Tiny Music...Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop

Stone Temple Pilots

Grunge was the Stone Temple Pilots' stock-in-trade on their first two albums, but Tiny Music takes the group beyond such stylistic limitations. There's still plenty of grinding, metallic alt-rock here, thanks to "Pop's Love Suicide," "Big Bang Baby," and "Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart." "Lady Picture Show" is a bracing blast of Beatlesesque pop, however, while "And So I Know" finds Weiland crooning over, of all things, cocktail jazz. The album's dozen tracks find the troubled singer musing (rather creepily) about the price of fame on "Adhesive" ("Sell more records if I'm dead... Hope it's sooner / Hope it's near corporate records' fiscal year"), and not apologizing for his bad behavior ("Tumble in the Rough" asserts, "I'm looking for a new stimulation"; bet you are, Scott). But they're rock stars, not role models, and Tiny Music is STP's edgiest, most accomplished effort. --Daniel Durchholz

Tiny Music...Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop Album: