10 Best Hard Rock Albums Of The 90s

Though Alice in Chains were riding high in the early 90's, the band members were going through their own personal Hells. With over half the band strung out on narcotics, the band went into the studio to make their second record, which was one of the heaviest releases from any grunge band.

Upon release, Dirt was a morbid look into the mind of an addict as he finds himself on the edge of sanity and willfully throwing his life away. Throughout each track, singer Layne Staley seems to be drifting between downplayed sadness and unfiltered pain as he works his way through diatribes like "Angry Chair" and album-opener "Them Bones."

While this type of performance seems incredibly disconcerting when described, the way guitarist Jerry Cantrell harmonizes with Staley leads to some absolutely beautiful melodic structures like on "Would?" and the tribute to Cantrell's father "Rooster."

Even though the record was a roaring success, Staley went down an even darker path and ended up dying of an overdose in 2002. As it stands, Dirt is a cautionary tale of the dangers of drug addiction while also bearing some of the most wounded beauty to come from the Seattle scene.