Rock and roll can never die
There's more to the picture
Than meets the eye
Hey hey, my my
I picked up The Essential Alice In Chains the other day. It's a two disc collection spanning their entire career, with songs from all three studio albums, the EPs, the unplugged album, and a couple of others that I think might have been on soundtracks or compilation discs (I first heard "Right Turn" on a compilation called Genrecide, and I think "Got Me Wrong" was from a movie). Most of Dirt is here. It's a pretty nice set, and if you don't have any Alice this would be a great place to start. I was waiting for the Arctic Monkeys killer - the album that would take back the car CD player from Favourite Worst Nightmare. We have a winner - I only wish I could load both discs in at the same time.
I happen to believe that Dirt is one of the greatest albums of all time. Every song is excellent and when listened to in it's entirety each individual song contributes to an experience that is overwhelmingly greater than the sum of its parts. I never get tired of this album and I've listened to it a lot. I think I was more upset to hear of Layne Staley's death than I was of Cobain's. With Cobain it just seemed inevitable and in a sense righteous - it gave us the time to assess his legend while we were still young enough to martyr him. It just felt hopeless, watching a movie after you've picked up the plot. While Staley was obviously going in the same direction I just kept hoping something would pull him back.
I never felt comfortable lumping AIC in with the whole grunge thing. I always thought they were sufficiently innovative to distinguish themselves. While grunge seemed an alternative to the bloated metal garbage dominating the airwaves Alice In Chains gave metal a way out, a new direction. Certainly they were the best thing to happen to the genre since Metallica and I haven't heard anything nearly as good since. Aside from Staley's sublime vocals, Jerry Cantrell's guitar playing substantially expanded metals vocabulary and was essential to Alice In Chain's sound - it just would have been a totally different band without him. Big, fat, thick, heavy distorted chords, tasteful wah lines, lush, chorused clean tones, melodic, gentle acoustic progressions. He controls dynamics like no one since Hendrix and thoroughly tames dissonance. I've always found his playing interesting and inspiring. If you haven't heard his solo album, Boggy Depot, it's worth a listen.
Ultimately for me it really came down to the vocals. Staley did some beautiful things with his voice. He could express such an amazing range of emotion, sometimes hopeful, sometimes angry, sometimes forlorn, sometimes simply and perfectly ambiguous, sometimes all in the same song. His voice informed the music, brought it to life - the perfect compliment to Cantrell's guitar work.
On a final note: Alice In Chains provided the music for Doom 2, my personal choice for greatest computer game of all time, and just one more reason why Alice is cool as hell...
4 comments:
Dirt is an essential album most people forget about. I'm glad to see you took some time to reflect on it. I just may go home and pop it in for a little while. I think it just happen to be timing and location that got AIC lumped in with the grunge genre. I will always remember the first time I heard Staley yelling at me from the beginning of Them Bones. I used to put on headphones and turn up the volume just to immerse myself even more. Maybe that's why I'm such an angry person?? Hopefully they will never be forgotten. Of course, I, like many others who read this today, will be dusting cobwebs which is a fate less than what Dirt deserves.
I'll still put it on every so often - I've been listening to it a lot lately and if I find a jukebox that has it I'll usually play at least two or three songs. The great thing about that album is I can put it on and let it play and never have to skip a song. It works as background music or sitting right up next to the speakers, listening intently.
I guess the fact that I was willing to buy a greatest hits CD with about nine songs from an album I already have says it all for Alice In Chains...
Dirt is a fantastic disc. I remember seeing them live when they were on tour with Van Halen for the "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" tour. I had tenth row seats and was just about the only person in the audience listening to them when they were on. Jerry Cantrell pointed at me and gave me the peace sign as if to say..."hey man, thanks for listening"... pretty cool.
Joel
Cool story! Jerry Cantrell's solo album was pretty good - definitely had the AIC influence but there were a few songs I couldn't imagine on an Alice album. I gotta take a look and see if he's got anything else out there...
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