10 Grunge Albums You Need To Hear Before You Die
6. Purple - Stone Temple Pilots
Even for a bunch of grunge kids from the Northwest, not many other grunge acts have had the career trajectory that Stone Temple Pilots had back in the day. In the rock scene in general, rarely will you see fans flip flop as much as the alternative scene does as to whether these guys were talentless hacks riding the bandwagon or an underrated gem that never got their just due. While you can see the grunge plagiarisms at work, Purple is still the one album that holds up as genuinely impressive.
Free from all of the Eddie Vedder-isms that were following him time and time again, Scott Weiland is one hell of a frontman on this outing, bringing an updated version of himself while sprinkling in the more flamboyant side of something like David Bowie. Aside from the presentation, the music also kicks ass, from the dirgy opening stomp of Meatplow to the greatest grunge song that Nirvana didn't write in Interstate Love Song.
Hell, this album takes so many twists and turns during its runtime that many even question as to whether it even belongs in the same category as grunge at all. Then again, grunge was always about subverting expectations from the very beginning, and Purple shows STP taking every single grunge lesson they learned and applying it to their own sound.