I had to order this record separately, it wasn’t just sitting on the shelf. I Ordered it from a local record store. About two weeks ago I walked in and found the second Stone Temple Pilots album and picked it up because, who knows when I will see it again, but I realized that I really wanted to hear Core. I like to support local stores when I can since this medium is in decline. Sometimes I go online but only when I really have to.

Core was one of the first CD’s I owned. And though I don’t refer to Stone Temple Pilots as my favorite grunge band they are the reason I stuck with the music style as long as I did. There were three or four bands that started the grunge era, STP was one of them. Of course I still like them all.

My memory of this album though, doesn’t really come from the CD but the dub to cassette that I shortly made that Christmas morning after receiving it from Santa. Because, though I was now moving into the digital age I couldn’t afford to fully convert to digital music. I still had a Walkman and a paper route that required steady music to keep me sane through the process of chucking papers onto porches. In fact the reason I know this album so well, and so fully is because I immediately converted it to analog. Do to the conversion I couldn’t skip ahead to songs, listen to the same song over and over again, and I had to flip it over to listen to the B side so I wouldn’t have to rewind.

Of course with this album the B side is the side that has all the popular songs, at least the early ones. Plush comes to the end of the Album and so does Creep. And yes, I know Wicked Garden was released as a video on MTV. This well mastered 180 gram vinyl record however has to break the album into 3 sides. Creep and Plush actually appear on two separate records. So it is good this is a good solid album, because otherwise spamming my favorite songs would be impossible.

Of course I can’t help but comment about how “Shiny” the album cover is, and how wonderful the art on the unused portion of the record is. They used the blank space on the back of non-existent side four to recreate the cover art in negative space. That is what I love about vinyl re-releases, the art work in the extra space. Due to the size of the record, there is so much more to look at. But then, that is part of the reason I am willing to go the extra mile and buy vinyl.

This album is full of great music, especially for those of us who were going through “Things” as teenagers and young adults. It is apparent now that the band itself was going through “Things.” We know that Weiland was in and out of drug treatment centers, and could not get along with the rest of the group. We also know that Velvet Revolver (the band Weiland went to after STP) did not want him to return. I would always hear that he was difficult to deal with. Of course, that is just gossip I have never met him, but I will always be thankful for the albums they did together…  And though water cleanses, washes dirty away, and makes new STP may never come together again.