Habs Fan, that is an absolutely BRILLIANT article!
Apart from the bit about them being behind only Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, I completely agree.
Don't get me wrong, talk about those bands and you are listing my favourite rock acts of all time, but STP have a particular magic that elevates them above all of those bands. A diversity not even closely matched by ANY of those bands. All leaders in their field, but STP are playing by different rules entirely. The scope and ambition of all STP records from Purple onwards is breathtaking, whereas most of those other bands from the time found their niche and have stuck to it, or exhausted it and split, or died before they got a chance to really prove themselves long term.
Pearl Jam deserve special congrats though for still pumping out great albums nearly 20 years later, and not self destructing when they had so many chances.
I love the description of Tiny Music as "batshit crazy"

Personally I think that is the essential rock album of the 90's, the sound of the whole thing just shimmers, such as shame that thing started to go badly wrong for them then. Although one might argue that if things hadn't started going badly wrong for them, they would never had made the album anyway.
^Sweet words to read indeed!
I was one of the few people back in the day who thought STP was better than Pearl Jam and my friends laughed at me. They all thought they were just a Pearl Jam rip off. I never thought for a second that they sounded like Pearl Jam and was always confused as to why people thought that.
Because, as Habs Fan pointed out, most people only ever heard Plush, and to an undiscerning ear Weiland sounds vaguely like Vedder on that track. Of course, the chordal structure of the song is NOTHING like anything Pearl Jam would ever produce, the opening chords alone pretty much set them apart stylistically from all their piers. But most people don't listen to music, they only hear it. Sad for them.