The genre’s influence still resounds in hip-hop (Jay-Z appropriated the chorus of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” for his 2013 song “Holy Grail”) and magazines like InStyle are reporting on a resurgence of grunge fashion. That’s not to say that grunge died, since scene standouts like Pearl Jam, Mudhoney, Alice in Chains and Melvins still release critically acclaimed and/or commercially successful albums, but it has become a part of America’s cultural fabric. But within a few years of reaching critical mass, it all seemed to fade away quickly, as nu-metal became rock’s shiny new object.
Soon, bands from all over the world were getting widespread recognition after years of duking it out on indie labels. Their music was a hybrid of hard rock, metal and punk (with a sprinkle of Neil Young here and there), which gave them a wide enough swath of flannel for each band to have its own unique snarl. They pinned their hearts to their sleeves in their lyrics, they created an inclusive environment for women and others marginalized by the poofy-haired rock mainstream of the Eighties, and - taking a cue from punk rock - they did away with the artifice of rock stardom. In less than a decade, Nirvana and a handful of bands from the Seattle area had crawled out of obscurity and commandeered pop culture, rebuilding it in their own image. That’s because, whether the bands liked the term or not, grunge was a movement. It’s going to be passé.”Īt the time, Eddie Vedder was on the cover of Time, fashion designer Marc Jacobs was dressing models in flannel and even The New York Times was questioning, “How did a five-letter word meaning dirt, filth, trash become synonymous with a musical genre, a fashion statement, a pop phenomenon?” Although the word has fallen out of vogue, the music from the time remains vital. “Grunge is as potent a term as new wave,” he told Rolling Stone. The #1 LP in the country that week: Santana's comeback release, Supernatural.Over 25 years ago, Kurt Cobain predicted that grunge would become corny. 4 connected with fans hungry for hard rock, peaking at #6 on the Billboard 200 for the week of November 13, 1999. The outstanding deep cuts roll on through the rest of the LP, including the buzzsaw riffs of "Sex & Violence," the melodic jangle of "Glide," and orchestral closer, "Atlanta," that finds Weiland channeling Jim Morrison over the swelling string section. The #1 song in America that week: 'N Sync's "It's Gonna Be Me." The gorgeously dark ballad still stands as the only Stone Temple Pilots track to rock the Hot 100, peaking at #78 over the week of July 28, 2000. In promotion of the tune, the band released a striking music video featuring actress Sarah Michelle Gellar.
The album's opening stretch serves as quite the setup for the breakout single, "Sour Girl." The song puts Scott Weiland's stellar vocal delivery right up front, carried by the band's graceful and nuanced performance. Stone Temple Pilots sidestepped prevailing trends like "rap-rock" and hiring a DJ, instead ripping through instantly classic hard rock riffs like album opener "Down," stepping on the gas with a power-pop roar on "Heaven & Hot Rods," and changing it up with the shockingly Beatles-eque "Church on Tuesday." It's quite the display of elite rock 'n' roll, especially considering the circus of the late '90s scene. 4 found Scott Weiland and company looking back at the band's first three albums, and realizing that they had the capacity to do a lot: rock with the best of them, write a song better than most, and deliver it in a genuinely thrilling and even dangerous manner, thanks to the knife's-edge style Weiland brought to the proceedings. While the music landscape was busy reckoning with the onslaught of "nu-metal" (not to mention the boy band brigade taking over MTV), Stone Temple Pilots simply shrugged and released one of the best rock albums of the year, and arguably of the band's career to date. The last year of the '90s was a rough ride for rock 'n' roll-unless you knew where to listen.
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