Of course, as a young and impressionable listener when I first heard this song, at no point did I actually hear either side. Of course, the band denied it even centred around sex, despite its total, noting it was about “control, violence and abuse of power”. Rather famously, ‘Sex Type Thing’ garnered a lot of controversy for people believing it to advocate date rape. Featuring a powerful riff, unrelenting rhythm, and the forceful vocals of Scott Weiland singing some rather controversial lyrics, the tune was everything an alt-rock band would want as its first single. While most of the tracks from this polka mix ended up becoming fond favourites of mine, ‘Sex Type Thing’ really stuck for some reason.Ĭoming as the debut single released by Stone Temple Pilots back in 1993, ‘Sex Type Thing’ was a perfect introduction for the bang.
In between songs by Beck, R.E.M., Nine Inch Nails, and more, was Stone Temple Pilots’ ‘Sex Type Thing’. As I discovered 1996’s Bad Hair Day album, I also came across ‘ The Alternative Polka‘, featuring a number of songs from the alt-rock genre. Then, when I got an iPod in late 2004, I began to expand my horizons, finding more of Yankovic’s music.Īs I soon discovered, each of Yankovic’s albums featured a ‘polka’ track, where he collects a number of recent tracks of a certain genre, performing a polka medley of the tunes. Listening to the album as a young music fan, I adored it, thinking it was the pinnacle of comedy. In a 1993 interview with Rolling Stone, Weiland expressed his frustration with the song's reception by saying "It was, 'All right, the "Cop Killer" controversy's dead, let's try to find something else'.I never thought that people would ever seriously think that I was an advocate of date rape.Back in the early ’00s, I was introduced to the world of “Weird Al” Yankovic thanks to my mother winning a copy of his eleventh album, Poodle Hat. Weiland found himself in the position of defending "Sex Type Thing" to individuals who took the first-person approach he used in the song ("I am a man, a man/I'll give ya something that ya won't forget/I said ya shouldn't have worn that dress") literally. Upon the success of "Sex Type Thing", controversies regarding the song's lyrics emerged while STP was on tour opening for Megadeth. The set was used again for Sunny Day Real Estate's "In Circles" music video in 1994. This video is rather distinctive because it is the first to showcase Scott Weiland's trademark "dance". Various shots of women are shown being hung by chains. The video itself hosts a very dark motif, with Scott Weiland (who bleached his hair blond) being tortured in a rather BDSM fashion, with the band members playing their various instruments in the background. The video was in medium-heavy rotation on MTV during the time, and helped make STP a contender in the grunge war. In an October 1997 interview in Seconds magazine, Glenn Danzig mentions the similarity of the main riff to the Danzig song "Snakes of Christ".ĭuring the grunge explosion of the 1990s, the music video for "Sex Type Thing" is usually denoted as the single factor that drove Stone Temple Pilots into the scene. It's about control, violence and abuse of power.Īccording to guitarist Dean DeLeo, the song "In the Light" by Led Zeppelin had a direct influence on the main riff in "Sex Type Thing".
This song is really not about sex at all. Weiland has stated the song is an anti-rape statement, not a song simply about sex, saying: Scott Weiland wrote the lyrics after a girl he was dating was raped by three high school football players after a party. The single peaked at number 23 on the US Album Rock Tracks chart.
The song spawned a music video which received moderate rotation on MTV (at the height of the early 1990s grunge music scene).
"Sex Type Thing" also appears on the greatest hits compilation album Thank You. "Sex Type Thing" is the debut single released in 1993 by American rock band Stone Temple Pilots from their debut studio album, Core.