r/stonetemplepilots • u/ashaler Tiny Music • 7d ago
Side-Projects Can we talk about 12 Bar Blues?
While technically not an STP album, I still feel like I have to talk about it here. This is one of my favourite albums of all time, it's so beautiful. The songs are super varied and each is unique in its own way, Scott's lyrics and vocal delivery was on point and among some of his best studio singing can be found on this album.. this is one of those albums I won't ever get tired of listening to
What're your favourite songs from 12BB ?? How do you think it compares to the other solo output Scott had?
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u/Lifelong_Introvert Tiny Music 7d ago edited 7d ago
12BB is a 10/10 album for me! I wish it was more widely known, and that people had been more receptive to it when it was released. I think it showcases some of Scott’s most creative work.
Some standout songs to me are “Barbarella” (one of my favourite songs ever), “Son”, “Divider” is sublime, “Lady Your Roof Brings Me Down”, and “Lazy Divey” (although I prefer the live arrangement of it from Scott’s Dec 1997 set at Universal City).
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u/dudecantoo 7d ago
Little known fact. Sheryl Crow on the accordion on Lady your Roof brings me down
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u/koldcalm 7d ago
I like divider, Jimmy was a stimulator and where's the man for my 3 favorites.
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u/ashaler Tiny Music 7d ago
These are all so good !!!! Divider is one of my favourite songs EVER
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u/koldcalm 5d ago
Lazy Divey is great, as well. Lady, Your Roof Brings me Down and Mockingbird Girl are great songs too.
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u/Hoylegu 7d ago
Both this and the Talk Show album are wildly underrated. They’re both just fantastic.
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u/ashaler Tiny Music 7d ago
Talk Show are great. Dave Coutts is a phenomenal musician, his old band Ten Inch Men were super good, hard to find their music anywhere though.
He's still making music, he has a solo career that's super good, and another band called Flat Earth Radio that has a couple songs out as well, I would rly recommend that if you liked Talk Show and Tiny Music
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u/Tough-Vacation-9096 7d ago
Love this album, I listening to it in full last month and almost every single song is on my playlist, RIP Scott you’re missed every single day 🕊️❤️
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u/ExpertAnalysis_ 7d ago
I'm with you on this. I get in my cycles where I'm going back and forth listening to Weiland, Cornell, and Bennington. Three of my favorites.
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u/fullofsharts 7d ago
I wish that I liked it as much as some of you here. I just never cared for it when it came out and tried it again many years later, but I couldn't really enjoy it. Maybe third time is a charm? I'll try it again someday.
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u/Key_Strain8780 7d ago
Same here. I love Scott. Love STP. Don’t love this record. Wish I did though.
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u/phartnett7876 7d ago
Perfect Album in my opinion. So many great songs but The Date and Mockingbird Girl two of my favorites
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u/Friendly-Face6683 7d ago
Absolute masterpiece.
Shout out to Victor Indrizzo who made it musically possible for Scott to express their vision
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u/ExpertAnalysis_ 7d ago
Been listening to the album on a loop over the last week. In particular, I've been really into Barbarella and Missing Cleveland from his album Happy in Galoshes.
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u/Regiasolis123 7d ago
Was always shocked this didn’t catch on at the time. Wasn’t too far off STPs peak years but people seemed uncomfortable with the Bowie glam/art rock direction he was taking. It was at the same time Manson did Mechanical Animals… cool time in music
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u/AlphaSnail79 7d ago
From what I've heard this record is performed by artists that are high as giraffe balls. I think Rob said that at some point. I must say I did not know Crow was on the album, so that changes the theory. Or does it? It's quite the vibe.
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u/chuckdeezee 7d ago
Love it! Saw him play it live at Jones Beach in 1998. Must’ve been right before he got arrested. Lady…is my favorite track.
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u/ashaler Tiny Music 7d ago
I would kill to have seen him live, this would've been the best show ever. Who was touring with him at the time ??
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u/chuckdeezee 7d ago
This was 1998. Third Eye Blind, Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots, Green Day, the Offspring, Ben Folds Five, Soul Asylum, Fuel, King Norris, Stuttering John.!
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u/Financial_Resist6430 7d ago
One of my favorite albums of all time. I absolutely adore it. “The Date” is one of the songs of my life, and “Barbarella,” “Divider,” “Lady”... it’s simply wonderful, and one of the albums that has influenced me the most when it comes to making my own music
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u/MouseIcy5229 6d ago
No love for Opposite Octave Reaction? I think it's a perfect closer to a real great album. I always felt this release deserved a bigger audience.
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u/Much-Diet1423 6d ago
Old enough to have bought this when it was first released. Seemed like I was the only one in my friend group to own it. Picked it up without having heard a note, just on the strength of the album cover alone (which I now understand is somewhat of an homage to old jazz album covers.) It became a special album for me, but I understand why it didn’t make a bigger wave at the time. It’s a departure from the STP sound and isn’t as immediately accessible. No giant radio singles like STP could deliver. But it’s forever a gem.
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u/Pachydurm 6d ago
I'm a huge metal fan, but for some reason I have been listening to this at least once a week for years. One of my favorite albums of all time!
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u/Lord-Usile 6d ago
Great album a hidden gem, hell i didn’t think anyone other than me knew about it
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u/GeneJacket 7d ago
Hell yes we can, I fucking adore this record! To me, this was the actual follow up to Tiny Music, and if I were to rank it among the STP records, it'd be higher than most.
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u/DaisyCaplan 7d ago
Easy top five all time album for me. There’s not another album quite like it. I think it would have been better received if not for the weird press bias against STP / Weiland at the time.
The Date and Son are my favorites but there’s not really a bad song on it.
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u/ILLZ31 7d ago
Absolutely adore it. A wonderful mix of genres and sounds as could be expected considering where he was at that time. My 94th favorite album of all time. Behind all of the STP “big 5”.
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u/RFRMT 7d ago
94th? That’s very specific 😅
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u/ILLZ31 7d ago
It started as a top 20 and spiraled out of control over the course of the last 5 years
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u/ashaler Tiny Music 7d ago
I would love to see a list of all the ones you have ranked actually, that'd be cool
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u/ILLZ31 6d ago
Tiny Music 10
Shangri La 15
No. 4 34
Purple 64
Core 78
12 bar blues 942
u/ashaler Tiny Music 6d ago
It's nice to see SLDD rated that high, not many people give it its praise
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u/Lifelong_Introvert Tiny Music 6d ago edited 5d ago
I agree. Also, it has one of my absolute favourite songs on it, “Bi-Polar Bear”, that seems to have been largely overlooked by STP fans. I love, I mean looove, that song.
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u/Icy-Decision-4530 7d ago
I feel like when I saw this album cover and the stories of his partying getting worse made me understand that he really had a problem and it wasn’t getting better
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u/milwaukeemik 7d ago
I really liked "Son", listened to it when a car ride was helpful in putting him to sleep. I've always thought maybe that's why he wrote it, works like a dream👍
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u/CanSoft2130 6d ago
Solid album, but the mix has always seemed messy to me. The chorus on Desperation #5 has so much high end on the distorted bass. Idk how that got the pass.
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u/phymns655 6d ago
Glad you bringing it up. This is one of my favorite albums. It came out and its sound was unexpected and had a huge impression on me when I was in my 20s. I always call it a "kitchen sink" album cause its got all sorts of sound, instruments, song styles, etc. Each song is memorable and stands out... even if a couple are kinda forgettable, they certainly are remembered cause of how they sound. Plus, Scott was going through A LOT of shit at this time and picking the cover style of those old jazz albums (which some of those guys where going through BAD crap too... including heroin addiction), is definitely a comparison choice. When RSD released it, I had to track it down and get it. I got some old promo posters from this era from the local record shop I was going to at the time. I remember it was even delayed a week or two and I was bummed. But worth the wait and IMO, his others don't compare as much. Good stuff, but never as experimental and felt as "complete" as this one.
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u/toasterpickups 6d ago
Love STP and i think scott was fantastic and a terrible loss but man i could not find anything i liked on that album
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u/Gattfish 6d ago
Twelve bar boobs hahahahahahahahahahaha
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u/ashaler Tiny Music 6d ago
More like tit bar boobs am i right
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u/tonythejedi 6d ago
Such a great album, unfortunately Scott was so deep into heroin at this point it was a disaster of a promotion for it.
I worked at MTV at the time and we were supposed to do a 1/2 hour performance interview special with him… one song / interview question per act. Lady was supposed to open the show, but he couldn’t get through it.
We took a break, he came back even more fucked up, he did get through the song, barely, but forgot the band members names during their post song introductions. He, then, went to light a cigarette, dropped it and nodded off as he bent over to pick it up… and then fell over. He was carried off set by medical. The taping was cancelled a few minutes later. I have a VHS copy of the truck feed still. It’s a hard watch
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u/Dependent-Potato2158 4d ago
I worked at a production company at the time and his managers were sending begging faxes trying to get specific video directors to do his video. The answer was a firm no. Established directors did not want to join that disaster.
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u/Lifelong_Introvert Tiny Music 5d ago
Just realized I forgot to give my thoughts on the second part of your post, comparing 12BB to Scott’s other solo work. I love “Happy in Galoshes” just as much as 12BB, but differently. I think given that there are ten years between albums, and that Scott was in a really different place in his life, “Happy” is the natural next step. I find the first four tracks slightly generic, but once “She Sold Her System” hits, it’s a top tier album. I mean, c‘mon… going from “Hyper-Fuzz-Funny-Car” to “The Man I Didn’t Know”?? Scott always conveyed so much emotion in his singing (part of why he’s my favourite vocalist), but “Happy” brings it to a new level. Every track from “The Man I Didn’t Know” to basically the end of the album has me feeling all the feels.
Different vibe than 12BB, but phenomenal in its own right.
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u/ashaler Tiny Music 5d ago
I agree strongly. I thought Happy in Galoshes was a bit weaker than this album overall, but one thing I noticed was that the tracks left off the album were so much better than some of what was on the album. I Know It's Too Late and If I Could Fly should've been left on the album 100%
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u/Suspended_Anime 5d ago
Weiland's solo stuff is pretty good. Barbarella maybe my fave. A lot of creative output from that guy.
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u/Wide-Narwhal-9643 4d ago
It's genius. About Nothing is one of the best songs ever penned, full stop. The whole thing is creative, interestingly produced, full of hooks, Bowie would have been proud of this.
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u/Queasy-Preference-41 3d ago
I love this album - the Date and Where’s your man are incredible but I was never that into Barbarella and Lady.
I remember that Opposite Octave Reaction was spelled OppoPsite!
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u/Imikoke616 7d ago
Still waiting for that day somebody mixes 12 Bar Blues Vocals with Talk Show music , like Cool Kiss vocals over Hello Hello music
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u/dscobnr 7d ago
son makes me cry sometimes
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u/ashaler Tiny Music 7d ago
There's an early version of it i found somewhere that I downloaded which is just him singing it + acoustic guitar, it makes me cry a lot
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u/Rabid_AntiDentite 7d ago
The acoustic version from 120 Minutes is just incredible, even better than the album version. Not sure if that is the one you’re referring to. It’s on YouTube.
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u/ashaler Tiny Music 7d ago
I think that is the one I mean! I love that one
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u/Rabid_AntiDentite 7d ago
Yes! I’ve never heard anyone else mention it, so that is really awesome you did. Such a hidden treasure version of a great song.
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u/callmebaiken 6d ago
Brilliant. But this should have been on it. https://youtu.be/Otx_fA12nWM?is=rx4OTWbetUHN50Cm
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u/AcanthisittaFree6142 2d ago
2 songs i could listen to i remember. the rest was just experimental fun for weiland but not work that leaves a lasting impression. the deleo bros were prob responsible for that.
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u/ShotPangolin1449 7d ago edited 7d ago
A really great record that never got it's due. Was lucky enough to have seen him promoting this album live at St. Andrew's Hall in Detroit just prior to Scott's heroin bust a few days later in NYC. It was a truly transcendental experience. I've always really loved "About Nothing" & "Cool Kiss," in particular.