Quote: (05-18-2017 11:45 PM)kmhour Wrote:
I remember a Weekend Update joke at the time, riffing on the same comparison - something about "yeah I saw the Stone Temple Pilots before, back when they were called Pearl Jam". I never agreed with the comparison at least listening to Core or Purple. And I do think STP were lumped in with the grunge acts more because they were contemporaries than specific musical overlap.
I think it had more to do with their first couple of videos, where #1 Weiland's high cheekbones made him look very similar to Eddie Vedder, and #2, they hit success about a year after the Seattle big 4 had already hit it big with their initial hits - Smell Like Teen Spirit, Outshined, Man in the Box, and Alive were already overplayed on radio and MTV before STP came out. At that time, they just seemed too derivative...taking elements from all four of the Seattle bands who had just broken into "superstardom." AKA the big 4 were Lollapalooza headliners, while STP were just wannabes.
I appreciate their music now...but back then, everyone I knew considered them bandwagon poser's jumping on the grunge trend to make $.
I laugh at it now...they were ALL in it for the $$$$ (of course...duh) but still, as far as most of the people I hung out with in the early 90's, we all considered them imitators and not the real deal.