Stone Temple Pilots.

STP is back and touring this summer. I'm delighted and have had fun reading various posts in the blogosphere about how underrated STP have always been, which I agree with (The nutshell version, lest you forget, is in the past STP were regarded similarly as Nickelback is today. Of course, now that we have today's music and today's Nickelback [the worstest bad of all time], we realize that STP are actually incredibly good and simply caught flack because their contemporaries were Pearl Jam, Nirvana, etc.).

Okay, I'm escaping the parentheses now. The point is that STP's music is fresh and excellent, and as I've been going through their catalog lately, I can't believe how well it's stood up over time. There's Core, the introductory, grunge-heavy, "Plush"-featuring classic; Purple, an album somewhat more diverse, with higher highs and lower lows; Tiny Music...Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop, which sounds like Scott Weiland at the peak of his drug use but accordingly also has a trippy swagger and rough edge to it that differentiates it from their other work, No. 4, cough-cough excuse me, moving on; and Shangri-La Dee Da, which I didn't play excessively back when I purchased it but am now realizing might actually be their best work. I haven't listened to it nearly enough to know it back and forth like the other albums, but it certainly seems to carry all the best qualities of their earlier albums, but also has a cohesiveness as a work front-to-back that's really enjoyable.

STP are coming to DFW in a couple months, and despite my usual expectations, friends with whom I'm going obtained tickets for us in Row N through Ticketwhore, and as long as they don't get lost in the mail (I'm knocking on wood) we should have an excellent view for when the boys come back to town.

In the meantime, I recommend you all go purchase Shangri-La Dee Da. You might have the first three albums and thought that was all you needed from this band, but trust me, you're missing out.