No track listing appears on the back cover, which instead displays the image of a cake with the phrase "12 Gracious Melodies". Early pressings featured the Chinese character and band name printed on the CD jewel case cover itself. The album title is written as a Chinese character, zǐ (紫), on the cover, and nowhere else on the packaging (with exception of the UK and European limited edition vinyl release). The cover for the album features an animated photo of a child riding on a Qilin accompanied by a quintet of fairies above the creature and the child, taking place on a cloudy background. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that " Purple is a quantum leap over, showcasing a band hitting their stride." Erlewine also described "Interstate Love Song" as a "concise epic as alluring as the open highway" and "Big Empty" as "a perfect encapsulation of mainstream alienation." Artwork While Purple features elements of grunge like its predecessor, Core, the album displays the band developing a sound influenced by other genres, such as the psychedelic rock evident in "Lounge Fly" and "Silvergun Superman", the country vibes of "Interstate Love Song" and blues rock elements of "Big Empty". Paul Leary of the Butthole Surfers is credited with playing the ending guitar solo on the song.
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The lyric "She said she'd be my woman, she said she'd be my man" from "Lounge Fly" also appears in the song "Spanish Flies" on the Mighty Joe Young Demo. A couple of weeks later, Purple also reached the top of the charts, making two for the band in 1994. The song would later appear on the soundtrack to the 1994 Brandon Lee film The Crow, which reached number one on the Billboard charts.
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The album's first single, "Big Empty", made its debut at STP's MTV Unplugged acoustic performance in 1993. In the spring of 1994, Stone Temple Pilots returned to the studio to work on their next album and completed it in less than a month.