Scott Weiland
12 Bar Blues

THE REVIEW

Between one arrest and another, and during a period of poor understanding with the DeLeo brothers, who, after the disappointment of the tour stop of Tiny Music, had already formed a new group (the Talk Show), replacing their original singer in STP, the elusive Scott Weiland debuted with a first and, to date, only solo album, which did not achieve much success in terms of sales, but which critics (including Scaruffi, believe it or not) hailed as a bold step in pop avant-garde by one of the most controversial and popular singers of the grunge era.

12 bar blues is a bizarre album, intended for those who want to experience something totally different from the usual things that today's rock music offers. Artistically, Scott has crafted a masterpiece, albeit a challenging one, completely divergent from the Stone Temple Pilots. But let's get to the songs. It starts with Desperation #5, one of the best tracks, with remnants of Brian Eno and David Bowie, then moves on to the power-ballad Barbarella, a hybrid between the pop melody of the Beatles, and the intricate and deviant sounds of the Reznor school. This direction continues with About Nothing, less melodramatic than the previous one, and perhaps more static.

Where's the Man, however, is perhaps the point closest to the ballads of his original group, while Divider is a splendid soft jazz piano bar number, rearranged so as not to seem even more disorienting than it already does compared to the previous four songs. Scott, for the rest, indulges in a thousand instruments, and on the Date plays absolutely every track of bass, drums, loops, guitars, and synthesizers, which often dominate this album.

Son does not hide the tender and human side of a Weiland otherwise perpetually entangled with his dealings with drug addiction. Martyn LeNoble, Sheryl Crow, Daniel Lanois, Brad Mehldau are some of the illustrious guests featured on this experimental album, which I feel to recommend not so much to fans of the grunge movement, but especially to those nostalgic for Bowie's Scary Monsters, to those who love anything that comes close to the industrial distortions of the Nine Inch Nails, perhaps the genius of Beck, and with regards to the song Lady, your roof brings me down, definitely to the most carnival-esque Tom Waits. This is a quirky and original album, but beautiful for it: it is decidedly at odds with other singer-songwriter rock albums we are used to. 12 bar blues is paradoxically the best David Bowie album since 1980 to date.