Dirt by Alice in Chains: early 90's anthem
It is tough for me to say because I guess I am too old now but i think it is safe to say that no one actually buys albums anymore. There was a time when we had to if you can imagine that. There was no way to get the music otherwise unless you had a cassette player and waited until just the right moment with the radio...
I was alive during a wonderful period of transitional history and if you are younger than me you likely do not know the joys of waiting for an album, buying it, and then indulging on every single track contained on it.
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It doesn't mean that you are worse-off than me if you never experienced this. We are all products of our own time and no one is better than another. We can only play the cards we are dealt in life and if you were in college around the time i was Dirt by Alice in Chains was seriously incredible.
"Dirt" was not the first album by Alice in Chains, but it was the first one that the world really took notice of. In the early 90's this album was likely to be found in pretty much everyone's house that was over the age of 20 and less than 30. My parents could not be expected to like this stuff, and kids couldn't either. In that regard it was perfect and perhaps that is why it was as popular as it was.
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back in the early 90's all the members of the band were still alive as well, which would be a big plus if you were hoping to see them play live one day. Unfortunately one of the major members of the band and arguably the part that made them truly unique was Lane Staley, who unfortunately died in 2002 from (you guessed it!) a drug overdose. It was particularly gruesome because the 6-foot tall Staley weighed a mere 86 pounds ( I am more than twice that weight and the same height) at the time of his death.
He had been so abusive towards everyone in and around his life that his body was not discovered until 2 weeks after he had OD'd.
According to toxicology reports he died on the same day that Kurt Cobain did.
Alice in Chains and Nirvana were kind of one and the same as their music is, at least in my mind, extremely similar.
Who knows what drove Lane to do this to himself, but it was a long time ago. If you were to talk to just about anyone who was in college or high school in the early 90's I can assure you...... they had this album and it was truly a showpiece and perhaps a soundtrack of the time. It's a real shame that Lane is not around for the accolades that he truly deserves.
Dunno if you guys heard Mad Season but if not check them out, amazing band with Layne Staley. One album 'above' mainly but its absolutely epic. Iv been buying vinyl recently, the sound quality is so much better and you cant beat hearing it straight from the source. Let alone the hassle involved with sorting digital music libraries out id rather just own it these days. Got a sealed copy of jar of flies/sap from 1994 which is probably my most treasured record so far.
I don't know if i have heard Mad Season, i'll go check it out now. Thanks for the tip!
your in for a treat bro
as it turns out I had heard River of Deceit in the past, but all the rest of this is new to me. Great recommendation!
I won this CD and two others (Hardline's "Double Eclipse" and Warrant's "Cherry Pie") from a radio contest my freshman year of high school. I was so stoked, because I loved every single off that album. It's a favorite to this day.
Minor note since readers unfamiliar with 90's grunge probably won't be aware: Layne Staley and Kurt Cobain both died on April 5th, but Cobain's passing was eight years earlier in 1994. :)
While Dirt arguably has more memorable hits, it's actually Jar of Flies which has my favorite AiC song, Don't Follow:
Cantrell and Staley never sounded better together than they did on this track, in my humble opinion.
fantastic follow-up. I was going to include the same date of death in the original article but hey! you put it in for me kinda :)
I find Dirt a little patchy but it contained most of their best single's including the linked one.. which is the best.
It is funny you should mention that. My wife and I went to a concert this past weekend and there was a booth that allowed you to spin a wheel for prizes. One of the prizes was a T-shirt and the other one was a CD. I looked at my wife and I was like what in the world would I do with a CD? I buy some stuff on vinyl still if it is a band I really enjoy, but other than that I can't remember the last CD I bought.
yeah, i saw a band recently that I really liked and bought their t-shirt, they tried to sell me a CD and my response was the same as your.... who has a CD player?
I don't really memorize the song but I know a bit about this one, I've heard it a few times when playing in the radio, It's really very nice to hear and reminds of various memories!
I got into them because of their connection to Slayer, which I read about in some issues of RIP and Circus magazine back in 1992. Heck, if the Slayer boys command you to listen to any band, you obey. And they're my favorite of all the bands from the Seattle/grunge scene because they're the most metal-sounding among them, although I'm not that into the genre.
This is their song that helped me learn metal rhythm guitar.
And here's an interview about how they got Layne to join them.
Man, I love this album, even more now than when I was young and it had just come out.
Yeah, i recently found a AIC cover band where i live in Chiang Mai. IT really makes me weekends. Sure they have the same rotation of 12 songs but they do them so well. I go every week.