10 Perfect Metal Albums Everyone Tried To Copy

For as much as grunge may have stomped out most of the glam rockers on the Sunset Strip, metal wasn't exactly safe from the alternative revolution either. No matter how much some bands may have had respect for their metal heroes, most of the best work from bands like Metallica and Slayer usually came out before Nirvana's Nevermind, with the rest of the decade showing them trying to play catch up with the alternative kids. There was still room for metal in grunge though, and Dirt might be one of the darkest records to ever come from Seattle.

As much as some bands like Pearl Jam and Nirvana may have talked about their inner torment from time to time, Alice in Chains had a lot more to unpack on a record like this, with songs that went through different parts of the band's drug addictions. Even if you're not listening to some of the drug related material like Rain When I Die or Down in a Hole, songs like Rooster still have that same dark aura behind them, like you're trying to crawl through a swamp and never actually going anywhere.

While this is still one of the benchmarks for what grunge could be at its darkest, it did leave a bit of a stain on the rest of the rock community. For every band that took a few pages out of this playbook in the world of post grunge like Days of the New, there were also bands like Godsmack that seemed to build their whole career off of copycating, making the real torture behind these songs feel like a costume. That's not how Dirt should be remembered though. No matter how many post grunge bands might come and go, there's a pure pain in these grooves that no one can touch.