re: Alice in Chains Dirt may be the greatest album of the 90s.

Facelift is better than Dirt.

A buddy of mine had never noticed when I asked him about it a couple of years ago but agreed with me, so I'll ask the MB...

Has anyone else noticed how on God Smack Layne kind of neighs like a horse at the end of his lines? And of course the symbolism would be obvious. Then you have one of the lines that goes "For the horse you've grown much fonderrrr. Than for me that I don't ponderrrr."

Man this album is just dripping with heroin. Always thought it almost made it seem tempting. Thank goodness I would never do that shite.

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"Roster."

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Is that the song Jerry wrote about not making his JV Boys basketball team?

No doubt. Man it MUST be an incredible feeling. Have always heard that it is. I know a guy though that died of an OD about six years ago. Saw him under it's control and man did he struggle for years. Thought he was clean at one point but no dice.

I used to like pain meds with beer but thankfully it never got THAT bad for me. I figured that I should stay away from heroin if those were my sentiments about prescription drugs.

I remember you could find Lortab at any house party and now the feds have taken it down a major notch and I don't think I have seen one in the last 3 years. The big, big addicts decided to take on heroin since it's much easier to now get. They're paying a dear cost.

Layne Staley had the remarkable skill to turn every song, even ones clearly NOT about heroin, into songs about heroin. Rooster is about Jerry Cantrell's dad in Vietnam, but the way it's delivered... it's about heroin.

Oh, and Facelift is a run of the mill hair metal album with two great songs on it. It hinted at future greatness, but it suffered from being a first release and the dominant paradigm of hard rock then being completely terrible. They didn't have the ability to bust through that glean, which did not suit their sound at all, until they were more confident as a band. Hence the back cover of Sap is the band pissing on copies of Facelift. Sap is the moment they became a great band.

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Oh, and Facelift is a run of the mill hair metal album with two great songs on it. It hinted at future greatness, but it suffered from being a first release and the dominant paradigm of hard rock then being completely terrible.

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Bingo!!! They opened for that Clash Of the Titans tour on the Facelift tour. Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax. I didn't know much about them yet. I didn't catch that tour but knew a guy who did. He said they SUCKED. And of course, that makes sense. Facelift did NOT fit in on that bill.

But yeah... To say Facelift is better than Dirt is just laughable.

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Not if you're a big fan of hair metal

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Exactly!!!

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Bingo!!! They opened for that Clash Of the Titans tour on the Facelift tour. Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax. I didn't know much about them yet. I didn't catch that tour but knew a guy who did. He said they SUCKED. And of course, that makes sense. Facelift did NOT fit in on that bill.

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I saw that tour in Houston at the old Summit. I have a very different opinion as the one that 'guy' you know has. They didn't get as bad a reception there as they reportedly did in some other venues, and they rocked pretty fricking hard. They got a worse response at the old Centroplex when they opened for Van Halen and Layne tried putting down David Duke only to be met by a chorus of jeers. I went to that gig at the Summit with three buddies in my car. I had never heard of AIC before but one buddy had just got Facelift and we did not take it out the tape deck all the way there or back to Baton Rouge. You could tell they were doing something different than thrash or hair metal. It was dirty and visceral and unique.

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But yeah... To say Facelift is better than Dirt is just laughable.

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I'm not laughing. For many years I too thought that 'Dirt' was the better album. After Tool's 'Aenima', 'Dirt' is most likely the album I've listened to most in my entire life. But there were always a couple songs I didn't like at all, and as the years have gone by the rest have not all aged that well with me. On the other hand, Facelift seems more vital than ever. Every single track is a winner. There's not a single one I don't absolutely love. It's not so much the downer that their later work was, before Layne got too far gone. And while there are still some tracks on Dirt I think are great, even their last album is more interesting to me now than Dirt is.

As far as Jar Of Flies goes, if it was released by any other band it would be their masterpiece. 'Don't Follow' is without a doubt one of the most harrowing songs I've ever heard. A chill runs down my spine every single time I listen to it. The music is absolutely beautiful, and the words touch me at the core of my being. 'Sap' is fricking awesome, but it doesn't come close to the emotional devastation Jar Of Flies carries.

To compare Facelift to any type of hair metal seriously makes me take a hard look about how seriously I should take the opinions of anyone who could be that deaf. I defiantly lived through the hair metal craze. We used to stomp dudes just for wearing Poison shirts. I can think of not one single thing any of that useless bullshite has to do with Facelift, musically or lyrically.

The mentality of 80s metal fans was that the opener always sucked, especially if it was some new band you had never heard of. I wouldn't put too much stock into anyone's opinion of openers back then.