"Interstate Love Song" is the last great American rock and r

[godthedog 0]

I am completely unapologetic. Sure, I had a few Stone Temple Pilots albums. Yeah, I saw Bush and Veruca Salt in concert. But you know what? Fuck you.

 

no need to justify veruca salt, they were worlds better than STP. no pretensions about being important or anything. just catchy, catchy shit. i'll pick 'american thighs' three times over 'purple' any day.

[Gary Floyd 0]

I am completely unapologetic. Sure, I had a few Stone Temple Pilots albums. Yeah, I saw Bush and Veruca Salt in concert. But you know what? Fuck you.

 

no need to justify veruca salt, they were worlds better than STP. no pretensions about being important or anything. just catchy, catchy shit. i'll pick 'american thighs' three times over 'purple' any day.

They did do a pretty good cover of Depeche Mode's "Somebody", though the original is one of my least favorite DM songs.

[Rendclaw 0]

If you're going to go by what radio stations were playing at the time the argument is moot, because the ratio of shitastic songs to good ones being played back then was like 9 or 10:1. Radio stations only played what their PDs THOUGHT was good music, or if the record companies cajoled, bitched and whined enough abotu a certain artist.

 

Veruca Salt was a great band. Its a shame they didn't get more run then they already did.

[The Man in Blak 0]

Within the context of mainstream American rock, compare "Interstate Love Song" to what's come after it, which includes Creed, Limp Bizkit, Korn, Linkin Park, and the later career works of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I think there's an argument to be made for the Foo Fighters in this context ("Everlong" and "All My Life" immediately come to mind), but "Interstate Love Song" starts to look like an appealing choice when you consider the deluge of nu metal and post-grunge anathema that followed it.

Compared to their contemporaries, yes, STP were tolerable, but I don't think the purpose of the thread was to argue that a great American rock song could only be considered within the realm of popular rock radio.

 

I'll admit, I might have made that consideration from the fact that the topic framed it as a "rock and roll" song, which is something you almost never hear anymore. At any rate, the main point I was trying (and apparently failing) to make isn't that "Interstate Love Song" is a masterwork that stirs emotions long left untouched since Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima; it's simply that the argument in the opening post is not as far fetched as one would initially think.

 

Obviously, there are probably a dozen or more rock songs from the last few years out there that one could put forth as having more artistic merit than the STP track (I didn't even touch on R.E.M. or the White Stripes, for example), but I'm not sure if they could provide a better confluence of quality songwriting and mass appeal. "Interstate Love Song" is just a crisp, hooky little rock and roll tune, no frills. If you want to argue that, say, "Fell In Love With a Girl" is a much better choice for the topic, then I could understand that as well, but "Interstate Love Song" is not so much of an eyesore (earsore?) that it completely falls out of bounds for such a discussion.

[King Kamala 0]

I'm with the MiB, Kinetic, & co. on Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart.

Also, I seem to be one of the few respectable gentlemen in this day & age who like Audioslave.

 

 

I like Audioslave too but I don't know if I'm respectable.

[Ginger Snaps 0]

Aren't "Interstate Love Song" and "Plush" like practically the same?

 

you must know nothing about STP.

[cabbageboy 0]

The problem I always had with Audioslave is that the band just never meshed. It literally always sounded like Chris Cornell was guesting on a Rage Against the Machine album...the two styles just never fit. Compare it to for instance Temple of the Dog, which was basically Cornell playing with Pearl Jam. Of course those guys were all Seattle contemporaries.

 

I used to like Veruca Salt, have American Thighs but not the 2nd album. It's quite good but I wouldn't say it's as good as Purple.

[Nighthawk 0]

I don't think I've ever heard a single STP song that I was aware of, except the one in Guitar Hero. It's one of the strangest gaps in my musical palette, because I was the right age to like them as well. I remember everyone else liking them, but I never even tried.

 

Oddly enough, I do like Velvet Revolver, though.

[RHR 0]

The first thing I remember about STP was thinking..."Shit...why the hell did Eddie Vedder color his hair? " and "This song sucks."....

 

Then I realized it was a different band...

 

That being said, by the time they were doing things like "Lady Picture Show", they had their own thing going...I liked them after that....