I haven't got deep into this album yet, but so far I think it is rather weak and uninspired after "Core", "Purple", "Tiny Music...".
Worthy songs are: of course, "Sour Girl" and "Atlanta", and also "I Got You" and "No Way Out".
Other songs, strictly speaking, are weak and faceless, they don't cause a wish to listen again to them.
I'm a bit disappointed with "No. 4".
I agree.
At the time, the record was (heavily) promoted before it's release throughout 1998 as a "return to the Core/rock sound." This was mentioned everywhere, and I have a feeling that the band got so caught up in trying to have an album that sounded a certain way, a lot of the songs came off uninspired. Weiland kept saying they were going to save rock 'n roll with No. 4.
No. 4 is definitely the weakest of the original first five albums. It's got some good, even great tunes, but when you look at the creativity just pouring out of the two albums that sandwich it (Tiny Music & SLDD), it's obvious it was an album made because they needed to make a rock album, not because they had all this hard rock creativity they needed to get out.
To diverge slightly, I feel that's the only real problem with their self-titled album as well. It was an album made because they needed to make an album to cement the "reunion," not because they were brimming over with prolific creativity. Like No. 4, self-titled has some fantastic songs (it's hard not to with a band like STP), but I feel the only truly INSPIRED albums they did were Core, Purple, Tiny Music, and SLDD.
The other two have some great songs between them, but are a bit more derivative and seem slightly less original.