alice in chains c/d

Novoselic and Grohl should just go out as Nirvana, White Stripes-style.

The only way I wanna see Krist/Dave billed as Nirvana is if they have Courtney Love on guitar/vocals. But then the sky would crack open, etc.

http://www.adbdesign.com/cwtf/william.html

The new line-up and tour are totally Dud.

'rotten apple' is fab

ha I put on Dirt the other day and it was ruling hard, gotta buy that s/t album since I've only really heard it when my ex-roommate played it.

Also, the selftitled one, (with the dog on the cover) is really okay if you dive into it (Grind is really great, Heaven beside you a really nice ballad), though it's almost a Jerry Cantrell solo-record.

Erm, isn't that the one where Staley did contribute a significant amount of songwriting? The reunited band doesn't play much from it, I suppose for that reason.

'rotten apple' is fab
OTM. I wonder what the last line ('recommend you borrow') means, though.

it always peeves me when nirvana gets all the kudos for marrying metal to beatlesque pop and blah blah blah, when AIC did that particular thing even better. the vocal harmonies on a lot of songs on dirt are some next level shit.

tht "Sickman" chorus totally sounds like some kind of seasick Beatles dirge that Lennon would have written in '68/'69

Yeah, Sickman is a great song, alternating between the instense metal sprint of the verses and the woozy off-kilter choruses. Rotten Apple is nice (and I sampled the opening guitar line on a tune I made once) but my favourite acoustic song of theirs is Brother - the chorus just really hits the spot. I never managed to get into the self titled one at all - in fact I can't remember anything about it except Heaven Beside You.

'recommend you borrow' is a bit of a sentence fragment, isn't it? there are a lot of those in latter-years alice in chains.

i figure a lot of layne's lyrics, particularly on s/t, made sense in his own head on an intrapersonal level. be damned if i can work out half of it though...

Just for the hell of it I made a list of the songs (from the 3 main albums and 2 eps) nu-Alice could play if they were avoiding Staley stuff completely. It's still a pretty impressive catalog.

"We Die Young"
"Sea of Sorrow"
"Bleed the Freak"
"It Ain't Like That"
"Sunshine"
"Put You Down"
"I Know Somethin' ('Bout You)"
"Brother"
"Got Me Wrong"
"Right Turn"
"Them Bones"
"Dam That River"
"Down in a Hole"
"Rooster"
"Would?"
"No Excuses"
"Whale & Wasp"
"Don't Follow"
"Grind"
"Heaven Beside You"
"Over Now"

From the set lists I've seen they are at least doing "Man in the Box," "Love, Hate, Love," "Angry Chair," "God Smack," "Junkhead," "Rain When I Die," "Sludge Factory" and "Again." Haven't seen any where they busted out "Sickman" or "Rotten Apple," though.

haha 'love, hate, love'. false ending to end all false endings.

yeah, but the entire lyric for that song is pretty fragmentary, yet it still seems to cohere into some fall-from-grace theme or whatever. That line just sort of dangles there at the end and throws me for a loop.

xpost

(shoddy mixed metaphor, sorry)

yeah!

the 'crawling back to start' implies a sort of voluntary, defeatist fall-from-grace as well. aic were never really short of grim

classic.

despite what anybody said, "Facelift" was classic and fun as hell....Dirt was amazing. Jar of Flies was great...

Sap was ok. Self-titled album was pretty good, not great. Music Bank had some really nice b-side material.

I'm really iffy on them writing new material with Mr. Duvall though (as has been reported).

Certainly I mean it isn't taboo or anything but even though Layne didn't write the majority of the songs, when I think of AiC, I think of his voice. They're synonymous. Just wish they'd use another moniker.

huge fucking dud.

^^^^rong

huge classic

Dirt was amazing. Jar of Flies was great...

OTFM

that tripod record still fascinates me. from the ugly cover art and revised logo to the bizarre songs and grimy mix, there is a serious what-the-fuck vibe going on.

strangely, i really like it. you've got to ask what 'so close' and 'nothing song' are doing on the record though. worthless, half ideas smothered in blandness. i'll defend the record on most other counts though and suggest that it might just be worthy of classic status.

Huge classic but please don't write anymore material under the name. don't tarnish it.

Herman otm

Charlie, you're right about strange songs on the self-titled album. A lot of them work too ("God Am", "Brush Away", "Frogs"). "Nothing Song" is indeed a dud.

love 'brush away', yeah.
and the spoken part on 'frogs' is very cool. don't quite know what layne was on about there, but that's pretty much the point.

yea that part always creeped me out a bit

uh huh
and you know, i'm gonna chime in as well and say please no more recordings under the alice name. i know what new cantrell-penned songs stand for - 6-minute guitar based plodders all over the place.

Yea, Guitar Magazine used to fellate the guy and no doubt he's talented but when they said he "held the cards" in AIC it really angered me, sure he wrote most of the material but what about Layne's vocals?

Not to mention Jerry's solo material (at least his first album, never heard the second) was BORING. Dude is a good backup singer but shouldn't sing lead on ANYTHING.

http://kn0x0rz.proboards102.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=1206&page=1

i mean

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v136/primrosehill/littledudeslayne.jpg

+9

It's interesting to hear how much they remind me of the Byrds on their early releases.

i love "sap" and "jar of flies", i still listen to them pretty often. i like some songs off of "dirt" and "facelift" and the self titled, "dirt" being by far the most consistent. i was disappointed by the unplugged though. i saw them live in 93 at lollapalooza, they killed it.

well the new aic record seems to be going ahead. i'll be pretty curious about it if i'm at all able to disassociate it from the true alice name

No no no no no, AIC without Staley is a terrible idea.

I expect someone will do a really obvious 'fixed' on that post.

It worked for INXS. Uh.

Bad idea.

Awful idea.

And the press release!

Los Angeles, CA- Legendary rock band ALICE IN CHAINS has signed an exclusive worldwide deal with EMI's Virgin Records and are gearing up for the release of their first new studio album in more than 10 years. The band and producer Nick Raskulinecz (Rush, Foo Fighters) began recording last October at Studio 606 in Northridge, CA and recently finished mixing at Henson Studios in Hollywood. The highly anticipated album is scheduled for release this September.

Guitarist/vocalist Jerry Cantrell, drummer Sean Kinney and bassist Mike Inez reunited in 2005 at a benefit for victims of the tsunami in Indonesia. They began touring with new guitarist/vocalist William DuVall the following year.

"It's been a meaningful journey and a hell of a story," says Cantrell. "We're very excited to have a home at Virgin/EMI and are looking forward to writing new chapters in the book of Alice."

"We're in a good place," adds Kinney. "We've made a record that we're really proud of, we've got a team in place that's passionate about the music and we're excited for the fans to hear the new songs."
"Alice In Chains has had a big hand in the evolution of music and I still can't believe we get to work with them," says Rob Stevenson, President of Virgin Records. "This music is going to remind people what we've all been missing."
"There is a tremendous sense of excitement and dedication within EMI around the world as we head into this album release," Added Jeff Kempler, EMI's COO of New Music for North America and the UK,"Alice In Chains' place in rock history is undeniable and when people hear this remarkable new work it will be clear how timeless, potent and visionary this band is."
Alice In Chains were among the headliners at the recent Rock on the Range festival in Columbus, OH. Next up is a July 18 show with Kid Rock at Comerica Park in Detroit, to be followed by festival shows with Metallica overseas, including an August 1 date at Marlay Park in Dublin and an August 2 show at the Sonisphere Festival at Knebworth. Earlier this year, the quartet took a break from recording to perform a string of shows in Australia with Nine Inch Nails.

Over the course of their remarkable career, Alice In Chains has garnered multiple Grammy nominations, sold more than 17 million albums worldwide and achieved 11 top 10 hit singles.

I idly note that Staley isn't mentioned once.

Also, Layne Staley is still dead.

disgusting using the name Alice In Chains

new single, "a looking in view."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnU19MHwt7w

whole lotta dud. pretty forgettable.

i never really paid attn to dudes outside the radio staples but the gf turned me on to their records and goddamn if they're not the best grunge thing this side of nirvana

^^^ utterly, utterly piercing

Not great - some nice crunchy guitars, and it is unmistakably AIC, but it needs a way catchier chorus.

yeah i think it was a mistake to release a 7-minute long number for their "comeback" single.

i really don't like Nick Raskulinecz's production style at all.

those two sentences are unrelated...

new song is kinda boring but not terrible. is this really going to be a single? can't imagine people will care too much.

i can't the vocals on AIC songs

Can't resist?

the new song is really unmemorable

oops, can't *stand*

Man there was no reason for that to be seven minutes long by anyone's standards

hah im already fighting with ppl about this over on doomed forever

Just listening to Sap for the first time in years. It's disarmingly lovely.

it is. Much superior to jar of flies.

Agreed. There's something a bit ponderous about JoF.

i still have my sap import cd that i traipsed around glasgow looking for in 1992. (found it in 23rd precinct when it still had the rock bit downstairs)

so the new one huh. thoughts?

getting ridiculously good reviews across the board. pretty excited to hear it. the non-layne issue doesnt bother me a bit; jerry wrote most of the songs in the first place and the death of a band member shouldn't mean the others have to give up their livelihood to appease the lamer fans

yeah, the press is solid so far. my thoughts on the single that was posted upthread are a little mixed. while it exhibits some classic AIC elements and the odd thumping riff for good measure, it seems like a bit of a pastiche. we have a whole lot of different sections thrown into the mix that don't work particularly well together and it really seems that they've laboured and laboured to get those harmonies sounding like vintage-era AIC. end result is that they sound over-studied, whereas on previous outings they were both natural and key to the band's sound. this repetition of choruses and unimaginative song structuring is also erring dangerously close to the stuff on JC's solo albums. mind you, these are early days and i'll have a more concerted opinion once i've heard the album in full.

When Baroness start doing Alice in Chains harmonies on "Steel That Sleeps the Eye" it breaks the overall feel of the album, and it's the one downer on the otherwise wicked ace Blue Record. But it does make me curious as to how much of Dirt I'd like after more than a decade of ignoring it.

I have weird reservations about the new album that aren't really very logical. We saw them live last year, and I was okay with that. Lead dude sounded great, cool to see Jerry and the boys still playing, I enjoyed the show a lot. But an album just makes it too...official. I listened to a couple of tracks and it just feels wrong. Maybe I'm being too much of a chick about it. But I don't feel right about an Alice In Chains ALBUM with no Layne.

its not AIC in my eyes and never will me. the arguments about maiden,ac/dc etc dont hold up as they didnt split up saying they couldnt go on then reform 10 years later as the guitarists solo career had failed. He shouldnt be using the name after all this time. Its purely about money and is disgusting.

and feeling that way does not make fans lame no matter how many times someone says it.

I went through all this bunk with INXS, though that was much worse, new singer every six months, everyone from Terrence Trent D'arby to Jon Stevens. I get that the band wants to play, but c'mon. To be fair, the INXS thing was far far worse in execution because it was flat out bad and 100% ill-advised. The new AIC singer is good, I'll give him that, and I don't feel comfortable accusing Jerry and the guys of doing this solely for cash. They created the music too, and Jerry was always a driving force creatively, musically, and his harmony is part of that AIC sound. I respect them wanting to continue...I just don't like it. I feel the same way about AC/DC. They've been successful with Brian and I respect them for finding away to continue. I just love Bon and don't feel right about Brian...and I don't know if I ever will.

they shouldnt be using the name. They didnt replace layne at the time because they knew noone could and the fans wouldnt accept it. So why do it now*?
*for the money

Just read that Elton John plays piano on the title track!

I do like the droney main riff on Check My Brain. Not a bad chorus either.

it's not a horrible album and there are definitely some glimpses of what made AIC a truly great band. surprising really as i was beginning to suspect that JC had lost the plot together. i guess the best thing i can say about it is that i'm likely to spend some time listening to it in the coming weeks. and that's far more than i was anticipating.

'your decision' is a surprisingly good slower number, which is nice news given how wary i was of anything that might approach the "ballad"-realm here. hell, 'when the sun rose again' reminds me of the halcyon days of sap. 'check my brain' is also ripe. love that dirty, atonal riff that runs through it as chap mentioned. otherwise, 'last of my kind' and 'acid bubble' have nice moments amidst the requisite passages of dirge. basically i'm grateful to hear anything as innocuous as a decent riff on these tracks.

'lesson learned' reveals itself to have the best chorus here after a fairly tepid verse. i actually kind of have that one stuck in my head.

I've been listening to the streams of the new one someone's put on YouTube. Mostly seems kind of dull.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31a6HQUrAz0

Forgot how much I used to love their unplugged album.

RIP bassist Mike Starr

sad...his appearance on Celebrity Rehab was pretty harrowing and it's a real bummer that the band's drug problems went beyond Layne

Oh ffs. :(.

RIP

I wish there was something better. AIC were just a band I didn't follow, but they were of my time, and I saw them when they were a club opening act (for Iggy) and it sucks. A reminder that redemption doesn't always come.

RIP

not a huge fan but i heard "Jar of Flies" at a record store while browsing the other day, sounded surprisingly great

was informed after pasting a jar of flies youtube on my facebook today that mike inez was apparently the bassist on that album.

dirt was a fantastic album as well, though. pretty miserable story though.

Mike quit/was sacked after Dirt.

he was cool and i always liked his playing. r.i.p.

I was reading the wikipedia entry for 'Got me wrong' and happily saw this:

Ned Raggett of Allmusic said that the song "went a long way towards showing how Alice in Chains could work as effectively at low(er) volume as at high" and that "it's almost one of the warmest and most inspiring things the band had yet recorded — musically, at least."[2]

ned otm

So jerry cantrell is currently involved in a very heated twitter beef with......har mar superstar

haha wow

new single "Hollow" is pretty solid vintage AIC-sounding stuff

I still haven't been able to listen to new AiC. I don't feel like it's invalid that they continued, but this band was so important to me growing up, and my enjoyment of them was so closely attached to Layne, that seeing that name attached with someone else still rubs me the wrong way.

I'm sure when I eventually listen to the material I'll think it's solid material, but haven't done it yet.

Or I guess jerry is heated and har mar is just amazed

Also jerry is totally a homophobic d bag surprise surprise

@JerryFCantrell
@HarMarSuperstar Stop talking shit about my wife! Go back to the gays where you belong !

well that's seriously disappointing

i have to admit that instead of outright calling the guy gay saying "Go back to the gays where you belong" is really, really funny to me

his daughter going "Yo @twitter. Can you do something about this idiot sending me constant jealous comments about my dad" and "Hey @twitter this one is stalking me" is hilarious too

that would be awesome if you could tweet everyone on Twitter simultaneously just by "@twitter"

that's actually a direct line to the powers that be at Twitter

@HarMarSuperstar
Layne Staley is tweet dissing me from the grave.

@StLayneStaley
- @HarMarSuperstar YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE MONEY TO PAY WHORES! YOU DON'T HAVE A PENIS

oh is it? I guess I haven't Twittered enough to know that...it is still pretty LOL tho.

omg @ the 'you don't have a penis'

haha i was kidding

lol i'm getting bitchslapped with my lack of twit-cred today

listening to Dirt. Wouldn't even call myself an AIC fan, but this album is pretty great. Of all the grunge-era bands, imo AIC has survived with the least attachment to the "genre", and perhaps not coincidentally, with a sound that is most difficult to pigeonhole. pop/metal/doom/glam? seems almost impossible to ape without sounding like an AIC cover band

it's still a pretty heavy album too that routinely hits the sweet spot.

Love them but I hate Rooster. It's so redneck.

Also, I lived in Seattle for 13 years and yes, Jerry Cantrell is a shitty person.

Is he?

he always came across as a great guy in Kerrang! in the 90s, but then difficult to read too much into that I suppose

Hah, I missed the Har Nar twitter beef from the last revive.

thanks for the dn

lol my pleasure

I picked up dirt & unplugged as a twofer from FOpp the other day.

I did? Where's that then?

The Temple of the Dog thread led me to AIC videos on youtube. I was never a fan the first go 'round and I'm still not getting it.

The musicianship is solid, all the way around and the production is outstanding. But Staley's voice and the songs feel like the reductio ad absurdum of that era of grunge/alternative misery and self-hatred. There seems to be no self-awareness and humor to their music at all, which just makes it a beatdown in comparison to Nirvana or even Pearl Jam. In my head I see them on a lineage with Slipknot/etc. in terms of making miserable music for miserableness sake for miserable teenagers.

AIC were I guess the goths... I love Staleys voice because it's so plaintive & painful, the voice totally suited the lyrics & music

but they could totally be funny
check it
http://youtu.be/Kgy8IPFVG5g

I believe they put out an album after the comeback album. Anyone ever hear it? Any thoughts? I also find it funny I saw Jerry Cantrell with the exact same line-up of musicians they make up the current Alice in Chains.

that*

they've had two. first one, Black Gives Way to Blue, is actually really really good. haven't heard the second.

I own Black Gives Way to Blue and I'll have to give it another listen soon. Never heard the second one.

black gives way to blue was good, i didn't like the second one much.

that being said i don't really love the whole new singer era. i'm too tied to Layne to really embrace it fully

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-gx957MEO4

Video from 1986, pre-Cantrell (and everyone else except Stayley I think). Very Sunset Strip.

omg @ poodle layne

I know it’s lame to just revive threads to be all “yeah awesome” but goddam I love Alice In Chains.

i love aic!!!! i listened to dirt for the first time in forever a few weeks ago and wow what a record

great drummer

I listen to unplugged and dirt quite often

I was just jamming "God Am" from the s/t.

one of my earliest favs from my high school years. also feel that Facelift is an underrated cock rock classic, never woulda guessed the albums that woulda come out of them after that.

the shit on the boxed set is great too, as were their soundtrack songs. "What the HEll Have I?" is a fav

love them so much!! <3

the MoPop founders tribute concert from last month is worth a look, some great covers incl Fishbone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zTIF6CM1tI

Dirt and Sap/Jar Of Flies are all-time for me.

Dirt is more or less a perfect album, really the sweet spot between their rocking and moody/introspective sides plus catchy as hell tunes.

Definitely classic: debut, Dirt and Unplugged. Quite like Tripod but not fussed about much that came after. I saw them on the Dirt tour in (I think) 1993 - monstrous gig.

never got to see them, by the time I was into them, Jar of Flies had been out a while, and Layne was in a bad way.

always made me sad, the footage of them opening for Kiss on the s/t (Tripod) tour and Layne having to be in a wheelchair.

Layne always sounded good live based on the recordings, always had a lot of power, and the harmonies with him and Jerry were great live too.

i almost went to see the new incarnation in 2019 (it's taken me time to embrace) but I had a conflict.

"Rain When I Die" is the ultimate AIC anthem IMO

Yeah, I don't think I'd go see them. Having said that, seeing anyone right now would rule!

I got one of my kids a Jar of Flies shirt for Christmas and I think I'm going to have to steal it.

AiC's Jar of Flies was the first band t-shirt I ever owned. only one my folks would buy for me cos they were so uptight.

Aww. Such a cool shirt.

I think the unplugged version of “brother” is the definitive one for me, thanks to the vocal harmonies in the verse

yeah I liked what they did with it for that special!

i thought i was cool when I learned that guitar solo as a kid util I realized it was like a beginner guitar solo lol

"Rain When I Die" is the ultimate AIC anthem IMO

― Looking for Cape Penis house (Neanderthal)

That chorus! And the wah wah riff...

fans don't seem to like Unplugged very much, but it was the only AiC I knew for a long time and so the album versions sound a little strange to me. I dug Dirt out the other week and was impressed at how hard it rocked - definitely one of the most "metal" of all the big grunge-era bands

Well there's a reason for that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-gx957MEO4

There are times when I think Jar of Flies may be the best album of the early-to-mid '90s alternaboom.

Dirt is miles better than JoF. I actually prefer Sap to it as well.

fans don't seem to like Unplugged very much

Yeah the studio versions of the songs are all superior imo & afaicr.

There was this creepy kid i went to high school with who would always walk up to me at break and repeat this quote AIC had given to Kerrang!, that they were ***metal** and not ***grunge***, like it was profound somehow. It was true, but I really wanted him to fuck off and never understood why he kept repeating it to me, even though I was dead into grunge.

AIC's harmonies have always sounded otherworldly to me, absolutely unique.

^ otm re their harmonies

I like the variety of JoF but Dirt is stronger song-for-song. Never heard the s/t album, should go listen to that

It's mostly boring.

AIC's harmonies have always sounded otherworldly to me, absolutely unique.

― Ray Cooney as "Crotch" (stevie), Thursday, January 14, 2021 8:57 AM bookmarkflaglink

"Rotten Apple" especially, or "I Stay Away"

that they were ***metal** and not ***grunge***, like it was profound somehow.

Grunge was never a real genre, discuss.

s/t album has a LOT of Jerry singing lead, often for entire songs, which I'm not really about. he has a decent voice but it's rather vanilla so I usually preferred it when they used him more sparingly, i.e. like on the intro verse to "Would?"

Yeah I haven't heard a lot of praise for the s/t but it's the least thing in the Layne era I haven't heard and I love "Heaven Beside You" (on the subject of great harmonies)

s/t's highlights were "Brush Away", "Sludge Factory", "Frogs" (possibly the weirdest song they ever recorded not counting the bonus track on Sap), "God Am", "Head Creeps", "Grind"

Mostly unmemorable songs on the s/t. Granted I didn't listen to it as much as Dirt, but today I wouldn't have the first clue what Shame in You or Nothin Song sound like.

that nothin song sticks to your mouth like peanut butter on the brain...odelay-eeeeeee

I like "Shame in You", decent Layne harmonies.

Grunge was never a real genre, discuss.

― chap, Thursday, January 14, 2021 8:03 AM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Next thing I know you're gonna say electronica wasn't legit.

You know what doesn't get enough love? The Mad Season album. It's pretty great imo.

Speaking of Mad Season, one of my favourite bits of Layne singing is his verse on this, at around 1.50. Chills.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJKvE3tMIPs

yeah i love "Shame In You". One of the great grunge ballads. Reminds me of... shit what were they called? Brent or Brad or something? Mixed grunge and soul together, think it was a collab between one of Pearl Jam and antoher dude...

Whoa! Brad! I haven't thought of that in nearly thirty years!

Brad are great - most things Shawn Smith was involved in a great (Pigeonhed, Satchel, Twilight Singers) his solo stuff.

I like the AiC Unplugged album. It's way too long but the highlights are, uh, high.

Yeah the studio versions of the songs are all superior imo & afaicr.

― chap, Thursday, January 14, 2021 6:39 AM (fifty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i do not agree

My last post (typed in a break from online teaching) is utter garbage! Basically, Shawn Smith is the king. That is all.

And aye, Unplugged is great. I love the version of Frog.

the opening “AH!” on them bones is the best and scariest start to an album ever

Tangent, but I swear Bandcamp had a metric ton of Shawn Smith content - demos, albums, live stuff, etc. - and it's not up now. So much content, I didn't know where to start, and thought I'd check it before asking for suggestions here.

Shawn's a favorite of mine, too. Wish I'd seen a lot more shows of his. The one at Seattle's Showbox lounge I caught was wonderful and intimate.

I liked the song Battleflag by Pigeonhed

There's a Lo-Fidelty Allstars version of that, which is great.

I like that version too

the Pigeonhed version is in a first ep season of the Sopranos. makes it a time capsule episode really

I saw Shawn Smith in a little pub near here, about six months before he died. I got a bear hug off him at the end. Amazing gig.

Wrapped In My Memory is in an episode too right? S5 maybe.

shawn smith is a legend in my mind just for his contributions to the first twilight singers record and having a band with my name

Brad’s Shame still holds up

(I still haven’t heard any of the later albums)

unplugged brother > sap ep brother

unplugged brother > sap ep brother

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson)

Hard disagree, if only for Jerry's gorgeous tone in the studio solo.

the strengths of unplugged are the vocals and the “mood” imo. and layne’s hair. the guitar solos do sound sorta weak, like Jerry and the other guy are trying to play acoustics as electrics.. and yeah xp laynes harmonies on the chorus of “brother” > Ann Wilson’s, sacrilege as that seems.

I actually love the story of Jerry’s dad hearing Rooster for the first time at an AiC show. this toughass cowboy crying and waving his hat when it was over, v touching <3

Did anybody else have the Jar of Flies ENHANCED CD ROM

You know what doesn't get enough love? The Mad Season album. It's pretty great imo.

Abso-fucking-lutely. That was a vibe that didn't get explored enough and I really wish they'd have managed a second album. The deluxe edition from 2013 is fantastic, I sued to have the Live at the Moore on VHS back in the day.

I was a listened to tons of grunge back in the day, but never listened to Mad Season. Listening now and it's really good and has a unique vibe.

The chorus of I'm Above really reminds me of the titular lines in Still of the Night by Whitesnake.

God, I need to proofread my posts.

For me Mad Season has a v specific “heroin” vibe, I find it hard to listen to unless I’m in the right mood

might be just a me thing tho

def not a stick on at any time kind of album yah

AiC are kinda like that for me too tho.

They are not my favorite "grunge" band (Soundgarden4eva), but they might be the most grunge of all 90s bands.

i wanted to do a grunge poll

Sign me the f up!

Yeah, this might be the ultimate "grunge" album. It just sounds like ... grunge. This or Screaming Tree's "Sweet Oblivion," maybe.

I was listening to "Badmotorfinger" the other night, and it's like the ultimate prog-metal album that isn't quite prog or metal. I think the key to Alice in Chains (or Screaming Trees, for that matter) are those vocals. Cornell is the best singer of the entire bunch, but it's that low, guttural Layne/Vedder/Lanegan wail that kind of defines grunge for me.

Totally agreed (and lol, because I went Mad Season > Dirt > Sweet Oblivion tonight). Soundgarden always my favorite grunge band, but AiC and Screaming Trees have such distinctive vocals.

i would participate in a grunge poll!

Strangely I was in the middle of listening to dirt yesterday and felt a sudden urge to hear “outshined”. Good god, Cornell’s verse vocals there. “SOOO DOWN”

with aic for sure it’s the vocals but also really solid songwriting, really nice melodic touches and cool middle eights and things

I have somehow never listened to Mad Season and always mixed them up with Temple of the Dog!

Tracks or albums poll? Or both?

Tracks, I would say, but I would do either. Maybe tracks with an album top-10 side poll?

Cornell is just a monster. Staley has distinctive vocals, but it's also the treatment. They're double-tracked a lot, correct?

Tracks would be the main poll but would prob do albums too

I'd be in for a grunge poll, albeit I suspect I don't know grunge as well as I think I do.

Which bands would be eligible in a grunge poll? Seattle only, or would it extent to eg Smashing Pumpkins?

shawn smith is a legend in my mind just for his contributions to the first twilight singers record and having a band with my name

first pigonhed and satchel albums are all-time for me

S/T is exhausting, but the highs are high (pun not intended). Love the guitar sound, especially on Over Now.

Over Now is a highlight.

Love Brad/Satchel/Smith, I'm sure I read somewhere years back that the band (Brad) were originally called The Crash Test Dummies, and faced with litigation they renamed the band after the 'other' TCTD's lead singer.

The disappearance of the vast archive of Shawn Smith stuff on Bandcamp is an odd one. Must be estate-related, I assume? In terms of where to start, Let It All Begin and Shield of Thorns are both lovely solo albums,

I finally got around to look that up the other day, and was very disappointed to see it gone

Listening to the Mad Season album for the first time makes me realise how SOULFUL a lot of grunge could be

Which bands would be eligible in a grunge poll? Seattle only, or would it extent to eg Smashing Pumpkins?

― chap, Friday, January 15, 2021 1:46 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

no pumpkins. honestly i was just thinking the big 4 (PJ, SG, Nirvana, AiC) and maybe any of their offshoots. i could be possibly be swayed. could just do a soundgarden poll tbf.

i wanted to do a grunge poll

― a nice controlled drift (Spottie), Friday, 15 January 2021 00:42 (sixteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sign me the f up!

― Jimi Buffett (PBKR), Friday, 15 January 2021 00:42 (sixteen hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I signed up years ago to do a grunge poll but you are most welcome to take it off my hands or we could co run it.

What about, like, Hole, Mudhoney, Green River, Mad Season, Tad, Screaming Trees, L7, etc.?

imo they all have to be in it

melvins too

Grunge was what got me into music aged 18 and I was into all those bands

What no Gruntruck?

Seriously though, Tad, Hole, Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, Stone Temple Pilots?

Lol, Xp

imo they all have to be in it

Agreed.

I never counted STP as real grunge, lol

Nor did I count Candlebox or Silverchair etc

Aye, STP definitely the FM version. I think a 'looser' remit would be more interesting? It's not like we're going to start nominating Kyuss or Neil Young.

stick to WA and it should be fine

No to STP, yes to Hole and L7. If your debut record didn't come out before Nevermind was released, you're out, unless you were comprised of members of other grunge bands (so yes to Brad and Mad Season).

Like basically this should be Green River > Down on the Upside.

And god no Smashing Pumpkins. It's a grunge poll, not an alternative poll.

I just got a box set of Mudhoney's mid '90s albums (when they were signed to Warners) and they're surprisingly good. If people really do the homework (LISTEN TO TAD YOU MOTHERFUCKERS), this could be an interesting poll.

i am already triggered by whats grunge/whats not lol DIDNT WE SORT THIS OUT 30 YEARS AGO

It's not that hard! Just leave the second wave grunge for the MTV Alternative Nation poll.

Listening to the Mad Season album for the first time makes me realise how SOULFUL a lot of grunge could be

This was the secret unlocked by the Afghan Whigs, by way of Ohio.

And Screaming Trees, too; not really much metal in either of those bands.

Yes to Mother Love Bone then?

yup

Nice. I suspect Man of Golden Words would be fairly high on my ballot.

we probably have another 3 years until my turn for the grunge poll comes around anyway but as this is the year Nevermind turns 30, it deffo should run this year imo.

I have metal poll in the near future but spottie is more than welcome to run the grunge poll instead of me if he would like to

Gonna be a bunch of crossover, I assume.

grunge poll! grunge poll!

oh snap sorry neechy i havent checked the list in a long time just figured it wasnt on there and i remember a long time ago volunteering to do one. But I'd love if you did it and i could design the images and help with the rollout for it? people feel strongly about the bands that need to be included and those that dont id be open to whatever.

im sure we can come up with something. Who knows when it will be our turn though.

there's been several new ballot poll threads(and new D/Ns for me) since i asked to be put on the list. iirc my request first time was missed by whoever was in charge (wmc?)

anyway it matters little. I'll be happy to co-run it with you or you can do it solo. Im fine either way.

Queensryche and Faster Pussycat will NOT be included though! lol

taking the grunge poll chat here:

ILM Ballot Polls for 2020 and beyond -- the ordering, timing, "I would have voted if I'd known about it," etc

Love them but I hate Rooster. It's so redneck.

― Sandy, Monday, March 3, 2014 3:12 AM bookmarkflaglink

this isn't an insult

aic were one of my first indications that there are rednecks everywhere and i celebrate them for it. always resonated a lot more with them than with someone like kurt cobain who shat on rural people every chance he could get. i remember a documentary where you could see jerry putting in a massive dip and i was just like, these are my guys

also re: upthread, calling jerry a background singer is so completely unhinged

it’s hard to remember but AIC came up on the tail end of mainstream hard rock metal’s popularity and iirc they were on one of the final big Monsters of Rock tours, so they def had one foot in that genre and obv had a kinship with a lot of folks whose life’s soundtrack was that music. When Dirt dropped it felt like such a true lived-in statement and very uncompromising, as much as I liked a lot of the other grunge acts (and I really did esp Pearl Jam tbh) I never got any sense of reportage from IRL shit like I did with AIC. which isn’t to say the other bands weren’t going thru IRL shit (obviously history shows they were) but Staley and co just really didn’t pull their punches. Gotta find my copy of this and replace it if I can’t.

I am glad I was able to catch them in both acoustic (short set at a benefit gig in 1992) and electric (near top of bill at Lolla 93, sadly missed a show right at UCI the previous fall) modes during the Dirt run. Still remember Angelo from Fishbone (and maybe one other bandmember) coming out for "Them Bones" at Lolla and Maynard from Tool joining on "Rooster," and both times it made it all the more intense, but I do wish I could remember their "Would?" from that show more vividly.

i think as a teen i just thought they sounded slightly heavier than the other big modern rock acts of the day, but it's wild how heavy they sound to me now. the intro to "them bones" is heavy as shit. i also love how maximalist they got around the self-titled, especially on something like "grind," SO many guitar and vocal tracks

I think that backing vocalist comment from upthread was me (from when I was BJO). Think my overall view is and has always been that I liked Jerry's voice, but I preferred him vocally serving more as a harmonic complement to Layne than being an outright lead singer. His voice is pleasant, but I liked it better when he was singing the moodier pieces on Sap and JoF then when he took two lead tracks on s/t.

He's obviously a driving force in the band, I just used to get salty when publications would slight Layne to praise Cantrell, I mean obviously the latter wrote or co-wrote almost all of their material, but without Layne's vocals, they wouldn't have achieved what they did (same if they never had Jerry). they were a power duo, albeit one where Jerry had to pick up a lot of slack when Layne was out of commission for long periods.

in conclusion Alice in Chains rules. "What the Hell Have I?" best song

Hair metal Lane takes on the PMRC!!! very cute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yslRsWmgAA

It's so weird to me to realize that the DuVall version of the band has, at this point, existed for three years longer than the Staley version and released just as many full-length albums.

I really wish more of the cock-rockier era of AiC survived. obviously there's Facelift, but there's also several tracks in the Music Bank boxed set like "Social Parasite", that were really mega-cool. it wasn't what they did best, but an interesting origin story, especially since most bands in that scene were more of a rebellion AGAINST hair metal.

I wish they'd repress Sap/Jar Of Flies on vinyl, those records are ASTONISHING. The Everly Brothers of smack. The hamronies of this group were insane.

I keep meaning to check out the DuVall records. Jerry Cantrell's a fantastic songwriter, and I've heard DuVall is great. But in my head Alice In Chains is Layne's story, and it ends when he ends.

Harmonies. Hamronies sounds like some kind of delicious American junk food.

"Rotten Apple" is incredible

Here's a another incredible relic of the God's Party Animals era of AiC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXe8WecFvBk

Totally forgot about "I Can't Have You Blues"

Also Jerry Cantrell shower footage!

The DuVall era stuff is fine? I don't hate it, Cantrell gives enough reason to listen, but obviously just nowhere near the alchemy that Staley brought to it.

Sap and Jar of Flies are incredible, absolutely.

totally agree on the amazing vocal harmonies. I recently re-purchased this Japanese disc that has Jar Of Flies and Sap on one cd

the harmonies were great live too, going by the few live recordings they have

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gme17T5WQNM

Hah, that rules.

Canadian Vulfpeck?

https://headbangerzclub.net/news/when-layne-staley-fought-a-during-an-alice-in-chains-concert