10 Perfect Alternative Albums That Deserve A Lot More Love
5. Tiny Music - Stone Temple Pilots
Even in the heyday of grunge, Stone Temple Pilots never seemed to really get a fair shake. Oh, they may have been one of the biggest bands across MTV at the time, but they would always be in the shadow of acts like Pearl Jam, with every critic under the sun calling them posers for not coming from Seattle. When the grunge wave started to fade though, STP managed to do the one thing that most grunge acts couldn't: evolve over time.
Since the low down and dirty grunge pastiche wasn't going to work anymore, Tiny Music was when the band started to incorporate some more retro sounding songs into the mix, almost being a throwback to the glam rock image of the '70s. All of a sudden, the riffs ended up getting a lot cleaner, and Scott Weiland traded in his usual off kilter persona for something that was ripped straight out of David Bowie's playbook, mugging it up for the camera and having charisma for days.
Considering what direction they were going in on the album prior, Tiny Music feels like they took all of the experimental moments of Purple and amplified them that much more, with Dean DeLeo flexing some of his chops a lot more. This may have been a sign of the butt rock bands that were to come in the '00s, but this little sweet spot before the plunge made for one hell of a ride.