Stone Temple Pilots Tiny Music...Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop (Super Deluxe Edition) 180g LP & 3CD

Stone Temple Pilots embraced experimentation and open-mindedness to record the band's third album, 1996's Tiny Music… Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop. Released on March 26, 1996, the album is a pitch-perfect amalgamation of the band members' musical personalities, yielding three #1 hits - "Big Bang Baby", "Lady Picture Show"” and "Trippin' On A Hole In A Paper Heart". STP is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the record with the announcement of a super deluxe remastered edition. The 3-CD/1-LP set combines a newly remastered version of the album with unreleased early takes, alternate versions, instrumentals, and a full never-before-released MTV Spring Break performance from 1997.

Scott Weiland, Dean DeLeo, Robert DeLeo, and Eric Kretz recorded Tiny Music… at a home studio tucked away in California's Santa Ynez Valley with Brendan O'Brien, who also produced the band's two previous albums, Core and Purple. The 25,000-square-foot house became a muse for STP, who recorded in different rooms - from the attic to the garden - and used the expansive space to experiment with new sounds.

Along with a newly remastered version of the original album, the Deluxe Edition features 15 unreleased tracks that pull back the curtain on the creative process. Those include early versions of nearly every song on the album with nascent incarnations of "Tumble In The Rough", "Pop's Love Suicide" and "Seven Caged Tigers". The selections also feature an alternate take for "Big Bang Baby" and a percussion mix of "Trippin' On A Hole In A Paper Heart". There's also instrumentals for "Ride The Cliché" and "Adhesive", plus the unreleased "Kretz's Acoustic Song".

An exclusive feature of the Super Deluxe Edition is a previously unreleased live recording of the band's March 14, 1997 concert in Panama City Beach, Florida. STP is dialed in from start to finish, delivering blistering takes of songs from the new album ("Tumble In The Rough" and "Big Bang Baby"), as well as hits from their earlier records ("Vasoline", "Plush" and "Interstate Love Song").

Though there are hints of grunge scattered throughout the album, what makes Tiny Music impressive is how the band brings in elements of psychedelia, trancy shoegaze, jangle pop, and other forms of melodic alternative guitar pop. By accentuating their pop tendencies in both their riffs and melodies, they are able to slip in a number of creative arrangements which manage to expand their musical repertoire significantly.