Genre is a tricky thing. What one person calls heavy metal may seem like easy listening to someone else. What is pop and what is rock? At what point does country music become alternative country or folk or folk rock?
And then there’s grunge music. That’s a genre, similar to disco, that seems best defined by the time period than by the music itself. After all, most would say that disco has been dead for decades, but we still hear new music all the time that sounds like it could be classified by that genre.
Along the same lines, it seems like we haven’t had any new grunge music since the 1990s. Yet many of the biggest artists to come out of the grunge scene have continued to release albums for twenty years. Still, no one has referred to any of Pearl Jam’s post-90s music as grunge.
For whatever reason, I’ve never really thought of Stone Temple Pilots as grunge. After all, they weren’t from Seattle, they were from San Diego. And it sure seemed like I was hearing more of their music on top 40 radio than I was hearing from other so-called grunge acts.
Whatever genre classification you want to apply to STP, let’s all try to agree on at least this: they put out some pretty great music in the mid-90s.
In honor of the 25th anniversary of their debut album, we’re also getting a pretty great special edition. On September 29, Core will be released in both a 2CD special edition and a 4CD/1DVD super deluxe edition. Here’s the track list for the 2CD special edition:
Core: Disc 1- Remastered Original Album
01. Dead & Bloated
02. Sex Type Thing
03. Wicked Garden
04. No Memory
05. Sin
06. Naked Sunday
07. Creep
08. Piece of Pie
09. Plush
10. Wet My Bed
11. Crackerman
12. Where the River Goes
Core: Disc 2- Demos & B-Sides
01. Only Dying (Demo)
02. Wicked Garden (Demo)
03. Naked Sunday (Demo)
04. Where the River Goes (Demo)
05. Dead & Bloated (Demo)
06. Sex Type Thing (Demo)
07. Sin (Demo)
08. Creep (Demo)
09. Plush (Demo)
10. Sex Type Thing (Swing Type Version)
11. Plush (Acoustic Type Version)
12. Creep (New Album Version)
13. Plush (Acoustic from MTV Headbanger’s Ball)
The super deluxe edition includes the same two discs as above, plus two more discs of live music:
Core: Disc 3- Live Tracks
Live At Castaic Lake Natural Amphitheater, Castaic Lake, CA (7/2/1993)
01. Crackerman
02. Wicked Garden
03. No Memory
04. Sin
05. Plush
06. Where the River Goes
07. Sex Type Thing
08. Wet My Bed
09. Naked Sunday
Live At The Reading Festival (8/27/1993)
01. Wicked Garden
02. No Memory
03. Sin
04. Lounge Fly
05. Dead & Bloated
06. Sex Type Thing
07. Naked Sunday
Core: Disc 4- MTV Unplugged (1993)
01. Crackerman
02. Creep
03. Andy Warhol
04. Plush
05. Big Empty
06. Wicked Garden
07. Sex Type Thing
Also included in the super deluxe edition is a hardcover book, the remastered album on vinyl and a DVD with four music videos and a 5.1 surround mix of the album.
