Tiny Music Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop is the third studio album by the Stone Temple Pilots, released on March 26, 1996, on Atlantic Records. After a brief hiatus in 1995, the band regrouped to record Tiny Music, living and recording the album together on a ranch located in Santa Ynez, California. The album, moving away from the Grunge sound present on their first two records and incorporating a wide variety of different influences. After debuting at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 in 1996, Tiny Music initially received mixed reviews, similar to the band’s earlier work, but in the years since, the record has been acclaimed for radically reinventing the band’s image. Tiny Music spawned three singles that reached No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart: Big Bang Baby, Lady Picture Show, and Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart. The album cover, created to resemble a 70s-style LP cover and based on an idea from Weiland, features a woman in a swimsuit standing in a pool with a crocodile in it. The cover was made by John Eder, The cover model was a family friend of art director John Heiden. Said John Eder, “The little altar in the background was a last minute addition Scott wanted to put in, and it actually existed in his house, where I went to shoot it.”
Tracklist:
- Press Play (Instrumental)
- Pop’s Love Suicide
- Tumble in the Rough
- Big Bang Baby
- Lady Picture Show
- And So I Know
- Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart
- Art School Girl
- Adhesive
- Ride the Cliché
- Daisy (Instrumental)
- Seven Caged Tigers
Stone Temple Pilots
Scott Weiland: lead vocals, percussion on Press Play
Dean DeLeo: guitar, bass on Press Play and Big Bang Baby
Robert DeLeo: bass, guitar on Press Play, And So I Know and Daisy; backing vocals on Big Bang Baby and Lady Picture Show; vibraphone and electric harpsichord on And So I Know; percussion on And So I Know
Eric Kretz: drums, percussion on Pop’s Love Suicide, Lady Picture Show and Art School Girl; piano on Adhesive
Additional personnel
Brendan O’Brien: producer, mixing, piano on Press Play and Big Bang Baby; percussion on Pop’s Love Suicide, Lady Picture Show, Art School Girl and Seven Caged Tigers; organ and clavinet on Art School Girl
Dave Ferguson: trumpet on Adhesive
Nick DiDia: recording engineer
Caram Costanzo: 2nd engineer
Chris Goss: vocal engineer
Tracy Chisholm: vocal engineer
Stephen Marcussen: mastering
Ron Boustead: digital editing
John Eder: photography
John Heiden: art direction
Scott Weiland (October 27, 1967 – December 3, 2015).
