10 Most Important Hard Rock Bands Of The 90s

For all of the news reporters who say that grunge changed things overnight, nothing really happens that quickly. Hair metal still had a firm grasp on the public in the early '90s, and even some glam bands had some clout after Smells Like Teen Spirit took over the airwaves. Before any of the Seattle bands made their mark though, Alice in Chains got the whole thing started a year earlier.

Around the time that bands like Soundgarden were still local favorites, Alice in Chains was getting the ball rolling with Man in the Box, which blew up on MTV and made for something a little more disturbing than the likes of Winger. What people don't really talk about though is how eclectic Alice were in their prime, with their mix of beauty and darkness giving them the crossover appeal to open for the likes of Van Halen and Slayer on two separate tours at the time.

They wouldn't be staying as an opening act for long though, becoming the more metal leaning act from Seattle on albums like Dirt, where they laid all of their addictions on the table and tried to make sense of whether they could even hold onto their sanity anymore. Though the death of Layne Staley closed the chapter on this version of the band, Alice's way with melody was still something that no other band in Seattle could really touch.