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 The Legends of Laurel Canyon
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die
It’s So Hard To Tell Who’s Going To Love You The Best
Karen Dalton
Transfiguration of Vincent
M. Ward
Muswell Hillbillies
Kinks
Christmas in the Heart
Bob Dylan
Glitter and Doom Live
Tom Waits
Let It Roll: The Best of George Harrison
George Harrison
Secret, Profane & Sugarcane
Elvis Costello
Playing for Change
Songs Around the World
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Alice In Chains
There are two distinctly different types of people who will see this collection as a worthwhile addition to their collection. The first and most obvious are the true fans who already own everything, but want this new package as a high quality souvenir, posthumously dedicated to the career of a fine band. I belong to the second group of people, music fans who didn’t quite relate to the message of Alice In Chains when it was current, but clearly see their relevance now. I was a half-generation removed from the Gen Xers, so the bleak messages and dark chords that appealed to a crowd approximately ten years younger than me left me with dubious impressions. The dark intensity of their music made me feel alienated at the time, and I did not want to immerse myself in a scene that seemed to embrace addiction as an answer to life’s anomalies.
Caught somewhere between hard rock and alternative post-punk, the grunge scene injected a dose of vitality into the music scene of the early ‘90s. The idiocy of hair metal had been giving ‘hard rock’ a bad name, and the grunge bands revitalized rock and roll by conveying something much more credible (and distinctly more dangerous). Alice In Chains were arguably the best band from this scene. The state of Washington served as home base for many like-minded bands, and Alice In Chains sat on the precipice of that specific place and moment in time. Now that I hear the band from a safe distance, fifteen years removed from the hyperbole and intensity of the ‘grunge’ movement, I can appreciate both the musicianship and the honesty of Alice In Chains. The lonely circumstances of Layne Staley’s death may have driven the symbolic nail into the coffin of grunge, but it also caused a lot of people to reconsider the band that provided such a powerful soundtrack for his internal battle.
It is impossible to ignore the references to heroin that litter this collection, or the pain that normally associates itself with such a singular existence, but an entire generation related to the message of Alice In Chains, seeing their music as a metaphor for a world gone mad. Three albums and a pair of EP’s are pared down to a manageable two disks that represent the truly essential bits from this bands catalog. There are no rarities, which also means that there is virtually no filler. So, if you’re already a fan, or if you are finally coming around to accepting Alice In Chains as an important American band, “The Essential Alice In Chains” is a superb representation of their career, and of a strangely dark time in our cultural history.
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