Plush is a song by the rock band Stone Temple Pilots. It was released as the second single from the band’s 1992 debut studio album, Core, on August 8, 1993 and became their first single to top the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart. The song’s chord structure was inspired by bassist Robert DeLeo‘s love of ragtime music, and its lyrics were loosely based on a newspaper article lead singer Scott Weiland had read about a girl who had been found dead after having been kidnapped in the early 1990s. Weiland had also said that the song’s lyrics are a metaphor for a failed relationship. The song was released in 1993 as Core‘s second single and became a major rock radio hit in the United States, peaking at number one on the Album Rock Tracks and number nine on the Modern Rock Tracks. The song was also one of the first alternative rock songs to reach the number one spot on the Album Rock Tracks chart during the height of the alternative rock grunge scene. Plush won in the category of Best Hard Rock Performance at the 1994 Grammy Awards. The music video also earned the band an MTV Video Music Award for Best New Artist in 1993. “Plush” remains one of the biggest rock hits of the 1990s, and it still receives airplay on radio stations.[citation needed] The song also was voted number 12 on the Australian annual music poll Triple J Hottest 100 in 1993. The song appeared as a playable song in the music video games Rock Band 3 and Power Gig: Rise of the SixString in addition to the VH1 series Hindsight. According to Nielsen Music’s year-end report for 2019, “Plush” was the fourth most-played song of the decade on mainstream rock radio with 133,000 spins. All of the songs in the top 10 were from the 1990s.
Tracklist:
- Plush (edit)
- Sin
- Sex Type Thing (Swing Type version)
- Sex Type Thing (live on The Word)
The music video of Push was directed by Josh Taft, was released in 1993 and had heavy rotation on MTV. It combines a visual interpretation of the song’s lyrics with footage of Weiland singing with the band as a lounge act in an empty bar. There are two different versions of this video, with minor differences. On the Thank You Bonus DVD, the last shot of the video features a woman looking at a mirror image of herself viewing her whole body while the mirror image drifts away. In another version, she is looking at a mirror image of her face, with water (possibly rain) dripping down the reflection of the mirror.
Stone Temple Pilots
Scott Weiland: (credited as Weiland) lead vocals
Dean DeLeo: guitar
Robert DeLeo: bass, backing vocals
Eric Kretz: drums
Scott Weiland (October 27, 1967 – December 3, 2015)
