Published on Aug 3, 2004
“Everpure,” “sugarboost,” “leadbelly”: bizarre words, amongst
the most bizarre sounding lyrics.
Tiny Music… is an album, which had to undergo a lot
during its making. Firstly, it is the last STP album before the
band split-up, or rather kicked lead singer Scott Weiland out for
his excessive indulgence in drugs.
The band’s state of mind, and the chemistry during the making of
Tiny Music…wasn’t the same at all as with the earlier
two albums, and it shows. Weiland’s groggy state of mind shows in
his lyrics. Most of the album’s lyrics seem like fragments of
hallucinations: unrelated images born out of wild imaginations, put
together and creating pictures as dazed, frivolous and light-headed
as the words and the state-of-mind that created them.
Tiny Music… is an experimental album of sorts,
certainly STP’s most experimental album to date. After two
hard-core grunge albums, this disc deviates substantially from its
predecessors. Leaving its psychedelic lyrics (which were much
easier on the listener in the case of the previous two albums)
aside, the music on the album itself is radically different from
what STP had come up with in its first two albums. Unlike
Core and
Purple,
Tiny Music… is definitely not a grunge album. It is a
rock album for sure; it is a mellow rock album by STP standards.
The experimentation has created magical results, and
Tiny Music… has some of the best songs STP has ever
recorded. “And So I Know” and “Adhesive” are a couple of STP’s
all-time best songs: unconventionally beautiful, revealing a tender
side of the band that is as lovable as its more aggressive
side.
Tiny Music… has a couple of the best songs STP has
ever created, but at the same time, the album is the band’s worst
— which is not bad at all by normal standards. The music of the
album at a lot of places seems grossly misdirected, spoiling the
charm of the genuinely good songs on the album. In addition to the
two instrumentals, “Press Play” and “Daisy,” which go nowhere at
all (nowhere near the brilliant instrumental “No Memory” on Core),
the irritatingly inane “Art School Girl” makes one wonder what on
earth made the band consider including these songs on the
album.
Barring a few songs here and there, a majority of
Tiny Music… is pretty good, of course nowhere close
to either
Core or
Purple. Bewilderingly, the lady on the cover has goat’s
legs, the crocodile in the pool seems interested neither in her,
nor in her unusual pair of legs, and despite
Tiny Music… having STP’s worst songs ever, it also
has the best songs STP has ever created.