On September 29, 1992, as I was acclimating to high school, the album Dirt by Alice in Chains (AIC) hit the shelves of music stores in the United States. I wasn't aware of it at the time, although by using Wikipedia I can see I had probably heard two if its singles by that time ("Would?" and "Them Bones"; more on that later). I also probably knew the band from the 1990 single "Man in the Box".
All rock fans would get to know the band, however, due to the success of Dirt and the band's following work on Jar of Flies and the eponymous Alice in Chains, as well as their appearance on MTV Unplugged in 1996 (a show which I appreciate more with each passing year). That, and a couple of other small shows, were the last live performances the band would ever do*, as lead singer Layne Staley's heroin addiction began to manifest itself in an extreme case of agoraphobia (Staley would eventually die in his condo in 2002).
Alice in Chains would become one of the Big Four of the so-called Grunge movement in music, along with Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. All four of these bands resisted the label, saying they were just playing music; AIC and Soundgarden, in particular, had released major-label albums before the "movement" even began. AIC never thought of themselves as "grunge", just heavy metal. Nevertheless, it's doubtful they would have become as successful without the "movement", for one simple reason: they were doing something absolutely no one else had ever done before, nor would ever do since.
*In the mid-2000's, AIC would reunite, tour and release new music with new band member William DuVall.
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One has only to go to Youtube and watch AIC's MTV Unplugged perfomance to understand two things: one, that this band, supposedly heavy metal, understood and used harmony as well as any a capella group, albeit quite differently; and two, that Layne Staley wasn't long for this world. Indeed, one of the comments says "You can see this man dying from addiction in real time."
If you compare that Staley to earlier live shows, the difference is striking. The early videos show a man dominating the stage and his crowd, his indistinguishable voice carrying throughout the arenas, harmonizing perfectly with Jerry Cantrell's voice and lead guitar. The man on MTV Unplugged has dyed his hair pink and is wearing shades because his addiction has damaged his ablility to deal with light.
Nevertheless, the show is mesmerizing. The performance stage is candlelit and Staley had enough left, indeed probably just, to make the lyrics work, perhaps even better than when his voice was healthy. Him and Cantrell trade off on lead vocals while the entire band would back from time to time; Sean Kinney, the drummer, often uses brushes instead of sticks.
Back in December, when I was deciding what the next album I would buy would be, I watched this performance once again, and, reflecting that only had in my collection Jar of Flies, decided to give Dirt, their best known and most highly acclaimed album, a shot. I listened once and got only halfway through a second time before putting it away. I usually experience some light seasonal depression around the holidays and certainly didn't need to be listening to lyrics such as this one, from the title track:
I have never felt such frustration
Or lack of self-control
I want you to kill me
And take me under
I want to live no more
One who doesn’t care
Is one who shouldn’t be
I try to hide myself from what is wrong for me
Eventually, as it generally does, the seasonal fog began to lift, and when we had some days off in February, I decided to give the album a second chance. I have probably listened now to the album on and off now about twenty times, mainly because I just can't quite get a handle on it. It's certainly a great album, though it will never be one of my favorites. It's a concept album without presenting itself as such: if you simply took out one of the tracks (more on this later) the concept is quite simple: drugs and death, not necessarily in that order.
From a musical point of view, it's easy to see why this album made an impact, As I said before, no other band had done what AIC did. What I mean by that is, although the band has its roots in heavy metal, the band's distinguishing feature is not heavy drums or guitar licks (although these do have a part): it's the dual lead vocals shared by Staley and Cantrell. Cantrell's voice is the straight one; there never was before, nor will there be, a voice like Staley's. When they join forces, the sound is simply magical.
Furthermore, the backing music certainly wasn't like that of the heavy metal of the 80's: more subtle and almost acoustic at times, using light backing vocals at unexpected times (especially on "Rooster" and "Down in a Hole"), it's easy to see why mainstream audiences eschewed the "heavy metal" label and lumped them in with "grunge": this band certainly wasn't Megadeth or Black Sabbath.
Finally, one can't discount the lyrics, some of the most honest and frightening I've ever heard, and lyrics that would have never gone mainstream before the "grunge" movement. A sampling:
From "Down in a Hole":
Down in a hole and I don’t know if I can be saved
See my heart, I decorate it like a grave
Oh, you don’t understand who they thought I was supposed to be
Look at me now, a man who won’t let himself be
From "Junkhead":
Seems so sick to the hypocrite norm
Running their boring drills
But we are an elite race of our own
The stoners, junkies, and freaks
Are you happy? I am, man
Content and fully aware, yeah
Money, status, nothing to me
‘Cause your life’s empty and bare, yeah
From "Sickman":
I can feel the wheel but I can’t steer
When my thoughts become my biggest fear
Aaaah, what’s the difference, I’ll die
Aaaah, in this sick world of mine
You're probably getting the idea....
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In my opinion, the album is bookended by two of it's three best songs, with the third right in the middle:
--- "Them Bones" kicks off the album with a scream from Staley and a heavy guitar, followed by Staley and Cantrell harmonizing right off the bat. "Them Bones", about the inevitable nature of death, is the most traditional heavy metal sound on the album, along with "Dam That River", but again, the harmonization of Cantrell and Staley somehow make it sound atypical.
---Halfway through the album, the song "Rooster" appears. This is the song I referred to earlier as the one that really doesn't meet the concept idea of the album. Cantrell wrote the song about his dad, nicknamed Rooster, and his experience as a Vietnam veteran experiencing what we know now to be PTSD symptoms. The song is over six minutes long and Staley's voice give maximum emotional impact into the mind of a Vietnam vet:
Walkin’ tall, machine-gun man
They spit on me in my homeland
Gloria sent me pictures of my boy
Got my pills ‘gainst mosquito death
My buddy’s breathing his dying breath
Oh God please, won’t you help me make it through?
Yeah, they’ve come to snuff the Rooster
Yeah, here comes the Rooster
You know he ain’t gonna die
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Dirt is many things, but it is not metaphorical. It is an unflinchingly honest, raw portrait of the addict/musician in freefall, who only manages to deal with their fear of death by dismissing their fear of the substance. One hopes for a lyric that would indicate that he wants to stop, but one hopes in vain: very little of the album's lyrics are about any sense of hope of getting better, or indeed, any real desire to do so.
Dirt will not be filed amongst my favorite albums: it is too dark for that, for 47-year-old me anyway, and I find it hard to sympathize with an addict who cares not what they do to others, nor refuses to even try and find a way out; I've seen too many addicts come (happily) out on the other side for that.
And yet, Dirt fascinates me. While I may not sympathize, I admire: the lyrics of Dirt don't glamorize, they simply describe the world as Cantrell and Staley see it, and very few people in this world ever get truly honest with themselves, let alone on a record that would go on to sell over five million copies. And as I have mentioned before, AIC and Dirt do crazy things musically, things that seem genre-breaking even 33 years later: a heavy-metal group whose principal calling card was vocal harmonization, whose drummer used brushes.
Dirt was not an album that could only have been made in the 90's (indeed, the material is timeless), but it most definitely is an album that only could have sold five million copies by being released when it was. Five years earlier, and people would have wanted to hear mainly about sex and money; five years later, and people didn't want to be depressed by music anymore.
And perhaps it is that, at its core, that ties me to Dirt. I turned 15 in 1992; "grunge", whatever it was, was an integral backdrop of my formative years. The calling card of "grunge" was that we didn't have to pretend to be okay; that materialism sucked; that the most important thing was authenticity; that if you only had bad things to say, to say them anyway. I can't think of a better example of that then Dirt.
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The last track, and in my opinion AIC's best, is "Would?". The song opens with an intense, medium-paced bass line that paints the darkness of the song and its theme matter for us. The song is about a heroin user's inability to stop using despite the fact that it is no longer pleasurable, and despite that it is ruining his life; he is both imploring the listener to understand while also understanding that the listener can't: addiction can't be explained rationally. The song--and the album--ends by posing a hypothetical: If I would try to get better, could you accept me and my sickness?:
Into the flood again
Same old trip it was back then
So I made a big mistake
Try to see it once my way
Am I wrong? Have I run too far to get home?
Am I gone, and left you here alone?
Am I wrong? Have I run too far to get home?
Am I gone, and left you here alone?
If I would, could you?
The listener doesn't have the chance to answer. One is left wondering if Staley would ever let them.
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