alice in chains mtv unplugged full album

By all accounts, Staley was high but just high enough so that he wasn’t actively in withdrawal and could function in public. Combining the long break with the band’s numerous personal obstacles during the actual show was a major risk, and the night could’ve easily gone south. MTV had been after Alice in Chains to do an Unplugged taping for some time, and they finally agreed, rehearsing first in Seattle and then New York. (This would be the group’s last studio release to feature Staley in a 2018 interview, Cantrell called it “the sound of a band falling apart”.) They did not tour in support of the album. Due to his heroin addiction, Staley would frequently miss sessions, and the band, who had drifted apart, wrote much of the material in the studio, stretching the recording time to four months. The recording of their previous album- Alice in Chains, released in November 1995-was painful and prolonged. It’s the only one we’ve done in three years.” Staley laughs and says, “Well, it’s still the best.”īefore Unplugged, Alice in Chains had indeed been offstage for about two and a half years. One of Staley’s bandmates, it’s unclear who-responds, “Layne, it’s…the only one. MTV aired the show on 28 May, and the live album version was released by Columbia Records on 30 July, eventually going platinum in the US. Dirt is kind of scattershot, but it has more good songs than bad and several of their biggest hits.“I would have to say that this is the best show we’ve done in three years,” Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley announces during the band’s MTV Unplugged performance, recorded on 10 April 1996, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Majestic Theatre in New York. Their self-titled album has studio versions of Heaven Beside You and Over Now and is a pretty solid album in its own right.

It's a weird joke and not really funny, but it's also a very honest moment between friends having a laugh.įurther Listening: Jar Of Flies is the studio almost-an-album where they messed around with writing almost exclusively on acoustic guitars, and it produced two incredible songs: I Stay Away and No Excuses. Bassist Mike Inez played a few bars of Enter Sandman which Staley introduced as an L.L. Metallica were in the audience and had just cut their hair short, so the band poked fun at them. The vocals on the chorus of Heaven Beside You sound out of key, and the guitar solo just doesn't land right. And then there are the little improvisational moments, like Cantrell riffing before they play their last song. It's not captured on the album, but if you watch the DVD of the concert, they stop Sludge Factory and start it over because Staley flubs a lyric. The performance is rough, but there's an honesty to it that I find compelling. Songs like Over Now, Down In A Hole, and Rooster really benefit from this rendering. Hearing these songs rendered acoustically takes away the buzzing vocals and crunching guitars and strips the songs down to their core melodic elements and simple Staley/Cantrell harmonies. Their sound was defined by the way Staley's nasal vocals were layered over top of each other and against Cantrell's throaty baritone. I love Alice In Chains, and part of what I love about this album is that it is part greatest hits collection, part heavy metal deconstruction, and part swan song for Layne Staley. Writer and co-singer Jerry Cantrell would start a successful solo career, and the band would reform with new singer William DuVall in 2006. They would put on their last performance with Staley in July of that year, after which he would disappear into his addiction and eventually die of an overdose in 2002. This performance was recorded in April of 1996.

They'd broken up for six months and been plagued by singer Layne Staley's heroin habit. 1995 had seen the release of Alice In Chains, but they didn't do anything else that year. They hadn't performed in 2 and a half years. Alice In Chains had pretty much run their course when they put on this concert.

Alice in chains mtv unplugged full album