10 Bands That Never Made A Bad Album

For all that has been said about the Seattle scene, there isn't a way to really put every band into a unique box. There were definitely grunge songs coming from bands like Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, but you were never going to mistake one for the other when they came on the radio. Every band had their own thing going on, but Alice in Chains might be the purest form of what a grunge band is supposed to sound like.

Even though Nirvana get credit for kickstarting the alternative scene in Seattle, Alice actually beat them to the punch a few months earlier with Man in the Box, trademarking their sound with distinctive harmonies from Jerry Cantrell and Layne Staley, along with some of the sludgiest riffs that would come from the grunge scene. As much as they climbed their way to the top of the scene, every album would be defined by pain in their glory years, with Dirt and their self titled standing as masterpieces as Layne battled his demons.

That's not even getting into their EPs either, where they strip back all of the electric guitars and give us some of their most heartwrenching ballads on songs off of Jar of Flies and SAP. And while the William DuVall years can never recapture the same magic, albums like Rainier Fog and Black Gives Way to Blue have their own unique characters as well, choosing to build themselves into something different rather than make a mockery of Layne's legacy. It took a long time to get to a place like this, but Alice have come out on the other side as one of the true survivors of the Seattle scene.