Unplugged by Alice in Chains was recorded live as part of MTV's Unplugged Series. This is one of the more successful Unplugged albums, perhaps in large part due to the fact that the lead singer, Layne Staley, was on a steep decline toward dying from an addiction to drugs and hadn't performed with the band regularly for years.

When I reviewed the eponymous Alice in Chains last year, my summary was that it wasn't as good as their earlier albums. Happily, the songs chosen for the Unplugged set taken from the Alice in Chains album are the strongest ones off an otherwise weak album.

Unplugged is an excellent album and well worth your time. I don't review live albums frequently (it's not really up to me, of course), and one neat thing is that the performance of this album can be watched anytime thanks to the power of the internet:

It is unfortunate that I had a thirteen year gap in my listening project. If I had not stopped, or restarted earlier, I might have reviewed Alice in Chains two best recordings: the 1992 album Dirt and the 1994 EP Jar of Flies. They are two of my favorite albums/EPs; I have listened to tracks off them nearly 700 times.

In stark contrast, I have barely listened to the eponymous Alice in Chains album. Listening to this album again I am not upset at my lack of plays. It is nowhere near as good as Dirt and Jar of Flies. On Tidal, of the top thirty tracks by plays for Alice in Chains, only three songs are off the album Alice in Chains. I do not have a Spotify account so I can only see the top ten, but there are zero songs off Alice in Chains on that list.

I can't endorse listening to the album Alice in Chains, but I can strongly suggest giving Dirt and Jar of Flies a play. Dirt, in particular, is one of the greatest grunge albums of all time. The first chord and lyric of first track, Them Bones, hits you hard and grabs your attention like few other songs do.