Songoftheday 5/25/20 - I am I am I said I'm not myself I'm not dead and I'm not for sale...
from the album Tiny Music...Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop (1996)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: ineligible to chart
Billboard Hot 100 Airplay peak: #36 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Hot 100 Airplay Top-40: 5
Today's song of the day comes from the rock band Stone Temple Pilots, who had landed in the top-40 of the Hot 100 Airplay chart with the first "single" from their third album, "Big Bang Baby", in the spring of 1996. Their next song promoted to radio was also not released as a single (as was their history, to boost the sales of the albums). "Trippin' On A Hole In A Paper Heart", written by drummer Eric Kretz and lead singer (the late) Scott Weiland, the song continued their streak of drug-tinged inspirations...
Since "Trippin' On A Hole..." wasn't released as a commercial "single", it wasn't able to place on Billboard magazine's official pop Hot 100 chart. However, the song got enough mainstream radio love to make the Airplay component of the list's top-40 in July of 1996. The song was another huge hit at rock radio, becoming their fifth #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart, staying there for a month (four weeks), and also spending three weeks at #3 on their Alternative Rock format list. Internationally, the single never made any chart outside of America. At the Grammy Awards in 1997, the song granted the Pilots a nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance, which they lost to the Smashing Pumpkins for their "Bullet With Butterfly Wings".
A third radio "single" from the album, "Lady Picture Show", claimed a sixth #1 Mainstream Rock hit for the band (and third for that record), peaked at #6 on Alternative Rock, and on the Hot 100 Airplay list was able to climb to #53. Lastly, the album track "Tumble In The Rough" hit #9 on Mainstream Rock and #36 on the Alternative Rock tally, not making the pop airplay list.
After stunted attempts to tour as an opening act for Kiss and on their own due to Weiland's continuing drug addiction problem, the singer went to rehab while the rest of the band hired fill-in singer Dave Coutts, calling themselves Talk Show and releasing a self-titled album in 1997. The sole radio single "Hello Hello" peaked at #10 at Mainstream Rock and #16 at Alterative, and the album dwelled in the lower half of the sales chart at #131, and the band didn't last longer than that. Meanwhile, Weiland returned from rehab in 1998 to record a solo album, 12 Bar Blues, which did a little bit better relatively, still missing the top-40 at #42 on the albums sales chart, while single "Barbarella" barely dented the Mainstream Rock radio chart at #36. Later that year, Weiland and the Pilots worked out their differences to reunite for their next album, No. 4, in 1999. Lead single "Down" returned the band to the rock radio top ten in both the Mainstream (#5) and Alternative (#9) formats, while "bubbling under" the pop Hot 100 at #107 (at that time, Billboard allowed airplay-only tracks on the official pop chart). But it was third single "Sour Girl" that got the most attention, giving the band their first and only Hot 100 placing at #78, while doing bank on both the Mainstream (#3) and Alternative (#4) rock lists, and even making it onto the Adult Top-40 format tally at #37. "Down" was nominated for the Hard Rock Grammy, which went to Rage Against The Machine for "Guerilla Radio".
The band's next record, Shangri-La Dee Da in 2001, scored another top-five rock radio hit with "Days Of The Week" (#4 Mainstream/#5 Alternative), but the record just scraped the top ten at #9, and it would be part of the impetus of the band imploding yet again. A toss off meant for the Spiderman movie, "All In The Suit That You Wear", was put on their greatest hits set Thank You, and went to #5 on the Mainstream Rock chart in 2003. But by then, Weiland, Kretz, and Dean & Robert DiLeo went their separate ways, with the brothers forming the band Army Of Anyone, who went to #3 in 2006 with the song "Goodbye", and their self-titled album topping out at #56. Meanwhile, Weiland joined the hard rock "supergroup" Velvet Revolver that included Slash and two other former members of Guns N' Roses. That collaboration lasted for five years and two successful albums, with the first, Contraband, topping Billboard's Top 200 Albums sales chart, and spinning off two #1 rock radio singles with "Slither" (nine weeks) and "Fall to Pieces" (eleven weeks). The former song won the group a Grammy for Hard Rock Performance in 2005 and did better that any STP single on the Hot 100 at #56, while the latter was nominated for Best Rock Song (which they lost to U2's "Vertigo") and was a decent pop radio hit at the Adult Top-40 format at #25. The Contraband album also got a Best Rock Album Grammy nom, which Green Day took for American Idiot. After the second Velvet Revolver album Libertad didn't do as well, hitting #5 with lead single "She Builds Quick Machines" spending a couple weeks at #2 at Mainstream Rock, Weiland fell out with that band to (over drug abuse, natch), and in 2008 returned to reunite with the Stone Temple Pilots yet again.
After a successful reunion tour, and time for Weiland to release a second solo set, Happy In Galoshes, which nicked the top half of the album chart at #97, the band set to record their sixth album, Stone Temple Pilots, which came out in 2010. Lead single "Between The Lines" brought the band their first Alternative Rock #1 (they made it to #2 on Mainstream Rock), and landed them another Grammy nomination for Hard Rock Performance, which was won by supergroup Them Crooked Vultures for "New Fang". The record peaked at #2 on the sales chart, but it would be the last album in that incarnation of the band. But after yet another raucous tour that found Weiland fighting with the rest of the band again, he was booted in 2013. However, instead of forming a spin-off group, the DiLeos and Kretz joined up with Linkin Park frontman Chester Bennington to release an EP under the Stone Temple Pilots moniker (with "featuring Chester Bennington" as the tag). From the short set came two radio singles, with "Out Of Time" going all the way to #1 on the Mainstream Rock chart in 2013. In two years time though, Bennington decided to amicably part with STP to rejoin Linkin Park in November of 2015, something that wouldn't happen due to his death in 2017. To make things more dark, a month after Chester left STP, Weiland died from overdose.
In 2016, the Pilots hired a new lead singer, Jeff Gutt (who looks like Weiland if you squint real hard), who remains their vocalist to this day. The band released another self-titled record in 2018, which made the top-40 at #24. First single "Meadow" returned them to the Mainstream Rock top 10 for the latest time at #6. Their most recent studio album, Perdida, is a much more subdued acoustic affair, and while it hit #13 on the sales chart, single "Fare Thee Well" got to #34 on the Mainstream Rock list.
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Here's the band performing for a live TV concert for Canadian MTV MuchMusic...
Next up at the Bizarre Festival in 2001...
and lastly, in concert in 2010...
Up tomorrow: Canadian emo queen educates.
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