Unplugged

One last trip down the Grunge road with another MTV Unplugged performance. This one may have fallen by the wayside, but perhaps one track off it was responsible for breaking the band into the big time. The early 90's brought a wave of Grunge and Alternative bands to the American forefront. Sure you had the big names, but one band slipped in and make an impact, albeit at first as being compared to a bad Pearl Jam cover band. That bad was Stone Temple Pilots.

In '93 STP was trying to break through the Grunge/Alt scene and while the band has some success with their debut 'Core', rattling off four singles off that album. The band wasn't taking off quite yet. So in '93 the band did what all bands seemed to do at the time and that's cut an MTV Unplugged performance. The band churned out seven tracks in all. All cuts off 'Core' with the exception of a David Bowie cover "Andy Warhol", which video for has never surfaced,  but audio did appear as a B side of a few singles. The other non 'Core' track was a new song entitled "Big Empty". The song would go on to appear on The Crow Soundtrack as well as the bands next album, 'Purple'. MTV would later add the video for "Big Empty" into heavy rotation to promote The Crow Soundtrack. The song gained attention and by the following year when 'Purple' was released the band had broken through the scene. Of course the band would slowly fall apart by the new decade in part to frontman Scott Weiland's drug problems and frequent run ins with the law. The band called it a day in '02, but reunited with Weiland in '10 before splitting with him in '13. Currently STP is working on a new album with new vocalist Chester Bennington of Linkin Park. Take that as you will, the band sounds like a Linkin Park clone now. In any case enjoy this forgotten slice of Grunge/Alt Rock.

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