| Alice In Chains - Greatest Hits |
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| Music Disc Reviews Audio CD | ||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Jerry Del Colliano | ||||||||||||||||||
| Tuesday, 28 August 2001 | ||||||||||||||||||
I’ll never forget being in high school and hearing Bob Geldof (who played Pink in the feature film The Wall) talk about Kurt Cobain being "the John Lennon of our generation" during an MTV interview after Cobain committed suicide. Cobain’s death was certainly controversial as well as unfortunate. However, Nirvana was then, and continues to be, one of the most overrated bands of the 1990’s. The Seattle grunge scene did overtake the excessive, glammed-out world of heavy metal by the early 1990’s, with Nirvana leading the way on the popular front, but it was bands like Soundgarden and Alice In Chains that were creating the most important music at the time. It took listening through this entire Alice In Chains Greatest Hits record to remember just how many true hits Alice In Chains scored. By the second spin through the disc, I could see why their grimy but musically correct sound made glam rock fade from the popular spotlight. On "Them Bones," you hear the band rip through an odd time signature building a riotous effect, which leads to a sweeping hook in the chorus. The tune is hard-hitting, catchy and musically valid. Unlike Nirvana and other Gen-X Seattle rockers who thought it wasn’t cool to care, Alice In Chains actually stays in tune, play their parts intensely and rocks hard. "Rooster" deals with an issue that was far too prevalent in the grunge genre: heroin addiction. The lyrics are spine-tingling for me, considering that a number of kids checked out from the Hotel University of Southern California while I was in music school, thanks to smack. They say to truly play the blues, you need to have lived the blues. I can’t imagine what you have to go through to be able to write a song like "Rooster." Despite the dark lyrical content, the chorus is as good as you’ll hear from any act of that time period. The rest of the CD is loaded with even more musical goodies, like "Man In The Box," "Angry Chair" and "No Excuses," which include more subtle nuances in the Alice In Chains sound. The audio quality of this record isn’t the reason why you’ll buy it. The overall tone is dirty and ugly when compared to the over-polished heavy metal gluttony of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Nonetheless, this is important music and Alice In Chains Greatest Hits has all of the tracks you’ll long for in one package. It is a powerful trip down memory lane and a reminder for me as to how good the "other" grunge acts actually were. Like this article? Bookmark and share with any of the sites below.        |
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