Stone Temple Pilots – Purple Rarities (Rhino)
In celebration of Record Store Day on Black Friday this year, Rhino Records honored the 30th anniversary of Purple, the iconic sophomore album from Stone Temple Pilots, with the release of Purple Rarities. This limited edition compilation, pressed onto pretty purple vinyl, includes 9 tracks taken from the 2019 Super Deluxe Edition of Purple.
Originally released in 1994 to great mainstream success, led by rock radio staples such as, “Vasoline,” “Interstate Love Song” and “Big Empty,” STP’s second album went above and beyond the expectations their impressive debut album Core ushered in. Purple Rarities features early versions of tracks like “Meatplow” and “Interstate Love Song,” where you can hear the late Scott Weiland fleshing out his lyrics. Demo versions of the heavy, driving “Army Ants” and equally rocking “Unglued” showcase the making of the album with slight variations as the DeLeo brothers figured out what worked and what didn’t during the recording process.
Highlighting the rarities set are acoustic versions of “Big Empty” and “Interstate Love Song,” Stone Temple Pilots performed on MTV’s legendary Unplugged shows and the acoustic version of “Big Empty” from that session still gets almost equal radio air time to the original album version, so to have new previously unreleased acoustic versions of those two songs is a treat! Rounding out the compilation is a solemn demo version of a cover of “She Knows Me Too Well” by the Beach Boys, as well as their amazing cover of “Dancing Days” by Led Zeppelin, originally released in 1995 on Encomium: A Tribute To Led Zeppelin.
Purple Rarities is the perfect companion to the original album, one of the 90’s most iconic albums. — Justin Kreitzer for Icon Fetch