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. Expanding on the band's grunge roots, the album incorporates more genres, such as psychedelic rock, blues rock, and country. The band started work on the album while touring for their debut, Core (1992). The song "Big Empty" was recorded on May 25, 1993 and appeared in the 1994 film The Crow, while the rest of the album was recorded in March 1994.
Purple was a major commercial success, debuting at number 1 on the Billboard 200, and remaining at the top of the chart for three weeks, with 252,000 copies sold in its first week. The album 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 singles to success on rock charts.
While receiving mixed-to-negative reviews on release, Purple is retrospectively seen as one of the best albums of the 1990s, with Ultimate Classic Rock declaring it a "psychedelic grunge opus." The album has since been certified 6× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In 2019, to celebrate its 25th anniversary, a Super Deluxe Edition with remasters, demos and live performances was released. A summer tour to celebrate the album's 30th anniversary started on August 16, 2024, and ended on September 15, with the band performing the entire album each night.
Recording
The recording of Purple began in the wake of Stone Temple Pilots' extensive touring behind their 1992 debut album, Core. Material for the follow-up had already started to take shape while the band was still on the road. On May 25, 1993, the band recorded "Big Empty" for the 1994 film The Crow at the Record Plant in Los Angeles. On July 12 they recorded "Lounge Fly" at Paisley Park Studios in Chanhassen with the producer Brendan O'Brien. Following a short break after touring, the band reconvened in Los Angeles in early 1994, spending time in a rehearsal space where they worked out song structures and arrangements. The band entered the studio with the material well-rehearsed and used a process that involved tracking with a public address system to simulate a live environment. This method was encouraged by O'Brien, who aimed to capture performances quickly and with minimal second-guessing.
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Purple has been described as the album that "put grunge out of its misery," combining the alternative rock and hard rock of Core, with a wider range of musical influences. This includes: acoustic, country, funk,
The artwork for Purple was somewhat of a mystery, but Justin Beckner of Ultimate Guitar reached out to its illustrator, Dale Sizer, who explained: "As I remember... I was hired by designer John Heiden, to replicate an old Chinese opium label that one of the band members had. Before I got started, they ran out of time and got a retoucher to clean up the original image and used that. I added background clouds and sky to the image to fill out the package." Beckner also speculates the title of the album is a reference to a certain strain of opium. Opium poppies come in a variety of colors, depending on what area of the world they come from, and the strains used. One of the more common strains is purple.
On analogue formats (LP and cassette) of the original release, the album title is shown as simply Stone Temple Pilots on the tape shells and LP labels. No track listing appears on the back cover, which instead displays the image of a decorated cake with the phrase "12 Gracious Melodies", which is a clue to a hidden track as song twelve. On the cover of the cassette version of Purple, the child is holding the Chinese character in his hand, rather than positioned in the corner. There are two pressings of the actual disc art of Purple. One version has a close-up of the frosted flowers from the cake on the rear panel on it and another has dragon scales. The vinyl LP release is made from colored vinyl – transparent purple in the US and UK release and a limited edition opaque marbled vinyl in a softer shade of purple available only in the UK and Europe.
Critical reception
Contemporary
Purple received mixed-to-negative reviews on release, with critics perceiving a lack of originality. Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune called it a "hollow, superficial" follow-up to Core, finding that it recycles the sound of "Plush" and relies on overproduced grunge formulas. Writing for Entertainment Weekly, David Browne noted multiple musical influences from contemporary bands at the time and remarked that they "pull off these copycat melodies with supreme skill". Raw ranked it number 7 on their list of best albums of 1994.