Alice in Chains on Vinyl: Where to Start and Where to Go Next

Alice in Chains formed in Seattle in 1987 and never quite fit the category the city handed them. Where most of their peers came up through punk, Jerry Cantrell's guitar came out of metal, slow and thick and tuned down, and Layne Staley sang against it in a locked harmony that is the band's real signature: two voices braided so tightly they read as one strange instrument. Nobody else in the Northwest sounded like that. Nobody since has done it as well.

The run that matters most is short and almost alarmingly consistent. Facelift in 1990, Dirt in 1992, the acoustic Jar of Flies in 1994, the self-titled album in 1995, and the 1996 acoustic set at the Brooklyn Academy of Music that turned out to be one of the last times the classic lineup played together. Bassist Mike Starr was replaced by Mike Inez in 1993. Staley died in 2002, and Cantrell, Inez and drummer Sean Kinney returned in 2006 with William DuVall sharing lead vocals. Six years, five records, and a shadow over everything that came after.

We keep that run in the racks, including both 2026 pressings of MTV Unplugged, a record people have been asking for at the counter for years. Here is where to start, and where to go once you have started.

Alice in Chains - Facelift Vinyl LP

Dave Jerden produced the debut across London Bridge Studio in Seattle and Capitol Studios in Hollywood, and Facelift landed in August 1990 sounding heavier and slower than almost anything else coming out of the city. "Man in the Box" is the song that broke it open, built on Cantrell's talkbox, with "We Die Young," "Sea of Sorrow" and "Bleed the Freak" around it. It is the most straightforwardly metal record the band made, and it is still the clearest picture of where they started.

Why it's worth purchasing:

• The 1990 debut, home of "Man in the Box" and "We Die Young"
• Dave Jerden production, cut in Seattle and Hollywood
• The heaviest, most metal-leaning record in the catalog

Alice In Chains - Dirt (30th Anniversary) Vinyl LP

Dirt arrived on September 29, 1992, and it is the album the rest of the catalog gets measured against: "Them Bones," "Rooster," "Angry Chair," "Down in a Hole," and "Would?," which Rick Parashar had already cut for the Singles soundtrack, still in the racks here on the deluxe edition. Tom Araya of Slayer turns up on "Iron Gland." It is also the last record made by all four original members, since Starr was gone by January 1993, partway through the tour behind it. This is the 30th anniversary pressing.

Why it's worth purchasing:

• 30th anniversary pressing of the 1992 landmark
• "Them Bones," "Rooster," "Would?" and "Down in a Hole" in one place
• The last album cut by the original four-piece

Alice in Chains - Jar of Flies (30th Anniversary Edition) Vinyl LP

Written and recorded across a single week at London Bridge Studio in September 1993, Jar of Flies is the band self-producing with Toby Wright engineering, and it is the first thing they made with Mike Inez on bass. Seven tracks, largely acoustic, built around "Nutshell," "No Excuses" and "I Stay Away," and a direct descendant of the 1992 Sap sessions. Formally an EP. In practice, the record a lot of people reach for first and keep reaching for.

Why it's worth purchasing:

• Written and recorded inside one week in September 1993
• "Nutshell," "No Excuses" and "I Stay Away"
• Mike Inez's first record with the band

Alice in Chains - Alice in Chains (Self-Titled 3-Legged Dog) (Yellow Color) Vinyl LP

Cut at Bad Animals in Seattle with Toby Wright and released in the autumn of 1995, the self-titled album is the slowest and least forgiving thing here: "Grind," "Heaven Beside You," "Again," an hour of music that refuses to lift. Kinney came up with the three-legged dog on the cover and wanted to call the record Tripod. The rest of the band said no and self-titled it instead, and the nickname stuck anyway. It is the final studio album with Staley, and this pressing is on yellow vinyl.

Why it's worth purchasing:

• The final studio album with Layne Staley
• "Grind," "Heaven Beside You" and "Again"
• Yellow vinyl pressing of the three-legged dog record

Alice in Chains - MTV Unplugged Vinyl LP

The band had not played a show since January 1994 when they walked into the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Majestic Theater on April 10, 1996 and taped MTV Unplugged, with Heart's Scott Olson added on second guitar for their first appearance as a five-piece. It reached back across everything except Facelift, reframing "Nutshell," "Down in a Hole," "Rooster" and "Would?" as acoustic pieces, and closed on a song the room had never heard. "Angry Chair," "Frogs" and "Killer Is Me" were left out of the television broadcast and are all present here.

Why it's worth purchasing:

• The April 1996 Majestic Theater set across two LPs
• Includes the three songs cut from the television broadcast
• Staley and Cantrell's harmonies with nothing to hide behind

Alice in Chains - MTV Unplugged (Yellow Color) Vinyl LP

Same performance, different plastic. The yellow 2LP is the independent record store edition, and it is the one to take home if you want the set on colored vinyl rather than black. "Brother," "Got Me Wrong" and "Heaven Beside You" all sit better here than they have any right to, and the sequencing across four sides gives the quiet stretches room.

Why it's worth purchasing:

• Yellow 2LP made for independent record stores
• The complete Majestic Theater performance
• The colored-vinyl copy of the most requested record in the catalog

If You Like Alice in Chains

• Soundgarden: the other great Seattle band built on odd tunings and a singer who could go anywhere, and the closest thing to a peer Alice in Chains had.
• Pearl Jam: warmer and more classic-rock in its bones, and the band that made the other essential unplugged document of the era.
• Temple of the Dog: the 1991 one-off, their only album, which brought Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder together on "Hunger Strike" and remains the single best entry point to the whole scene.
• Nirvana: the punk end of the same city, and the band whose own acoustic set is the obvious companion to the one above.
• Stone Temple Pilots: arrived from outside the Northwest and got treated as tourists for it, then made three records that have long since outlasted the argument.

Start with Dirt if you want the definitive statement, Jar of Flies if you want the one that gets played at two in the morning, and MTV Unplugged if you want to hear what the harmonies actually were. From there the road forks: back into the grunge shelf for the rest of the city, or out into the wider rock racks. The DuVall-era albums are worth your time too, though they sit outside what we carry. Everything we do have is gathered in one place: browse every Alice in Chains record we carry.

It's all in GOOD TASTE.