Not enough, I think. And it's been a long time. I've been contemplating getting into it again because so many people seem to have an appreciation for this band that I cannot understand.

What should I start with?

Well, I pretty much enjoy all of their output, but I'd recommend starting with the debut, which is my personal favorite of theirs, and contains some of their all time classics, such as We Die Young, Love, Hate, Love, and the legendary (if overplayed) Man in the Box. The sophomore, Dirt, is also great, but not as metallic as the debut, and a bit more on the alternative side, but it still contains plenty of Sabbathian riffs and dense atmospheres. Also, don't know what you think of acoustic music, but they have a couple of really cool and mellow EPs under their name; Jar of Flies and Sap. Jar of Flies, especially, is bloody amazing.

I think that's enough for you to start. Haven't mentioned the selftitled and Black Gives Way to Blue because they're a bit more divisive than their other material (though I love them nonetheless). You'll see for yourself if you like them.

I don't understand the hatred of Black Gives Way to Blue by some AIC fans. It's really quite a solid album. It has it ups and downs, but some people don't like it. I really don't like the excuse that its because it doesn't sound like Layne era material. It doesn't for a reason: they moved on. It sounds Jerry Cantrell's solo work with William Duvall harmonizing, which adds a lot to the music in my opinion. Facelift is the place to start for anyone trying to get into AiC. Dirt is quite good as well, but I think that Unplugged is the best album they did. It's not quite a greatest hits, but the way they do the music from electric to acoustic and the haunting nature of Layne Staley's weakened voice on that album makes it really stand out.

Riffs, U mad? listen to THIS, THIS, THIS, or from the comeback material, THIS.

Black Gives Way to Blue is indeed solid. The tone and the atmosphere of the album is gigantic. Some straight up doom metal moments like Acid Bubble, A Looking In View to psychedelic awesomeness of When the Sun Rose Again, it's just outstanding.

I used to hate BGWTB and it took a long time for it to grow on me, now it's probably my favourite AiC album yet. Same goes for the self-titled album. Both those albums are really hard to get into since they both have some really long songs. BGWTB is a winner since it has some of the band's heaviest songs yet (A Looking in View, Last of my Kind) mixed in with some stuff which would not sound out of place on the band's two acoustic EP's. The self-titled is good since it's quite possibly the darkest, most depressing album Alice in Chains or anyone else for that matter has ever managed to create.

Black Gives Way to Blue is great, but the change in vocalist (I refuse to agree that William is a Layne clone) and the increase in similarity to Jerry's solo stuff indeed has caused a bit of a stir among AIC fans. Personally, I find it to be my second favorite AIC record, just behind Facelift.

Alice in Chains is one of the hands-down best bands in the world, ever. Jerry Cantrell is no doubt a millionaire, but he deserves so much more recognition than he gets in either the "grunge" OR "metal" circles. granted, they're a fucking huge band, but so many modern-day alternative types dismiss them as being too metal, while at the same time lots of metalheads do the same for the opposite reason.

Don't know Turner, as I believe that they get plenty of recognition from the public and artists, both old and new. They just have the perfect formula; emotional depth (without falling into the typical "I'm so angsty" trap), the right balance between catchiness and heaviness, and attention grabbing vocals. Really, I know plenty of people who wouldn't touch metal with a stick yet love AIC (and get quite surprised when I tell them that they're pretty much a metal band). The bit about them being one of the best bands in the world?

I don't know if they are mentioned already here, but Temple of the Dog is one of my most favorite albums of all-time.

I heard a few of their songs a while back and they just struck me as typical generic alt rock stuff like Pearl Jam, nothing amazing or anything.

It is sort of annoying when i see people arguing over why nirvana is a better grunge band then alice in chains or why alice in chains is better then nirvana or pearl jam etc, when they don't even realize alice in chains is actually just a metal band and that these bands have absolutely nothing in common. (happens a lot on alice in chains youtube videos)

Mmmmm, never been witness to such pointless bickering myself. Guess I'm lucky

Xlxlx, I've started listening to Facelift. It's pretty good so far. Better than I remembered!

Doomster: It does sound more like hard rock/grunge to me. It's heavy, but not metal to my ears. I'm gonna listen further.

And yeah, I've been told I'm mad before

Ah, glad to know that! Any tracks that you like in particular?

And while we're on the grunge thread, I have to ask; do you like Soundgarden?

Glad to know that you're enjoying Facelift. Yeah, it does sound 'hard rock/grunge' to them who are obsessed with Judas Priest and Iron Maiden riffs but it sounds 'metal' to them who are obsessed with the riffs of Black Sabbath and Saint Vitus. Got what I meant?

I consider them a metal band in genre from the grunge scene. In other words, 'grunge' was more of a music scene, rather than a genre. To me. And because they were a scene, there could be bands of varying styles and genres that could still be called grunge. If Iron Maiden came from Seattle as did TAD and Green River, I'd still call them grunge, but only as a scene. Maiden'd still be metal; TAD be sludge metal; Green River be sludge punk.

Same here. Nicely explained.

Think of it this way, Riffs. This song carries a strong Alice In Chains stylistic influence, but it's definitely metal. If it was under the Alice in Chains name, would you still think it's not metal?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovoQGlSZatU

I've always thought of it as an extremely laid back and open album. Feels like everyone involved came out of their shell and just did their thing without constraints. I like them a lot more than Pearl Jam or even some Soundgarden stuff.

Is it wrong if I really hate Man in the Box?

Bleed the Freak is really cool! I can't Remember which follows just fits right. Of course, stuff like We Die Young. It still doesn't give me that metal feel (not that I really care whether it's metal or not).

I liked Soundgarden. I think when Badmotorfinger came out, I was really into acrobatic singing. Being a singer myself, I guess I liked seeing people push their voice. But it's not an album I appreciated over the long term. Superunknown I still dig to this day. Feels more mature and balanced. Sounds really good too.

I like the song myself, but it's insanely overplayed, so the hate is understandable

Really? I find most of AIC's riffing to be highly metallic in nature. Hell, Iommi is a clear influence in Cantrell's playing style. But hey, as long as you like it.....

Superunknown is great (and like you say, more developed overall), but with time, Badmotorfinger has become my favorite Soundgarden album. It's just that its rawness, savagery, and the "we take shit from no one" attitude wins me over. Also, it has my all time favorite SG song (Slaves & Bulldozers, in case you wanna know). I also find Louder than Love to be horribly underrated, though that's most likely because it was eclipsed by the aforementioned albums.

Black Sabbath and Maryland bands sound like hard rock/grunge to me. *Pun intended*

I visited my parents a few months ago, and my mom had Facelift in the car, so I got to listen to it for the first time in like 8 years. When I got home I had to revisit all their stuff and am now pretty glad I found that cd in the car I had forgotten how enjoyable this band is/was. Now I'm doing the same thing with Nirvana. I haven't listened to them since probably 2002 or 2003. We'll see how this goes. So far so good!

New video up. Quite neat if I must say so.

AiC - Hollow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmSeWqmlqYs

Best post-grunge band- anyone want to take a crack at it?

Well, I like a bit Silverchair. Their first three albums are pretty cool. Audrey Horne from Norway which features Thomas Tofthagen, the lead guitarist of Sahg(Doom/Stoner) is pretty good as well. His playing style is remarkably similar to Jerry Cantrell, specially when he plays in Sahg. He's admittedly a big fan of AiC and Cantrell.

I watched the video quite minutely today, has anyone noticed that something tends to come out from the astronaut's shoulder? Ridley Scott influence much?

"Grunge" isn't a cohesive musical genre, point-blank. It's a media-created catch-all term, sort of like "New Wave Of British/American Heavy Metal", that describes all things and nothing about the sound simultaneously.

Alice In Chains were a metal band, point blank. I wouldn't even label them "grunge metal"; they're straight up doom if they're any sort of subgenre. There's a reason they started out playing Armored Saint covers.

Nirvana were a blend of The Pixies and Black Sabbath. Kurt always thought of himself as a punk rocker, and he wanted to make moderately accessible punk.

Pearl Jam wanted to be Led Zeppelin. Their derivative, Stone Temple Pilots, were better than they were.

Seconded. I agree on the Stone Temple Pilots part as well.

Chevelle, 10 Years and Staind, although those bands are more sort of on the alt-metal side of things.

I love grunge. I don't branch out into it as much as metal, I love Nirvana to death, I love Alice In Chains, Silverchair, Soundgarden, and Stone Temple Pilots. Pearl Jam was just okay. Mudhoney is pretty good, and so is Temple of the Dog.

Someone also mentioned non grunge 90's era stuff like the Chili Peppers, I love them too. I really wish I coulda been born a late 70's child so I could've lived through the 80's and 90's. Sadly I was born in 1998 and I'm having to live in the era of shitty pop and hip hop.

Sounds to me that Pearl Jam was trying to be the Bachman Turner Overdrive of the 90's, not Led Zep.

Pop was just as shitty- in the '70s (probably the most shitty it's ever been during this decade actually), '80s, and '90s, and not all hip hop is that bad.
Look up 'Wolfmother' or 'Radio Moscow' or 'Witchcult' or 'Rival Sons' and go from there.

I absolutely LOVE grunge. From Nirvana and Pearl Jam to Blood Circus and Nudeswirl, I think it was an awesome form of music. I can understand the apprehension towards it by older people as it was massively hyped. I also agree that it had a TERRIBLE effect on modern rock music and that Nirvana would not get the acclaim they get had Cobain not committed suicide. But I think it was still an exciting and heavy form of music and I don't think that it deserves to be made out to be this great enemy of metal as it has been by a lot of people. I think bands like Pantera and Rage Against the Machine (even though I love those bands) did greater harm to metal than grunge did. Plus, I have a personal attachment to the 90s, and that definitely enhances the listening experience.

I really don't see what metalcore and deathcore have to do with nu-metal. They suck, sure, but they're completely different breeds of sucky music. If you gave a Waking the Cadaver CD to a Coal Chamber-listening 14-year-old in 2000 he would probably not know what to make of it.


No way in hell is The Crimson Idol hair metal. Hell, with its epic tendencies, it's closer to power metal than hair metal. Not that it's very close, but The Crimson Idol is even further from glam than it is from power metal.

As for the "alternative vs. glam" debate, I'm going to side with hair metal as the less shitty genre. At least the hair bands could sing, could play, and sometimes wrote music that was catchy and fun.

I haven't got into the debate whether The Crimson Idol is a hair metal album or not. I would say it's not but "Doctor Rockter" is a cock rock tinged tune. Apart from that it's a damn good heavy/speed metal record.



The term "Alternative" can be traced back to late 60's-early 70's when Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart were writing experimental pieces drawing influences from blues and jazz. The term was contaminated by the late 90's when awful lot of shitty corporate pop rock bands got lumped into it. Radio stations and mainstream media are responsible for that abomination.

But this discussion is based on the 'grunge' era. I don't like the term myself but that's a different issue. And if you're talking about writing quality music with quality vocals then Soundgarden and Alice in Chains could eat all the known glam bands for breakfast. Both of these bands were cursed by the 'grunge' label, they never cared for it and they had more in common with Sabbathian brand of doom/stoner metal. Chris Cornell in his prime was a beast, even better than King Diamond. And Layne Staley was one of the most original and honest voices I've ever heard.

The term "grunge" really didn't mean anything. None of the bands sounded the same, it was just some name that MTV and the music press created. Even "grunge" musicians like Mark Arm and Ben Shepherd said the term meant nothing. So to say Nirvana and Pearl Jam are grunge while AIC, Soundgarden, and Melvins aren't is kind of redundant.

Alice in Chains is one of my favorite bands. I think their output dominates the grunge "scene." They, along with Soundgarden, are easily the strongest out of that time period, in my opinion.

That is not to say I dislike other bands from the time period or shortly thereafter, mind you. I enjoy Smashing Pumpkins, Stone Temple Pilots, Nirvana(to an extent), and Pearl Jam as well. I just honestly think Alice in Chains, and arguably Soundgarden, have virtually no competition among those bands.