10 Great Albums By Artists People Hate
7. Purple - Stone Temple Pilots
As much as the grunge community seemed fairly laid back in the early Seattle scene, they weren't prone to a bit of gatekeeping here and there. Once Nirvana started to blow up and every other band in Seattle started to hit the big time, there were more than a few fans getting a little snobby about who was making this kind of angsty music to just piggyback off of grunge's success. Stone Temple Pilots may have been pegged as posers coming from California, but they had the tunes to back it up on that second album.
Even though their debut Core is a perfectly fine alt rock record, you can definitely tell that Scott Weiland was deep into his Eddie Vedder phase, with many people mistaking a song like Plush for the new Pearl Jam single. When they came into their own as songwriters though, Purple was a much different affair, taking pages from the world of classic rock and even a few glam rock touches here and there to create their own sound, which Scott's lower register fit a lot more comfortably on.
Outside of the actual sounds of the record, there's a bit of an eclectic mix throughout most of these songs as well, like the psychedelic touches on a song like Lounge Fly, the acoustic musings of Pretty Penny, and settling with a straight up ballad on Big Empty. Some fans may have been rightfully worried that these guys were just looking to crib off of the success of grunge, but there's a good chance that some of the best bands in Seattle couldn't make something like Interstate Love Song if they tried.