Purple

Sound DNA

• Alt/Indie
• Grunge

• crunchy
• bittersweet
• southern

About

Stone Temple Pilots enjoyed enormous commercial success with their grunge-adjacent 1992 debut album <i>Core</i>. Wisely, the San Diego band didn’t tinker too much with their approach on 1994’s <i>Purple</i>, working once again with producer Brendan O’Brien and recording and mixing the record in just under four weeks. While the album certainly had its <i>Core</i>-like moments—namely the slithering psych-rock boogie “Vasoline” and the jagged metallic stomp “Unglued”—STP had no interest in repeating themselves sonically. <i>Purple</i>’s rock-oriented moments exuded inspiration, with “Lounge Fly” demonstrating the band’s interest in looping different instruments for effect. Musically, STP’s progression was even more obvious on “Big Empty,” which appeared on <i>The Crow</i> soundtrack and was <i>Purple</i>’s lead single. Although the song’s dynamics were similar to those on <i>Core</i>—quiet verses giving way to loud, crashing choruses—the antique-sounding guitar licks were indebted to country music, and Weiland’s conspiratorial vocals were pure ’70s rock crooner. Other moments on <i>Purple</i> were just as nuanced. “Pretty Penny,” which the band recorded together in a living room, was a stripped-down acoustic number that found drummer Eric Kretz playing congas and bongos; the end result was somewhere between Led Zeppelin and a campfire sing-along. And the enduring hit “Interstate Love Song” used folk music and bittersweet power-pop chords as a foundation for a song about painful personal betrayal. As the latter song indicates, vocalist Scott Weiland’s lyrics this time around captured the complexities of life and maintaining a relationship while navigating living with addiction. The grinding, Alice in Chains-esque “Meatplow” is about staying defiant in the face of challenges thanks to a support system, while “Still Remains” is a smoldering Southern rock song about longing and obsession. In the end, <i>Purple</i> was yet another major commercial success, and is rightfully considered a blueprint for the exciting ways grunge evolved by the mid-1990s.

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits