Stone Temple Pilots Thank You CD

Includes bonus DVD with live performances, music videos, still photos and bootleg performances shot by fans and friends.

Although they've often been compared to their slightly older Seattle cousins, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots were quite capable of creating their own sound, and this retrospective offers the proof. THANK YOU opens with the hard-charging "Vasoline" followed by "Down," a thick slab of Black Sabbath-like riffery. Though the grunge references of hits like the stomping "Wicked Garden" and the bizarrely catchy "Plush" are undeniable, STP come into their own on tunes from their second and third albums, PURPLE and TINY MUSICāSONGS FROM THE VATICAN GIFT SHOP. Ambitious tracks from these outings include the restlessly rocking "Interstate Love Song," the blues-based anthem "Big Empty," the new wave/punk-influenced "Big Bang Baby," and the energetic "Trippin' in a Hole in a Paper Heart." Despite a legacy tainted by singer Scott Weiland's drug problems, THANK YOU proudly displays how Stone Temple Pilots melded classic pop, metal, and grunge into a sound that garnered them a huge audience.

Some bands get no respect, no matter what they do, but Stone Temple Pilots suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune more than most. Some of this was brought on by themselves, particularly in the early days when they sounded like a mix of Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains and relied on macho bluster in their videos, but critics and rockists singled them out as the one band that typified how the establishment was going to sell out the alt-rock revolution that Nirvana kicked off in 1992, the year punk broke. By Stone Temple Pilots' second album, 1994's Purple, they had not only gotten better and weirder than expected; they'd also had the benefit of being surrounded by bands that really were corporate alt-rock rip-offs, so they not only had gotten better, but circumstances made them seem better, too, even if many critics still clung to their blind hatred of the band. Then, as the music guitarist Dean DeLeo and vocalist Scott Weiland wrote continued to get more interesting, Weiland began his descent into drug addiction, cycling through jail and rehab innumerable times. There was a brief parting of the ways in 1997, as Weiland recorded a solo album and the remaining trio formed the short-lived Talk Show, but the group soldiered on into 2001, cutting solid records, yet they were ultimately derailed by Weiland's addictions -- which, in a charming display of empathy, made some of the band's longtime critics gloat.

This CD/DVD combination pack, in a jewel box, features top live performance footage on the CD and a combination of 16 live performances, 13 bootleg performances, shot by fans and friends, 12 music videos and 121 still photos, showing the ver-changing face of Stone Temple Pilots.

But, as the years pass, the turmoi

Compilation producer: Dean DeLeo.

Personnel: Scott Weiland (vocals); Dean DeLeo (guitar); Eric Kretz (drums).

Audio Mixers: Chris Lord-Alge; Brendan O'Brien.

Recording information: Cello Studios, Hollywood, CA.

Photographer: Marcelo Torok.

Stone Temple Pilots: Scott Weiland (vocals); Eric Kretz, Robert DeLeo, Dean DeLeo.

Producers: Stone Temple Pilots, Brendan O'Brien.

Rolling Stone (12/11/03, p.208) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...The constants: Weiland's brawny shape-shifting vocals, Dean DeLeo's flashy guitar heroics, Eric Kretz's mastodon stomp and the band's collective pop smarts..."