Purple

Purple (stylized on the cover art in its Chinese character 紫) is the second studio album by the American rock band Stone Temple Pilots, released on June 7, 1994, by Atlantic Records. The album, building on the foundation laid by the band's debut album Core (1992), was a major commercial success, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 252,000 copies sold in its first week. It remained at the top of the chart for three weeks, eventually selling over six million copies. It spawned a number of successful singles; "Vasoline" and "Interstate Love Song" both topped the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart and reached number 2 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart, while "Big Empty" also reached the top ten on both charts. Lesser known album cuts "Pretty Penny" and "Unglued" were released as promotional radio singles. Background and musical style In the spring of 1994, Stone Temple Pilots returned to the studio to work on their next album and completed it in less than a month. The album's first single, "Big Empty", made its debut at STP's MTV Unplugged acoustic performance in 1993. The song would later appear on the soundtrack to the 1994 Brandon Lee film The Crow, which reached number one on the Billboard charts. A couple of weeks later, Purple also reached the top of the charts, the band's first album to do so. The lyric "She said she'd be my woman, she said she'd be my man" from "Lounge Fly" also appears in the song "Spanish Flies" on the Mighty Joe Young Demo. Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers is credited with playing the ending guitar solo on the song. While Purple features elements of grunge like its predecessor, Core, the album displays the band developing a sound influenced by other genres, such as the psychedelic rock evident in "Lounge Fly" and "Silvergun Superman", the country vibes of "Interstate Love Song" and blues rock elements of "Big Empty". AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that "Purple is a quantum leap over [Core], showcasing a band hitting their stride." Erlewine also described "Interstate Love Song" as a "concise epic as alluring as the open highway" and "Big Empty" as "a perfect encapsulation of mainstream alienation."