It's a day of grunge for us as we recognise the 25th anniversary of San Diego rockers Stone Temple Pilots' second studio album Purple. It was arguably their greatest body of work, certainly their most commercially and critically acclaimed, and indeed remains very much loved to this day. 

Stone Temple Pilots - PurpleStone Temple Pilots - Purple

Released on Atlantic Records in 1994, Purple became the band's only album to reach number one in the US where it stayed for three weeks, and went on to sell more than six million copies. 

The album was recorded in Atlanta and produced by the Grammy-winning Brendan O'Brien (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam). While it was very much a grunge record like the band's 1992 debut Core, this time there were heavy influences of psychedelic rock, blues and even country rock.

Purple featured singles the likes of Vasoline, Interstate Love Song and Big Empty - the latter of which featured on the soundtrack for 1994 superhero movie The Crow (which, incidently, also topped the charts). Interstate Love Song is probably the most successful single from the album, and is widely considered to be one of the greatest songs of the 90s. 

Lounge Fly is another well known track from the album, which was used for several years in the MTV News Break segments, while Kitchenware & Candybars contains a hidden track called My Second Album which parodies the idea that hidden tracks tend to be completely at odds with the rest of the artist's music, and indeed is actually a lounge song performed by Richard Peterson.

The band returned with a new self-titled album just last year, following the release of their previous self-titled album in 2010 which was their final output on Atlantic. The new record marked their first without former frontman Scott Weiland, who died towards the end of 2015 of an accidental drug overdose.