Random lost souls ask me "what's the future of rock 'n roll"

On 20 years of ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead's "Worlds Apart"

Playing a dumb guy is hard work. There are hundreds of examples of this being true in film and TV, yet most people can recognize that the person they see on the screen isn’t the same person in real life. Rxk Nephew is not one of these people. Musicians aren’t always granted that same assumption of artistic license and so the first thing anyone has to do if they’re going to write a song from the perspective of a dumb guy is prove that they’re actually smart.

I’d say “Sex Type Thing” is the most obvious cautionary tale of this subgenre. Had Stone Temple Pilots sounded like most of the other major-label alt-rock bands in San Diego ca. 1992 or if they debuted with the loungey, louche MTV Unplugged version, “Sex Type Thing” would be taken for what it actually was: a character study, a parody of toxic masculinity, a song sourced from Scott Weiland’s extensive history of being the witness to and victim of sexual assault and not the perpetrator. Instead, Stone Temple Pilots were marketed as a shameless Seattle knockoff, an industry plant making warmed-over grunge for the same horny frat bros that Kurt Cobain begged not to buy Incesticide. I vaguely recall the video having girls dancing in a dungeon, like a Josh Taft-directed, redlit version of “Rock You Like a Hurricane.” This is how Stone Temple Pilots were introduced to the public and even if “Sex Type Thing” was a massive hit, Scott Weiland spent the rest of his life trying to live it down. I don’t think this would’ve happened if they went with, like, “Wicked Garden” as the lead single, even though that song is dumb.

(related, I’ve always laughed at Steve Malkmus generating plausible deniability for his STP diss on “Range Life” by saying it’s also a character study, though more one of a bemused guy than a dumb one)

…And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead’s “Worlds Apart” is definitely a Dumb Guy song, but I’m not sure whether it’s a “Sex Type Thing” or “Range Life” Dumb Guy Song. Mostly because, 20 years after the fact, I’m still wondering whether Conrad Keely is the Dumb Guy.