Fave Song On Alice In Chains - Dirt?

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.

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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

someone please vote for non singles!

i think this is the only one of the big grunge blockbusters of my youth that i haven't listened to since the 90s and might've actually discarded or gave away...i vaguely remember liking "Dam That River" but I still gotta go with one of the singles, "Them Bones"

i would never give dirt away, i gave a mate a loan of it and never got it back so i ended up buying it again on ebay for 99p

the excitement...

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well its nice to see that everything got voted for at least once.

the top 4 are about right. i'd put dam that river or the title track at number 5.

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

― zero learnt from nero (Neil S), Wednesday, 22 April 2009 15:16 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
just you

― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Wednesday, 22 April 2009 15:20 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

No way - Neil is right! Especially on "Rain When I Die" on those choruses! Very good call.

Ha ha glad it's not just me! And a good turn-out for this poll...

wasn't bad. at least some people voted for the non singles :)

what did you vote for?

this is ILM, we don't have to prove that we've heard more than just the singles

"Rain When I Die"

good call. almost voted that myself! but I think the singles are very strong on this one.

but man, how ugly is that cover???

photoshop: the dark ages

those first-generation grunge covers were pretty dire

lol @ me calling Alice in Chains "first-generation grunge"

did God Smack lose out in votes because of a shitty unoriginal band taking it as their name?

10. "Iron Gland" – 0:43

totally forgot there was some kind of short placeholder track on this album -- was it a skit? amp noise?

it's basically amp noise and some yelling. but I just looked the album up on wikipedia, and this was on there:
# Tom Araya: vocals on "Iron Gland"

what?!?

it tells you on the album credits on the cd that it's tom araya. You guys just had taped from a mates cd copy? ;)

what album was that "alice mudgarden" song on? i thought it was a bonus on dirt or something.

You mean Sap?

it tells you on the album credits on the cd that it's tom araya. You guys just had taped from a mates cd copy? ;)

You mean Sap?

― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Thursday, April 23, 2009 1:12 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark

yes! i don't know why i thought it was on dirt...

I love Sap. I wrote elsewhere how I searched over Glasgow for that. When it got reissued along with Jar Of Flies , all the critics jizzed over Jar of Flies but it was not a patch on Sap to me.
I still have my original cd of Sap and the vinyl of Sap/JoF.

lol kerr "I actually OWNED an alice in chains CD"

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.

there are so many devastating lines on this album, but one that's unfairly overlooked is "ah, what's the difference, I'll die in this sick world of mine". obviously the entire album is focused on how his addiction was killing him and knowing where it all leads to but there's such an eerie fatalism to that one line, one that hints at much more of a desire to escape it than he shows elsewhere on the album, but understanding the odds are stacked against him