Scott Weiland Offers his Version of Heroin Chic

SCOTT WEILAND

12 Bar Blues

Atlantic Records

It's just so easy to hate Scott Weiland. Right as Pearl Jam decided they didn't want to be famous and began their ambitious attempt to alienate every single one of their fans, Weiland's bubble-grunge outfit Stone Temple Pilots went on to fill the blustery-rock void. STP sold millions of albums on the strengths of such artistic master-pieces as "Creep" and "Trippin' on a Hole In a Paper Heart," with self-confessed "fashion whore" Weiland squarely at the helm. Sure, they were hooky, but compared to Pearl Jam, STP exuded about as much genuine angst as Gavin Rossdale.

You might've thought you were finally rid of him when STP ditched him to go on to greatness with...Talk Show. Well, he's back, with his own album, 12 Bar Blues, the joke being that the album is nothing like 12 bar blues, ha-ha. Let the record run through your CD player once, and the first word most likely to jump into your head is...odd.

Like Pearl Jam before him, Weiland has attempted to completely escape all the musical trappings and conventions that had him destined for the same great importance in rock history as Seven Mary Three and Candlebox. Instead, Weiland has decided to plunder the grave of the Beatles, fashioning an album styled to their late-1960s hijinks allied with the glam of 1970s David Bowie. Witness "Barbarella," the album's first single, and a seven-minute opus where Weiland throws in every studio trick the Beatles ever used, and then some. Unfortunately, Weiland has forgotten the difference between noise and tune--sift through guitars more processed than New York City hot dogs in "Desperation #5" and "Cool Kiss," and you'll be hard pressed to find a decent melody.

Drug use is the only consistent lyrical theme in the album, with references appearing in almost every track, starting with the first one. "Desperation #5" opens the album, and it is also the first song Weiland wrote after he came out of heroin rehab. Stealing judiciously from "Jane Says" and Bowie's Diamond Dogs, the funky drum machine sound can't save the song from going nowhere. Following it is "Barbarella," a plea to the space-faring sex kitten to save Weiland from his malaise. Weiland's despairing vocals are backed by a chord progression lifted straight from Hunky Dory, and more chock-full of sound effects than anything off the White Album. There's enough ideas in it for four songs, and at times the song's schizophrenia--orchestral flourishes, calypso breakdowns, unaccompanied vocals--gets unnerving. But it ends up one of the album's strongest tracks--startlingly moving, yet wonderfully alien.

"About Nothing," all awash in a swirl of percussion and spot-on "galactic surf guitar," mines the same glam vein, but with a new wave twist. Unlike the first track, it's got an actual melody, and the track itself wouldn't sound out of place on a Porno for Pyros CD. Given Weiland's voracious propensity for aping other musical artists, it then comes as no surprise that Porno for Pyros bassist Martyn LeNoble plays bass on most of the tracks, including this one.

But listing all of Weiland's thefts and influences is a task both lengthy and pointless--he even rips off himself. "Where's the Man" reeks of his much earlier "Interstate Love Song," not that this is necessarily a bad thing. STP was a great radio band, and a simple, heart-felt blues ballad sounds as good today as it did three years ago. The next track, "Divider," runs along the same listenable tracks--a piano-driven, modern-rock testament to the pain of drug addiction.

After this mostly promising start, though, Weiland's album is spottier than a leopard-skin fur coat. None of the songs outright suck, but the album's second half is too little musical creativity spread over too much time. "Cool Kiss" and "The Date" combine blinding flashes of white noise with lyrics ("Keep your hands up off of my lips / Capsize just like a tanker / Kill Kill Piss Piss") that are an amateur Freudian's wet dream. "Son" is a gently motoring ode to Weiland's new son, a la "Kooks" off Hunky Dory. "Jimmy Was a Stimulator" is a pleasant piece of glam/new wave with a nonsense lyric and a "Whole Lotta Love"-style freak-out middle.

"Lady, Your Roof Brings Me Down" is the album's second single, but its obvious take on Bowie's cabaret-inflected songs on (you guessed it) Hunky Dory fails because it's precisely that--too obvious. Not even Sheryl Crow playing accordion saves the skittering strings and shuffling snare from being unengaging and pedestrian. The last two tracks, "Mockingbird Girl" and "Opposite Octave Reaction," are fuzzed-out noise rockers--cleverly produced, but utterly uncompelling.

12 Bar Blues is the sound of a not-untalented artist struggling to find his voice and ultimately ending up with too much style and too little content. STP fans will undoubtedly argue whether Weiland was better off with his former bandmates or not, and at this point, it's tough choice--measured, vanilla alt-rock hits vs. weird, inspired unpredictability. But for Weiland, the real question is whether 12 Bar Blues will go down in rock history as the audacious start of a memorable and exciting solo career, or just a depraved one-off from a rock singer has-been.