12-Bar Blues
Don't be fooled by the title. This disc has nothing at all to do with blues. It's basically a Stone Temple Pilots album without the rock crunch of the other three members.
12-Bar Blues
Provided By:
The Daily Vault
12-Bar Blues
Scott Weiland
Atlantic, 1998
REVIEW BY: Benjamin Ray
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 08/20/2006
Don't be fooled by the title. This disc has nothing at all to do with blues. It's basically a Stone Temple Pilots album without the rock crunch of the other three members.
In 1998, those other three went on to form the relatively straight Talk Show, releasing one eponymous and fairly decent album. Weiland continued to further push his musical boundaries, crossing the line of psychedelic glam he began on Tiny Music...Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop, and the results are interesting, alternative but mostly style over substance.
These 12 gracious melodies (get it?) don't fit into any specific style, mainly because Weiland doesn't believe in writing a normal song. Each song has layers of instruments and sound effects, odd timing, meaningless lyrics (generally) and a feel of a hobby more than an artistic statement. Which doesn't make it bad by any means, since Weiland is a good singer and knows how to write a pop hook surrounded by psychedelic glam. I half expected David Bowie to pop up.
If all this sounds confusing, that's because this record defies expectations. “About Nothing” veers between three distinct sounds that don't match at all, sounding like a jam from Tiny Music gone off into the ether. “Desperation #5” is a hazy swirl of psychedelic glam from Bowie-era Lodger, while “Cool Kiss” sounds like STP's Purple mixed with Nine Inch Nails.
“Where's the Man” is a beautiful, reverb-laden rock ballad, the best song here. “The Date” sounds like updated Velvet Underground but has that definite STP sound, the swirl that Weiland brings to every song he sings. Perhaps the most fun moment is the stomping “Jimmy Was A Stimulator,” although the lyrics are typical indecipherable Weiland stuff (“Jimmy was a regulator / He could regulate a regulator / She's so fine and I'm killing myself with it”). The Tom Waits-inspired “Lady, Your Roof Brings Me Down” also is a highlight.
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