Core

After Stone Temple Pilots released their 1992 debut album <i>Core</i>, the band was accused of jumping on the grunge bandwagon. Part of it was guilt by association: The album was produced by Brendan O’Brien, who had also mixed seminal early-’90s rock albums such as Pearl Jam’s <i>Ten</i> and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ <i>Blood Sugar Sex Magik</i>. Sonically, however, STP’s classic rock-derived riffs and hulking grooves sounded similar to the music coming out of the Pacific Northwest. Vocalist Scott Weiland, who favoured a gravelly vocal tone and urgent delivery, could also sound uncannily like Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder, particularly on the Grammy-winning smash “Plush”. But history has been kind to Stone Temple Pilots, who actually hailed from sunny San Diego, California. Today, <i>Core</i> is rightfully seen as one of grunge’s most vibrant records, one that illustrates the genre’s fluid, expansive boundaries. That has much to do with how quickly the band recorded the album—three weeks—and the brutal honesty at the heart of the songs. Versatile guitarist Dean DeLeo cranked out slamming metal riffs on uptempo highlights “Sex Type Thing” and “Crackerman”, but dabbled in seething, psychedelic stoner rock (the Soundgarden-esque anthems “Where the River Goes” and “Piece of Pie”) and frenetic alt-punk (“Naked Sunday”). The rhythm section—drummer Eric Kretz and bassist Robert DeLeo, Dean’s brother—further kept <i>Core</i>’s music lively, courtesy of loose grooves that split the difference between nuance (the almost jazzy “Wicked Garden”) and aggression (“Piece of Pie”). Weiland, meanwhile, oozed vocal charisma. A chameleonic singer, he croaked like a seasoned blues singer on “Dead & Bloated”, howled through his pain like a soulful Southern rocker on “Sin”, and growled like a metal icon on “Naked Sunday”. His lyrics also possessed depth, critiquing both date rape and bro culture (“Sex Type Thing”), and elsewhere tackling disillusionment (“Wicked Garden”), personal loss (the Eric Kretz co-write “Plush”) and self-loathing (“Creep”, a co-write with Robert DeLeo). Even if every song wasn’t autobiographical—“Plush”, for example, morphed out of a true story about a girl who was murdered—they were still vulnerable and relatable. <i>Core</i> ended up selling millions of records and catapulted STP into the mainstream rock stratosphere.