Stone Temple Pilots: Thank You : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Initially dismissed by critics as grunge latecomers, California's Stone Temple Pilots proved adept at twisting the catalogs of their old heroes into bright new shapes. The career-sampling Thank You lays bare the debts as well as the delights. "Plush" is the worst of the faux-Seattle offenders, thanks to Scott Weiland's canny Vedderisms. "Trippin' on a Hole in a Paper Heart" veers close to Led Zep's "Dancing Days." "Lady Picture Show" arrives dressed as "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds." The constants: Weiland's brawny shape-shifting vocals, Dean DeLeo's flashy guitar heroics, Eric Kretz's mastodon stomp and the band's collective pop smarts. Unlike other greatest-hits packages, most of these songs actually dominated rock radio in their day, and many still do. STP: What a great bunch of bands they turned out to be.