Monday, May 27, 2013

Stone Temple Pilots: Out of Time (single)


1.

This song scores the lowest rating in pitchfork history. Now that they have released this, it is quite obvious who added the artistic side to the band. Yes, Scott Weiland wasn't consistent and he fell into trouble more than once or twice, but he had a vision that the Deleo brothers' riffs fit so well against. The mix of their musicianship, drummer Eric Kretz' Led Zeppelin hard rock style, and Weiland's Bowie-esque lyrics were the essence of STP. They truly were a band in which each member had their niche and could not be replaced without drastically altering the sound. "Out of Time", featuring new singer Chester Bennington (Linken Park) sounds exactly how you would expect it to, like an awful STP cover band trying to write their own songs. We can all admit, Bennington has a good voice, and I guess he can be considered the safe choice coming after Weiland and his unpredictable stage antics, but the band is now lacking any kind of surprise element, nor do they sound raw or interesting vocally. I'm sure some people out there may like this, Linken Park had a lot of fans, didn't they? But I don't. And I'm sure the fans that lived by STP classics will not accept this. It's rare that a band can replace a lead singer/songwriter successfully. They even used some Andy Warhol looking artwork (see above), but the fact remains, this combination isn't going to be good. If they prove me wrong when the full length comes out, I'll be 'unpleasantly' surprised, but this song is NOT a teaser for anything I want in my record collection. I had more respect for them when they tried the band- Talk Show. And that totally sucked as well. 

Scott, if/when you're reading this, continue recording with The Wildabouts. Both of the Weiland solo records are brilliant, and though this new incarnation of STP will tarnish the band's legacy, real fans can tell the difference.

11 comments:

  1. Linken Park dude always sucked

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  2. terrible. just terrible.

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  3. This is not good.

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  4. It's OK. Forgettable and irrelevant.

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  5. Scott Weiland is STP to me.

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  6. " And I'm sure the fans that lived by STP classics will not accept this."

    I'm going to have to totally disagree with you here. I think it sounds great, and I'm a huge STP fan. I will agree with you, however that it does change the sound quite a bit. It isn't really STP is it? They should do like Velvet Revolver did and just make a new band. If it's good, people will like it. You shouldn't just add a new singer and try to repackage it as STP v2.o, because it really isn't.

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  7. Stupid review for one like myself who to this day has no clue what the lyrics even are to most of STP's songs. From reading a few of them from Scott Weiland's book he published they all read as senseless mindless nothing. It is frustrating to a musician such as myself when a reviewer believes that the essence of good music is what the lyrics are and it is obvious from this song and those by Army of Anyone as well which members of STP truly hold the keys to their sound.

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  8. Your analogy would make even more sense if more than 3 out of 5 people from VR had previously been in a band together let alone the fact that even of those 3, only 2 were from the original Guns n Roses. And not that I'm a fan but hey, it worked for Van Halen's Sammy Hagar days....

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