Scott Weiland is known as the frontman for two successful straight-ahead rock bands, Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver, so it’s no surprise that the best songs on his second solo album, Happy in Galoshes, are the simplest, most straightforward rockers. Leadoff track and first single “Missing Cleveland” sounds like a decent STP outtake, and is followed by the quirky, banjo-inflected “Tangle With Your Mind” and another STP-ish rocker, “Blind Confusion.”
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But the specter of Weiland’s need for arty experimentation, which dominated his first solo outing a decade ago, soon makes its unfortunate appearance, and he spends the rest of the album trying unsuccessfully to imitate his idol, David Bowie. Most egregious is an abysmal cover of Bowie’s “Fame,” filled with loud, obnoxious beats courtesy of Paul Oakenfold, completely obliterating the playful feel of the original. Other songs meander ponderously, with Weiland whining his way through gloomy, hook-free ballads and occasional stabs at glam that sound more like second-rate No Doubt (whose non-Gwen Stefani members appear on a number of tracks).
Weiland may be cleaned up these days, but he’s still clearly prone to self-indulgence, and without the influence of pragmatic, meat-and-potatoes rock musicians to ground him, Galoshes bounces around in a whole lot of not particularly fruitful directions. At least it allows him to get all of that out of his system before the promised forthcoming STP reunion album.
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