Both musicians eventually succumbed to their addictions, with Staley passing away in 2002 and Starr in 2011.

Starr was dismissed from the band during the Dirt tour due to issues with drugs, and Staley's vices proved to be an ongoing and worsening problem, resulting in the band canceling shows and even breaking up for a period. 6 on the Billboard 200.īut the turbulence captured on the album would soon overtake Alice in Chains. Furthermore, the album sold more than four million copies in the U.S. Army man during and after the Vietnam War. Furthermore, the album's second half boasted a five-song 'mini-suite' of sorts about the ravages of heroin addiction, a topic that at least half the band had firsthand knowledge of at the time.ĭespite its darkness, Dirt proved to be a massive mainstream success, spawning five hit singles, including the Andrew Wood ode 'Would?' (recorded prior to the rest of the album, and featured in the Cameron Crowe movie Singles), the rampaging leadoff track 'Them Bones,' and the ballad 'Rooster,' which Cantrell wrote about his father's experiences as a U.S. Jerry Cantrell's riffs were darker and sludgier drummer Sean Kinney and bassist Mike Starr's rhythms lumbered like an elephant trudging through molasses and Layne Staley's raw-throated wail was agonized in a way that was almost painful to listen to. The band's second full-length overall, it built and expanded upon the template they had laid out on their 1990 debut, Facelift, in the process jacking up the intensity and raw emoting to incredible, and at times uncomfortable, extremes.

But when it comes to the bands that make up the Big Four of grunge, none ever unleashed an album as monolithic and downright harrowing as Alice in Chains' 1992 masterpiece, Dirt. Nirvana's Nevermind may have been more seismic, Soundgarden's Superunknown more experimental, and Pearl Jam's Ten more successful.

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