Alice in Chains - Facelift
Layne Staley makes a reference to Coming to America at the end of “The Real Thing”. That’s all you need to know.
Seriously though, while this isn’t my favorite Alice in Chains record, Dirt is, this record changed the sound of hard rock radio and it changed my listening tastes for sure. In 1990, we lived in the sticks and didn’t have access to cable, but I would often spend the night with my cousin Josh in Brownstown, Indiana and we’d stay up all night watching Headbanger’s Ball. Small town Indiana was all about the hair metal at that time and I still love all that stuff. From Guns n’ Roses on one end, to Motley Crue, Cinderella, Slaughter and all the way down to Warrant, I still like that stuff. But one night, about 1 a.m., this song comes on and I say, “what the hell is this?” Then I turn to the screen to watch the video and I’d never seen anything like it before. It was “Man in the Box”.
Personally, I like Alice in Chains better than any other Seattle band by far. However, I know, at least commercially, they were eclipsed by Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. All of these guys had been gigging and putting out records since the mid-80s, but it was Alice in Chains’ Facelift that was the first major label release and it was the first record to go Gold in September of 1991. Officially, this happened on September 11, 1991, a full thirteen days before Nevermind would be released.
This is a record to listen to in good headphones. Dave Jerden, who produced and mixed it, did a fantastic job of showcasing everyone’s individual talents without losing the massiveness of the sound. Jerry Cantrell’s guitar is Alice in Chains, but so are the harmonies between the two incredible singers which are perfectly panned. If you want to get super geeky on the production of this album, I suggest watching Warren Huart’s interveiew with Dave Jerden on Produce Like a Pro on YouTube.
I won’t beat you over the head with much “grunge” history, it’s been covered time and again, but I do think we can forget how revolutionary this sounded at the time. Yes, they drew a lot from Black Sabbath, but this was different on so many levels. Riding around with my older cousins Jon (Josh’s brother) and Chris in their cars, we heard a lot of Motley Crue, Guns, Alice Cooper, Ratt and all the other bands of the time. Yes, it was hard rock, but most of it was simply pop music dressed up like the New York Dolls. Simple songs about girls and partying with blazing guitar solos. Alice in Chains was heavy, slower and they sang about some seriously dark corners of the human experience.
In addition to “Man in the Box”, the album is heavily front loaded (as they did in those days) with “We Die Young”, “Sea of Sorrow” and “Bleed the Freak” being songs people would be quick to recognize. However, there are some gems down the track listing, including, “It Ain’t Like That”, which they performed as a bar band in the Cameron Crowe movie, Singles.
Towards the end of the record, you get the songs that bridge the two eras of metal. Tracks like “I Know Somethin (Bout You)” definitely have their roots in the music of the Sunset Strip in the 1980s and probably date to the time the guys played in bands that required a subscription service to Aqua Net. Much like Cantrell’s friend Dimebag made Cowboys From Hell, which is great, but more importantly it was the bridge from what they were before, to their masterpiece, Vulgar Display of Power.
This record is not their masterpiece, but it certainly blew people minds and gave you glimpses into the music to come. Sometimes lost in the records released in late 1991; Nirvana’s Nevermind, Pearl Jam’s Ten (August 27, 1991) and Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger (October 8, 1991), they deserve the credit for coming in heavy in 1990 with Facelift and then following up those 1991 records with 1992’s Dirt. As Neil Young sang, and Kurt Cobain quoted in his suicide note, it’s better to burn out than to fade away and Kurt burned out as Layne faded away. At least as far as the media is concerned, and that’s a damn shame.
JC