Red Mosquito

BurtReynolds wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:That's a fine question, VG. I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you. Not sure what it is about their music that just hasn't stuck with me the way some of their contemporaries has. Everyone once in a while Man in the Box will come on the Spotify or the radio or whatever and I'll rock out. But then it's over and gone. Just like it never came.

Thats Nirvana and now Pearl Jam for me. Never a huge fan of most of AiC's music, but I could probably listen to AiC's acoustic stuff from now until the day I die. Jar of Flies still crushes me.

Unplugged is still one of my favorite music things.

Kaius wrote:

BurtReynolds wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:That's a fine question, VG. I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you. Not sure what it is about their music that just hasn't stuck with me the way some of their contemporaries has. Everyone once in a while Man in the Box will come on the Spotify or the radio or whatever and I'll rock out. But then it's over and gone. Just like it never came.

Thats Nirvana and now Pearl Jam for me. Never a huge fan of most of AiC's music, but I could probably listen to AiC's acoustic stuff from now until the day I die. Jar of Flies still crushes me.

Unplugged is still one of my favorite music things.

Word.

Their Unplugged and Jar of Flies are great. But I never want to put them on. Maybe I'll come around again.

In the end, I just don't think Alice in Chains had that many great songs. Layne had a one-of-a-kind hard rock voice (the effect of which has through no fault of his own been compromised by how often and how badly it's been imitated over the years), and he and Cantrell had a gift for staking out harmonic spaces that -- between the dissonant chords of their compositions and the conflicting timbres of their two voices -- felt very much like genuine uncharted musical terrain. But very few of their songs have emerged as "great" over time -- thematically, I think more people grow out of rather than into their lyrics, and most of their songs exhaust their melodic potential pretty quickly (for example, the first time Cantrell sings "be what you wanna be" in "Heaven Beside You," you've already heard about 50% of what that song is going to do; then when he sings "like the coldest winter chill, heaven beside you, hell within," you've heard another 45%, and the song lumbers on for 6 minutes nevertheless). They seem to have a lot of songs like that. Many of their contemporaries I can still listen to with a sense of wonder, but I think AIC have given up their secrets, fond of them though I will always be.

Kevin Davis nailed it.

Everyday, I miss Lungfish more and more.

cutuphalfdead wrote:Kevin Davis nailed it.

No he didn't!

I still find plenty to love in Alice in Chains, though in my case it's almost exclusively the heavy stuff.

The acoustic-based material (like Jar of Flies etc.) doesn't do a great deal for me these days though I'm not sure it ever did to any great extent. There's something about the combination of Layne's melodic sneer with Jerry's sludgy riffs that still really yanks my crank: We Die Young, It Ain't Like That, Them Bones, Dam That River, Dirt, Sludge Factory, God Am and so on. Good stuff.

Dirt, Sap and Jar. Everything else AIC is almost certainly redundant.

And yeah, KD is exactly right about that last Layne record. The songs are too long and the album is too long.

do you guys think that if/when the Atlanta scene starts to wane that Texas could take another shot at it? or for that matter a real big NYC comeback?

Birds in Hell wrote:I still find plenty to love in Alice in Chains, though in my case it's almost exclusively the heavy stuff.

The acoustic-based material (like Jar of Flies etc.) doesn't do a great deal for me these days though I'm not sure it ever did to any great extent. There's something about the combination of Layne's melodic sneer with Jerry's sludgy riffs that still really yanks my crank: We Die Young, It Ain't Like That, Them Bones, Dam That River, Dirt, Sludge Factory, God Am and so on. Good stuff.

"We Die Young," "Rain When I Die," and "Them Bones" are probably my favorite AIC songs. "Rooster" and "Would?" are up there too. There was a time in my life when I considered their "Unplugged" album to be the greatest live album ever recorded. So don't get me wrong -- I like AIC a lot. But as time goes on, less and less of their material feels like it belongs in that uppermost tier, which only feels noteworthy to me because so much Nirvana, Soundgarden, etc. sounds even better to me now than it did in its heyday.

Rain When I Die might be my favorite.

I don't listen to much AIC anymore, but I still think "Would?" is one of the best songs ever.

LoathedVermin72 wrote:I don't listen to much AIC anymore, but I still think "Would?" is one of the best songs ever.

guys im loving the tallest man song dark bird is home.

I think Rotten Apple might be my favorite. That intro is one of the best ever. I couldn't tell you what its about. A song that good doesn't need to be about anything.

50 years from now, when rock is little but a footnote in history, do you think textbooks will mention Days of the New?

Spoiler: show

no. no they will not.

I find it odd and even a little bit sad that Jeff magnum hasn't recorded or at least released any new music since he emerged from his self imposed exile. Such a fertile mind with an almost unparralled knack for evoking and stirring emotion. That he couldn't draw inspiration from the celebration and joy his re-emergence generated. The man with one of the most elegant turns of phrase I've ever heard. Able to floor me in a couplet and pick me back up with a sustained note. I really wanted to hear more from this man, and harbour hope that we one day will.

I guess it ironic in a sense that it's possible the comfort he found when he saw what his music had done for so many validated him and absolved some of his misery and thus rendered his muse silent. The standing he re entered the world in was so different to the one he retreated from.

Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) is such a great opener.

And even though I never put it on, I still think Dirt is better than any single album by Soundgarden.