Here Today... Gone To Hell!

"In the early 1990s, STONE TEMPLE PILOTS ? not U2, not NIRVANA, not PEARL JAM ? was the hottest band in the world. STP toppled such mega-bands as AEROSMITH and GUNS N' ROSES on MTV and the Billboard charts. "

If I recall STP were big in 1993/1994...Years when GN'R were dorment..It's not as though they were competing..Still STP never achieved the status as GN'R..STP ever have an arena tour, co-headline Football Stadiums, have 2 albums as 1 n' 2 on Billboard Charts?..

The article also could say they dominated over the Beatles during that time from....

The way they worded it, it sounds like STP were huge.

You could write the same sentence and put Vanilla Ice in there instead of STP.


Does it mean Vanilla Ice was more popular than GN'R, Nirvana, PJ, U2 etc.? Of course not.


Yeah, it's possible STP was ahead of GN'R in some Billboard chart at one point. But so was some one hit wonders.  :hihi:




/jarmo

Exactly, its all wording.  STP's most successful album was "Core" which was 8X platinum.  Around the same time, the Use Your Illusion albums EACH sold near 8X, and they were not even GNR's most successful album.  STP is my favorite band of those early 90's bands besides Nirvana, but they were never in GNR's stratosphere as far as commercial success.  That was also the press release for Scott Weiland's book that is coming out, so obviously it is going to skew things in a certain way.  Just like he does in the book.

STP were far from a one hit wonder here in the states, they were not on stadium level like Guns, but even Axl was a fan-they sold 8 million, 6 million, and 2 million for the first three albums they put out-no easy feat.

You can take any one hit wonder who had a #1 song and say that same thing about.

Doesn't matter. If you're #1, you're "hotter than band X" or "toppled Artist Z on the chart" and so on. At that moment.





/jarmo

They have put out 4 studio albums between 92 and 99, and the lowest debut they had was #6, and they are compared to Vanilla Ice? Sorry, I don't see it-what they did in the 90's is not bad compared to what Guns did in the 90's-sorry, I look at things objectively.

He wasn't comparing them to Vanilla Ice.  He was saying that depending on how something is worded even someone like Vanilla Ice can be made to look like the greatest/most successful artist in the world.

Heres an example, Vanilla Ice's "To the Exteme" spent 16 weeks at the top of the Billboard chart, became the fastest selling hip hop record of all time selling 11 million copies worldwide. 

If you read that sentence you would think he is on Eminem's level.


Here is another example.  Avenged Sevenfold knock Eminem out of the top spot on the Billboard Chart.

 That looks like A7X is more popular than Eminem.  I didn't mention that Eminem's record was already out for about 2 months at that point.    It is all wording.  The way they word that STP article was that STP was more successful and a bigger band that GNR, Pearl Jam and U2.  That is laughable at best.

He used the name Vanilla Ice-sorry, that is a terrible example-Vanilla Ice is a joke.

no it is a perfect example if you understand how it is being used.

Or if Tiger Woods won 4 straight Masters tournaments and someone else came along the 5th year and won. Does that make them better or more successful than Tiger? No

I never understood the whole toppling GNR thing the media writes about. I've heard that argument with Nirvana alot, this is the first I've heard STP mentioned.
If anyone "toppled" GNR, it was GNR.

I prefer Guns, but STP was great. In my opinion they were probably the best rock band of the 90's, and one of the last real rock bands out there today(though well past their prime).
Aside from Axl, Scott is probably the last great frontmen.

Nice.

Some of you got the point. :)




/jarmo

The comparison is kind of ridiculous, I don't even know if GNR had a video in rotation on MTV at the time.  I suppose they had Since I Don't Have You but at the time 93-94 it was Nirvana who took over the music scene and Guns dropped a record without any real promotion.  STP was my preferred choice over Nirvana, Pear Jam, Soungarden, Alice In Chains, etc. 

This is the dumbest thing I have read for a long time.

Electricity and electrodes could fix the situation.  :hihi:

Limp Bizkit sold more records and was more influential than  Elvis Presley,    in October of 2000.    :hihi:

You're twisting the words as well.  It says early 90's and compares to a number of extremely popular bands that were active in the early 90's. Not ALL TIME.

So, let's look at years 1990 - 1995.... GNR released three CDs and sold 15 million records in the US, STP released two CDs and sold 14 million records in the US....  GNR had 4 songs reached the Top 40, STP had 3 songs that reached the Top 40, but on the Mainstream Rock charts, STP had 3 #1 hits and GNR had none (in fact, over their career's STP had much more successful hits on this chart - 6 #1s to GNR's zero).  STP won 1 Grammy & GNR won none.  Both bands would have been active for about 3 of the 5 years.

There is no doubt that GNR were more popular than STP over their career and in the early 90's, but the early 90's argument isn't nearly as "laughable" as many of you are suggesting (throw in the momentum of the bands - STP rising up, GN'R becoming bloated and falling apart and it gets even closer).  Especially when looking strictly at the charts and not considering tours - which brings me to another point: Since this reads suspiciously like a Billboard article, it's no suprise that they focus on what happened on the charts at a specific period of time, they do this all the time - So how about a link to the whole article instead of a snippet?

I love both bands equally.   I wasn't really as aware of either back then, so I wouldn't know.   STP also had a good career in '94-'99 when GNR was not as active, and GNR were big before STP were even around.   I basically refuse to compare them.  Both are great frontmen too.   

When I saw you quote Grammy wins I almost didn't respond to your post, because nothing is more irrelevant than the Grammy's.  Jethro Tull beat Metallica for a Heavy Metal Grammy, so...

You're being very selective with the years you are choosing.  Guns N Roses never released an album the same year as STP.   In fact both of their albums came out the same day in 1991, before STP released anything.  Why would you stretch it to 1995, 4 years after GNR's last album?  Even in your time frame of 90-95 GNR still outsold STP, and thats not even counting the millions more copies of Lies and Appetite they sold those years.  Bottom line, GNR was the much bigger band, played much bigger venues and sold more records.  Sure STP had more number 1 singles, but so did Creed and Nickelback.  STP is a very generic radio rock band, their radio success does not surprise me.  9 minute epic ballads like November Rain and Estranged usually don't fare well on the radio.  The whole article is misleading, in is inferring that STP was a more successful band than GNR, but it was actually good timing on their part, original GNR was pretty much broken up at that point. 

What do you mean very selective about the years, I took the first half of the 90's... i.e. "early" 90's, where each band was active for about 3 of the 5 years - maybe I'm being generous with "early", but GNR would have a 3 year head start otherwise.  I also stated clearly that GNR are more popular and successful than STP - my point was that during this time period it's not the blowout some of you are making it out to be - particularly when looking at album sales & chart success (and yes, Grammy wins), since this is what the article seems to be focusing on... but it's hard to gather based on one sentence, where's the link to the rest of it?  You said the whole article is misleading, so maybe you can post the link. 

Also, with the trend in music at the time, if GNR released another album in '94 or '95, I think you would be kidding yourself if you thought it would be a huge commercial success like Appetite or Illusions... grunge made GNR & Aerosmith seem very uncool - which I think the article was suggesting - it was a trend in music, and STP was one of the leading bands. 


STP were huge.  As was Nirvana.  As was Pearl Jam.  As was U2.  As was Vanilla Ice.  These are big names in popular music whether they were one hit wonders or not. 

Just because GNR were bigger, doesn't mean STP weren't "huge".  Eminem has outsold 2Pac, is 2Pac not considered "huge"?

C'mon! Comparing STP with Vanilla Ice? That's  just stupid! STP are no one hit wonder.

Guns were the biggest band in the world during their active years of 87 - 93.  Some idiots with an agenda will claim that Nirvana etc "Toppled" GNR and point out the poor sales of the Spaghetti incident as evidence of this.

The truth is, that album was just a bunch of punk covers recorded during the Illusion era and was only released as a fun/keep the fans happy type of album while they worked on the next proper album.  

STP are a good band though.  Nirvana are a decent but terribly overated band.  If he hadn't of blown his head off, no one would really care anymore....

It's stuped to say "Nirvana,StP,Pearl Jam toppled Guns n Roses"...Gnr was the bigest Band in 6 years era,and noone toppled them except members of GNR...On the other hand Guns n Roses now had a status "one of the biggest band in the history of rock music" ,Nirvana,PJ,STP don't have this status...After almost 20 years ,with new band members and only one album GNR still have cult status and still can sellout stadiums (in SOuth America,Japan,Australia and some European countries) and 15-20k arenas Europe,USa and across the globe.

These bands were red hot in 92 and 93-sorry-even Axl was a fan-he didn't wear a Nirvana hat and ask them to open for guns if the thought they were overrated or "decent"-Axl said himself he was influenced by new music coming out(Nine Inch Nails, and so on)-toppled might be a strong word, but you get the point.

?? Aerosmith's Get a Grip album was released during the height of grungemania and it was a commercial smash, actually it was Aerosmith's biggest record..  You are saying GN'R could not have done the same thing?  I never bought into that argument that grunge wiped out anything that came out before it.  Metallica was bigger than any  band during the 90's including Nirvana, and is still just as big today.

The whole rock industry has gone downhill since the Grunge era.  There has being very few great frontmen or lead guitarists since then. 

Most rock music these days is just boring and predicatable.

I don't care if you're the president of the STP fan club, but the way that sentence is worded, to me it looks like it's supposed to make STP look bigger and more important than they actually were.


That's the only thing I pointed out.

I didn't compare them to other acts, just saying you could write the same kind of promotional thing for most artists.





Clearly you didn't understand the point.




/jarmo

STP were good and will go down as a good band during a good era of music
I always thought the Purple album was their best - they changed it up and found a sound a bit different from Core

Their last album was clearly dogshit though......they should have let it just fade away

As for the article, it clearly does try to present them as being some kind of unstoppable force back then..which they never really were

All right, stop, collaborate and listen...

To the extreme I rock a mic like a vandal

Anything less than the best is a felony

Take heed 'cause I'm a lyrical poet
Miami's on the scene just in case you didn't know it

This is a hell of a concept

If my rhyme was a drug I'd sell it by the gram

If there was a problem yo I'll solve it
Check out the hook while Shay revolves it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeDwQp0qS7k

P.S.: Sorry, I couldn't resist this...  :hihi:

Jarmo is right.  Sorry folks, Nirvana toppled the genre that GNR were in.  I don't like it either, I lived through it... The time was pretty amazing for music though, there was a lot of great music that came out from about 1988-1993.  STP was on top of the world for about a 5 year span starting at about 1992.  Yes, Vanilla Ice was extremely popular, even more so than GNR at one point and sold a HELL of a lot of records. 

This thread has become pretty comedic nonetheless.

I think it's a tough argument to say anyone toppled GNR. Around 91 or 92 they were the biggest band in the world. Their next album came out in 2008 (and no, I'm not counting Spaghetti). If anything they self imploded.

I agree, GN'R actually did something which was hard to do, which is to be a success in both decades. GN'R were actually bigger in the mainstream in 91-93, than they ever were back in 87-89.

I think that they started the dacade so well, that they never really knew where to go after that. So no, no one toppled GN'R, they simply ran out of petrol all by themselves. And it's not hard to understand why, when you think about the overwhelming success of the Illusions and then the subsequent 2 and a half year tour... 8)

^^^^You're right, it's not hard to understand why. They went harder than anyone for several years. By 93, Steven was fired, Izzy had quit, Slash and Duff were in an alcoholic fog, and Axl had developed some Jesus ego complex. They just weren't able to pull it back together after that.

Any type of demise of the original line up had nothing to do with Nirvana and everything to do with Guns N Roses themselves.  Things were clearly not great between Axl, Slash and Duff at that point and it had nothing to do with the fact that Nirvana was popular.  Here is the proof..  Nirvana had ZERO effect on Metallica, Megadeth, or Aerosmiths success, had GNR put out a record in the mid 90's it would have done just as well as those bands did....multi-platinum.

My son heard this nonsense somewhere too and asked me about how Nirvana ended Gnr...I had to teach the fine lad a little history, starting with the fact that Gnr basically ended Hair Metal ...and that cannot be disputed. Went on to say that while those hair bands collapsed, during the height of the grunge days, there was plenty of room for all different styles, despite the fact that many bands did go out of their way to sound grunge.

STP to be playing w/ Steven Tyler on American Idol...Judas Priest, Bono/Edge,Lady Gaga there as well..Pretty high profile gig....