Fave Song On Alice In Chains - Dirt?

Might as well be: Fave Song That Ends With A Question Mark?

Rooster doesnt end with a question mark

nor does them bones.

Oh for the days when radio 1 used to play stuff like Them Bones in the daytime.

it's gotta be "down in the hole" since it reminds me the most of their EPs which are their best shit. i love the way the fuzz guitar comes in just before the chorus starts, like they clicked on a poorly functioning big muff (were there any other kind?!?!) and it took a couple seconds to kick in....

Really loved Layne Staleys voice, shame people hold him responsible for abominations like Creed/Staind etc.
Then again, if you hate a band for influencing bad stuff then you probably would end up hating all music and be a jaded poster on ILX..

"Them Bones"

Rooster was never a Single in the UK, but I remember buying it on import. Was it a hit in the main US chart or just modern rock or whatever it's called over there?

I'm pretty sure just a modern rock hit, seems to have outlasted the other songs as their "legacy" song. I certainly hear it on Q101 far more than any of their other songs.

"Sickman" by a large margin

Would? was their highest charting song in the UK and their breakthrough hit, but Them Bones got the most airplay and made them into a fairly big band. People I knew who weren't into metal and usually preferred the mudhoney/nirvana branch of grunge rather than soundgarden/pearl jam one seemed to be into Dirt, which was a bit of a surprise.

"Would?" definitely seemed like the biggest hit back in the mid 1990's, but I honestly don't think I hear it a third as much as I hear "Rooster". Which is a shame. "Would?" gets my vote.

You certainly never hear any AIC on radio here, but it's a real crime that Them Bones would never get airplay now even if the radio played some AIC.

"would?" but "them bones" is a jam

I vote Them Bones. Though I would like to meet the guy Rooster is about.

Jerry's Dad?

I heard Them Bones on the radio the other day. It wasn't nearly as good as I remembered, but I still love Would.

Jerry's Dad?

Sure, why not. Sounds like a cool guy to have a few beers with.

I cant believe that Jerry reformed AIC with another singer to play festivals. I really hope they don't make an album.

Er... per Wikipedia, but still...

Blabbermouth.net reported in September 2008 that Alice in Chains would enter the studio that October to begin recording a new album for a summer 2009 release.[45] On October 23, 2008, the band began recording it at the Foo Fighters' Studio 606 in L.A. with producer Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters, Rush, Stone Sour, Trivium, Shadows Fall, Death Angel).[46] Guitarist Jerry Cantrell recently told Revolver Golden God Awards that Alice in Chains had finished recording the album on March 18th, which happened to be his 43rd birthday, and are in the process of "mixing right now" for a September release.[47] According to the May 2009 issue of Revolver magazine, the band is without a label.[48]

Just don't buy it Herm. I doubt anything on it will be played to an unlistenable extreme on radio.

xpost

I should have said "unavoidable extreme".

disgusting
xxpost

haha... down in a POLL. i was going to start this a couple of months back.

wow this is one of my all time favourite albums, and a whole bunch of these tracks have been my favourite at some point. i think i probably have to go with 'them bones' due to the explosive start it provides the album with, the devastating guitar solo, and the incredible harmonised vocal line. it's the sort of track that you never really get tired of hearing, and that's only partly due to its brevity.

http://www.geocities.com/hollywood/cinema/2636/pic-coll1/rooster.jpg

I remember playing "Angry Chair" a lot when I listened to this, but I haven't heard it in well over 10 years. Will go refresh my memory now.

it holds up very well. One of the best albums of the 90s easily.

I was just going to start a Jar of Flies poll last week...until I realized that "Got Me Wrong" was on Sap...

this album is about the four big singles for me...Them Bones, Down in a Hole, Rooster, Would? (though I like Angry Chair and the title track v. much also)...it amazes me that all four of these songs could be on the same album...choosing between these four is really really difficult...

(Rain When I Die is really great too)

Angry Chair was a single in the UK

it prolley was a single here...it just wasnt one of the big four thatre impossible to choose from...

i think we maybe got it as a single instead of rooster

What's really good is the Alice In Chains Unplugged album, which is easily as good as the Nirvana one.

gotta go with iron gland.

i knew there would be one

IRon Gland??

;-)

this is pretty tough, tho.

most of the tracks deserve multiple votes.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

vote!

Going to listen to this now then choose. I was a big fan as a teenager, they were all over MTV when I visited the USA as an impressionable 14 year old.

Is it me, or do those multi-tracked vocals on this record sound quite a lot like modern autotuned vocals?

just you

The hidden links between Alice In Chains and T-Pain REVEALED!

either "Would?" or "Them Bones" - think I'm going with "Would?"

went with "would?" after much deliberation. but considered "down in a hole" and "angry chair" (two other sentimental, 8 grader favorites) as well.

"Would?" it is.

the winner is a bit predictable now

I think "Down in a HOle" is the first song off of this I ever heard.

"Them Bones" was the second and I was fairly shocked as at the time I'd only heard DIAH and the Jar of Flies album and didn't realize they were so heavy

So fucking good. Has to be “would?” but... yeah great album.

Thanks to discovering this thread I ... may actually revisit this record for the first time in 15-20 years.

Rain When I Die has a fantastic vocal performance from poor old Layne.

this is the best album

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Thursday, February 4, 2021 3:55 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I get the chorus from "Rain When I Die" pop in my head whenever I'm driving and it starts to rain

I think it's Down in A Hole but could be convinced it's Rooster. Fantastic album.

Love it but Rooster is a total momentum killer (maybe i've just heard it way too many times)

Dam That River was always my least favourite track on this killer album,

used to love Rooster, Angry Chair and God Smack but they definitely weren't my faves on returning to it the other week

Which gland were they talking about? Can someone explain to me the joke?

idk, between that and "God Am", I think they liked really bad puns and absurdism

just like that bonus track on Sap which featured Sean Kinney screaming word salad into a megaphone

I sang "Junkhead" at karaoke once, the audience found it very depressing. such a heavy-assed song

"rooster" has been somewhat diminished by overplay but also i sometimes think... "rooster" was a hit???? lol

i think it's still harrowing in sequence though

always took Iron Gland as a vamp on Iron Man tbh

Rooster's verses were some of Layne's finest singing.

definitely a strange hit. 90s alt rock radio allowed for some quirkier hits to emerge, esp Soundgarden's Superunknown tracks and their weird time signatures/tunings.

if there's one song I don't *love* outright, it's probably "Hate to Feel". I still like it, but it feels very disjointed, like riding a wooden roller-coaster that stops working periodically

i'm with the person who said "dam that river" is the weakest here. still a jam, just kinda lacks the "this song has a dark underbelly that's even scarier than the surface" feeling of pretty much every other track for me

it is an excellent track two for that reason tho

I love the prechorus of “hate to feel”, seriously intense vocal harmony

you love to feel it

i'll not hear any dam that river slander.

I have mad love for the title track on this. it's the slow-burning heart of the album, a centerpiece if you will.

also, this verse always gets under my skin:

You, you are so special
You have the talent to make me feel like dirt
And you, you use your talent to dig me under
And cover me with dirt

it's kind of a testament how my darker moodset was already almost in place by high school because I lent this album to a friend and he returned it and I asked him how he liked it and he hated it and said "this shit is way too depressing" and he quoted the title track to me and I was like "oh...that? who among us hasn't felt this w etc etc"

truly the most perfect intro

I went through a heavy AiC binge a few weeks ago so this revive is hitting the spot <3

probably gonna spin this later

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kIR9dkEA_c

Playing and tempo is pretty loose, but pretty much the better for it, and his bass tone is the sound of grunge.

this was one of the albums that i learned how to type with
i would just type the lyrics as i heard them and try to keep up with the song

"AHHHHHHH <Enter>
AHHHHHHH <Enter>
AHHHHHHH <Enter>
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"

lol

I love Hate to Feel. One of the few weak chinks in the album though is how it is sequenced so close to Angry Chair, which has a very similar structure (I actually prefer Hate to Feel).

And yes the title track is immense.

middle 8 to “angry chair” is so great.. LOST MY MIND YEAAAAHHH

that was my favorite part of the song growing up

Layne's voice frightened me on "God Smack" too

was blasting this shit in the car earlier. it was never exactly my fave back in the day but fuck me

I've not listened to the whole album in a good long while but god it's so beautifully produced. Every slough, every murky corner is lit like an M.R. James story. I don't mind admitting I struggle with Staley's voice over a sustained period but as a document of what he was capable of, this is the album.

Sean Kinney is a motherfucker.

one thing I love about the song "Dirt" is that it's one of the songs that comes to mind when searching for music in the vein of PJ Harvey's Rid Of Me.

what's everyone's preferred placement of "down in a hole"

i feel corny for preferring it as a penultimate track. wiki says the band wanted it as track four, but the citation for this information is an interview that... doesn't really reflect that claim

i think my reasoning is less about "down in a hole" and more about how "rain when i die" -> "sickman" is sort of a signal that the record will just be a deepening vortex of bad vibes and things will never get better

The intro to Rain When I Die is gruesome

yknow brad i kind of like that idea, because as much as i enjoy it as a kind of "breather" after three songs of wonderful sludge, i always thought that having "angry chair" and "would?" back to back made the ending of this album feel really abrupt, like it seems that there should be something in between those two songs..

it = "down in a hole"

otoh, the "i don't mind.." and "i'd like to flyyyy" parts are maybe a little too similar to be back to back? but maybe that's not a problem!

"Junkhead" is my #1

Eric Harvey for Pitchfork Sunday

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/alice-in-chains-dirt/

someone upthread said that “sickman” was their dazed & confused but it’s clearly “hate to feel”!

the weighting of tracks in this poll is probably about right, but I think I'd bump up the title track a few notches, and Sickman could go down a bit. maybe.