Rock Fact

Lets have this Weird Rock Fact III for week even though it's more of a theory than a fact, and - as far as I know - not one espoused by anybody except me. field tested and documented heavily between the year 2005 and this writing, the theory concerns two bands, two mid-tempo, guitar driven singles, and a weird effect of random happenstance.

I'm putting forth the idea (and incedentaly, the 21-22 year old me, the one that lived through this particular epoch, would find this idea to be taint-scum awful) that the band Stone Temple Pilots have proven to be - by a wide margin - the most important rock band to do business between the years 1989 and 1995. Further, I am of the opinion that the decision to choose the song "Plush" as the first single and video from the Pilot's (near perfect) debut record Core, is the sole reason why the above theory might seem preposterous to some. Easy to dismiss as some weird, grunge-era, radio coke-math at the time, I have to assume that when the people who made that call look back, and think about what could have been, that "Plush" looms large as the crossroads.

Don't get me wrong, STP were, and sort of still are, a big deal to a lot of people. What I'm saying, was they could have been bigger by half, and ended up the undisputed champions of rock's third, and still most recent, resurgance as a mass-market entity (!).

Nirvana - of course - holds that title, now, and probably forevermore. Even still, most of the 90's bands that seemed important in any historical context flamed out very shortly after becoming great. Jane's Addiction, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins (!) None of what people were relying on in the early 90's really panned out long-term, at least not the way folks had expected them to. (Reading the inside cover of Ritual De Lo Habitual, it's still cosmicaly difficult to believe that the psychopathic wraith that screeded out " To The Mesquito" went on to pen the opening credit jingle for "Entourage"). Meanwhile, I guarantee that most of the people reading this know the word to at least five STP tunes. They were a Zeppelin with the cred of an Aerosmith, or - if you're really old - A Big Bill Broonzy with the rep of a Dave Clark Five.

The subject is probably due another 1000 or so words, but fuck it. I made my point. Stone Temple mothefucking Pilots: better than you think they are, even if you think they're pretty fucking good.