reach.
\nOf course, if you take a look, it seems all of alternative’s gods
\nhave dissapeared. Pearl Jam is still out there, like STP. However,
\nSoundgarden has broken-up and Alice In Chains seems to have gone
\nthat way. As for Nirvana, well, we all know what happened
\nthere.<\/p>\n
For the kids that grew up alongside me at the start of the ’90s,<\/p>\n
Core<\/i> is one of the albums we most remember. I couldn’t put
\nit down when I first got it. Close to a decade after its release,
\nit still holds up as a snapshot of a good band that seemed poised
\nto break through and become great. It didn’t. And, while one hopes
\nthat Stone Temple Pilots may reach higher levels, their hardest
\nalbum still remains this one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":25622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6457],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-36828","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-stone-temple-pilots","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36828"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36828"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}