Before people reply, "no, it was Scott" just give this thought a chance. SLDD and S/T are albums that we, as die-hards, love but what about the rest of the casual fans. The creativity of STP helped build them into an arena rock band with Purple and Tiny Music, however, did they go too far with SLDD and S/T? A lot of tunes off of each record are tunes that after one listen one can tell they have no chance of being radio hits. For example, Wonderful, Hello It's Late, Bi-Polar Bear, A Song For Sleeping and many more off of SLDD and S/T. Should they have removed these tunes and gone more for hits? Keep in mind I'm speaking from the casual fan perspective not how I view the band. I love both records and I would not want them any other way. However, each of those records are COMPLETELY different than the first three that made them stars. Yes, the first three records sound completely different as well but the all have the common thread of potential hit sounding songs before the were released. Prior to SLDD and S/T being released what tunes could the band honestly invision being a hit? Look at Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains, they are not in the same league as STP in my opinion but have kept a similar format in terms of at least making sure they have a few familiar sounding tunes that are likely to be hits on each record. STP definitely did not do that with SLDD and S/T and that is where they lost their popularity to me.
