Rocktober Album #4: Stone Temple Pilots – Core (1992)

When I got my first CD player on my 16th birthday instead of a car, Core was one of the three accompanying CDs (I believe the other two were 2Pac's Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. and Spin Doctors' Pocket Full of Kryptonite). From the opening line to the last note, this album is great. "Plush" is probably my favorite song of the '90s, bringing back memories of my meteoric rise from second-string DB to first-string WR in sophomore football. "We need your wheels on offense." "You bet, coach. So is it raining in your bedroom?"


This is one of my favorite albums of the '90s. I think it's unfortunate that they were branded as Pearl Jam ripoffs. Other than the fact that they had singers whose voices sounded similar, STP was more of a hard rock band than Pearl Jam (which is not to say that Pearl Jam didn't rock). Whatever, this album rules.


1. "Dead and Bloated"
"I am smelling like the rose that somebody gave me on my birthday deathbed." What a great first line to a debut album. Nineteen years later, I still have no idea what that line means. But I do know that, after it, a kickass, brooding grunge song kicked into gear.


2. "Sex Type Thing"
A great hard rock song, "Sex Type Thing" is a pretty creepy song that appears to be a song sung from the perspective of a sex addict. "I said you shouldn't have a-worn that dress, worn that dress!"


3. "Wicked Garden"
This is my second-favorite song on the album. It's a classic song, with a great groove and some sweet lyrics. "I wanna drink from your naked fountain."


4. "No Memory"
This one is an instrumental. That means it has no words.


5. "Sin"
This one is dark and plodding, which I suppose describes about 93% of grunge songs.


6. "Naked Sunday"
In college, my roommates and I used to have Lazy Sundays. We remained clothed. Had we decided to go that extra weird step of sitting around and watching football in the nude, we definitely would have had this song in the background on repeat. It's an underrated song, in that I don't think I've ever heard it on the radio, but it's a solid hard rock song with some nice hooks.


7. "Creep"
Not to be confused with the Radiohead song of the same name that came out around the same time, this one is a ballad, I suppose. It's acoustic. It's about some twat who calls him a creep, probably because he has a wounded hand that needs some time to heal.


8. "Piece of Pie"
This is another song that I think could have done well on the radio. It's an angry, brooding rocker, presumably about Baker's Square, with a great chorus belted out by Weiland.


9. "Plush"
Like I said before, this is probably my favorite song of the '90s. As cliché as it is to say, it's become such a part of my life that I don't even know if I can describe why I love it. Nonetheless, it's Rocktober, so I will try. First, it rocks. Second, it has great hooks. Third, it has great lyrics. I love the line "So these are the eyes of disarray." If When I form a Stone Temple Pilots tribute band, it will be named Eyes of Disarray.


10. "Wet My Bed"
Yep.


11. "Crackerman"
This is just a great, fast-paced hard rock song about the dude on the Ritz box. Or whitey.


12. "Where the River Goes"
What is it with bands ending albums with long songs? This one is over 8 minutes – not that it's a bad song. It's a classic grunge song. Minor key, haunting vocals, weird lyrics.