What makes a perfect album? Is it the way it takes you away from your everyday life? Is it the fact that you press play and cannot walk away until it's done? Or is it the fact that you know every word every nuance of the music and every drum break? A perfect album, CD or whatever media you use encompasses all of these elements and more. A perfect album is timeless it moves you and engrains itself in your life and becomes a touchstone for personal histories.
This week I'll be looking at the 1992's Alice In Chains album Dirt.
Arising from the Seattle Scene of the late 80's which gave us bands such as Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Nirvana. Alice In Chains explored the darker side of life, led by Jerry Cantrell's songwriting and guitar playing and infused by lead singer Layne Staley's abuse of Heroin, which would eventually take his life, Dirt is as close as the Grunge movement came to a masterpiece. Dark and desperate Dirt mixes very heavy guitar work with the best vocal harmonies ever put on a rock album.
The album takes a running start with "Them Bones" a song on the frailty of life that jolts your senses and lays down the mood of the album with lyrics like "I feel so alone gonna' end up a big ol' pile of them bones". The second song is "Damn That River" a little ditty about helplessness in the presence of great odds, or even just the day to day.
"Rain When I Die" follows, this meditation on how quickly life goes by creates in the listener a sense of resolute struggle. The song "Down In a Hole" contains some of the best harmonies ever created, mixing Staley's rasping with Cantrell's melodious voice. Another ode to Heroin is "Sickman" as the title suggests the protagonist knows he is sick but just doesn't give a damn.
Cantrell writes a tribute to his Vietnam veteran father in "Rooster". A man who will survive the meaningless slaughter to return to his family. Another love tune for junk follows in the apt named "Junkhead". The title track follows a song so muddled that it positively lives up to the name grunge. The inevitable amoral angle is taken in "God Smack", heroin is fun for some but god for others.
Staley's "Hate to Feel" follows as much an affirmation of the previous song as a justification for the existence of junkies in the first place. The penultimate song is "Angry Chair" a heavy moving song that acknowledges the anger of young men, anger at a nameless faceless enemy that in the end is only in your head.
"Would?" closes the album, the only song that can be considered a hit. A mixing of voices and tempos that creates a sense of hope only to pull the rug from under you in the last line "if I could, would you?
After this album the band went on to create two Ep's, a self titled studio album and the immortal live MTV Unplugged, but none of these capture the heavy, edgy sound of Dirt a truly perfect album.
Layne's untimely but expected death at the altar of Heroin, makes this album all the more poignant. The singers demise takes what was generally seen as a praise of Junk and turns it into a cautionary tale of it's inescapable end.
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