Scott Weiland: 12 Bar Blues

The apparent break-up of Stone Temple Pilots didn't seem tragic at the time: The group's derivative, Pearl Jam-style bombast 'n' bluster—and later-period aimlessness, as heard on 1996's overrated Tiny Music…—didn't exactly warrant tearful eulogies. But the band's dissolution has produced one unfortunate result: the formation of two separate spinoffs, each of which has begun to crank out mediocre-to-miserable material. Talk Show, which consists of Stone Temple Pilots without the dopey singer, made a forgettable, mostly forgotten self-titled debut last year. And now Scott Weiland, Stone Temple Pilots' aforementioned dopey singer, has a solo album, a staggeringly ego-driven collection of fussy rock songs and laughably self-serious, brooding junk. From "Barbarella" ("I'm a selfish piece of shit") to the buzzing, distorted "Cool Kiss" ("Cool cool / kiss kiss / Keep your hands up off-a my lips"), to "Son" (yet another terrible piece of schmaltz about a rock star's kid), 12 Bar Blues is consistently undone by Weiland's preening delivery and dorky songwriting. A fleet of producers and remix jockeys—including Daniel Lanois—keeps the record at least sounding interesting, but 12 Bar Blues just sounds excessively busy, like it's trying to hide something. It is.