the record collection mixtapes pt 3

when i started this project back in march i knew it would be a somewhat neglected project, cos let's face it, i'm a bad blogger. i'm the kind of blogger that would never ever have any readers had it not been for rss feeds. i'm lazy, yes, but more than that i'm always having a hard time getting things out of my brain and onto paper, or onto screen as it is. i'm just not very prolific. i do have my moments, but mostly, i just can't seem to get much out of me.

that, and the fact that i don't really have the time.

so, 9 months after the last post in this series, here's the next. it's time for an album by one of my favorite bands, alice in chains. there's 5 of them in my collection and at first i thought i'd write a 5 times alice in chains post, but then 9 months went passed so that was probably a bad idea. thinking small here.



the album is facelift from 1990 and it's a good one over-all. not my favorite alice in chains album, but still one i've listened to a bit. the things i really love about the band isn't quite there yet on this album. the darker feel and the slightly heavier and slower sound that came with later productions. it's there a little, you can hear it on the song "confusion" and it's lurking behind a few of the other songs. what the album does have is layne staley and his fantastic voice and intensity. and lyrics. (and drug abuse, but that's another story.)

although alice in chains really is more of a heavy metal band than a grunge band - just listen to the intro guitar to "we die young", the opening track on this album, or to the fact that they have a lot of guitar solos - they're often bundled together with nirvana, soundgarden, pearl jam and the likes, which i guess has more to do with the fact that they were playing in seattle in the same time-period than their sound. not that i mind, i'm a big fan of grunge music, i just think it's a bit misleading.

"we die young" is, as mentioned, quite heavy metaly, as is "put you down" and "real thing". "man in the box" was the hit single of the album which i'm not sure as to why, i don't think it's their strongest. "bleed the freak" and "i can't remember" are much stronger and better songs. "i know something (about you)" is flirting with funk with a quite catchy result.

as for picking a track on this album. i'm torn. i want to pick "confusion" cos it sounds like the alice in chains i love and it's such a cheery little song;

i want to set you free, recognize my disease
love, sex, pain, confusion, suffering
you're there crying, i feel not a thing
drilling my way deeper in you head
sinking, draining, drowning, bleeding, dead

i also want to pick "it ain't like that" for the same reasons. at the same time, there's so much more to come of that alice in chains that it feels unfair not to pick a song more representative of facelife. so i'm picking "love, hate, love", a dark suggestive song riddled with dysfunction, so often a theme in layne staley's lyrics.

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cross-posted on my own private alderaan.