![]() The main choices are Layne Staley, Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, and Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. There is also a huge debate of who, out of the grunge era, had the best voice. Of course there was a Seattle SCENE, but they don’t like the term “grunge”. If you ask any of the grunge guys, they’ll pretty much all say that “grunge” never existed, or even the “Seattle sound” for that matter. They are their own band, but I can see why it’s kind of hard for people to categorize Alice in Chains. They came out of Seattle before Nirvana did – but then again, most of the popular and/or influential Seattle bands were before Nirvana – and they were kind of a mixture between Mudhoney, with their crazy weird guitars, and the heavy vocals and eerie, far away quality of Soundgarden. ![]() ![]() Hell, even on the cover of the MTV Unplugged album it shows the members of Alice with only the shadow of Layne.Īlice in Chains were a rather odd band. His face was sunken in and it was clear that his heroin addiction was starting to take a depressingly slow turn for the worse. He still had his childlike face, but once he took off his sunglasses, he let the audience see his horribly sad eyes. Although I’m almost 100% sure that all the members of Alice were pretty haggard, Layne stuck out the most. In 1996, Alice in Chains played MTV Unplugged. Even his goddamn speaking voice surrounded by an edgy, anxious guitar sound makes me shudder – in a good way. The beginning of ‘God Am” off of 1992’s Dirt, for example, starts off with a bong toke and then Layne says, “ Sure, God is all-powerful, but does he have lips?” and then a ridiculously stoned Layne goes, “ Whoaaaa…”. The man’s voice gives me shivers, even during some of their more humorous songs. Layne could easily identify with every one of those. I think heroin is a terrible drug, but some of their best songs are about heroin, drugs in general, depression, and hopelessness. His trademark “snarl to a scream” is what makes Alice in Chains, well, Alice in Chains. Half of the songs Layne sings sound like he’s dying, or desperately seeking help (which, turns out, is kind of true), and it’s just so sad. Layne and Jerry Cantrell have a way of setting an eerie-ass tone that is unlike anything I’ve ever heard. One of my favorite vocalists of all time.
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