I am writing this article in response to the viral blog post by GrimlyGroovy, “Why Kurt Cobain and Nirvana are glorified and celebrated VS. why Layne Staley and Alice in Chains are overlooked and forgotten.”

The blog post argues that Alice In Chains is a better band, but Nirvana has more of a legacy because the media glorified Kurt Cobain’s suicide while glossing over Layne Staley’s slow, reclusive descent into fatal heroin addiction.

As for the idea that Alice In Chains is musically “better,” sure, Jerry Cantrell might be a more technically proficient guitarist much less likely to hit a wrong note (or miss the string entirely). But while Jerry might be a classically better soloist, his guitar solos are the least groundbreaking aspect of AIC’s music.They are good and metal and normal and fit the song. Meanwhile, take a solo like Kurt Cobain’s in "In Bloom." From droning and jarring noise to a blues solo back to punk noise rock then to a harmonic minor solo back to a blast of manipulated feedback noise then a chromatic descent into hell. Kurt put his inarticulate burning rage into his music, more fighting and wrangling with his guitar than playing it, and the emotion and energy comes through clearer than any of Jerry Cantrell’s virtuosic Wah-pedal sweeping hammer-on notes. The same comparison between Jerry and Kurt’s guitar playing can be made between Layne Staley and Kurt’s voice; while Layne might have a classically better voice with better vibrato and breath control and intonation, Kurt’s voice conveys emotion perfectly, and straddles the line of rage and vulnerability better than anyone else’s voice. That is not, however, to say that Layne’s voice doesn’t also reek of pained, tortured vulnerability.

The notion that Nirvana is famous because Kurt Cobain killed himself is a myth perpetuated by bitter millennials who grew up after Nirvana’s demise and don’t get what the big deal is. People who got into Nirvana’s music after Kurt’s death often don’t realize that Nirvana was the biggest band in the world for the three years between the release of Nevermind and Kurt’s suicide. As much as I love Alice In Chains, Nirvana’s music resonated more with more people. Even though AIC’s Facelift came out before Nevermind and AIC’s “Man In The Box” got some airplay on MTV, it was Nirvana and “Smells Like Teen Spirit” that really revolutionized music and turned the mainstream’s attention toward alternative rock and grunge music. Nevermind sold six times more copies than AIC’s relative contemporary grunge masterpiece, Dirt. Nevermind knocked Michael Jackson off the chart, and "SMells Like Teen Spirit" came on in a mall and people spontaneously started moshing and somebody broke their leg. In a shopping mall. The profound effect that "Teen Spirit" had on pop culture can not be overstated, and you can still see its impact today, even in things as surface as the flannel shirts, ripped jeans, and Converse All Stars from the music video. Both Nirvana and Alice In Chains are incredible bands with dark, half sarcastic, half heart-wrenchingly genuine songs, unique melodies, and tragic endings, but Nirvana was more accessible and immediate, while Alice In Chains was weirder and more of an acquired taste.

I also disagree with the idea that Layne Staley is written off as a pity by the media. It’s been my impression that Layne made the media too uncomfortable to issue any sort of sweeping summative declaration about him. Here is a man who wrote songs praising heroin and justifying heroin use while mocking and disparaging all that is normal or corporate and claiming he’d feel better if he was dead. He started doing so much heroin he couldn’t sing in his band anymore, and then he kept doing heroin. He basically locked himself in his apartment and ordered pizza and heroin to his door until he died alone. His body was discovered two weeks later when his accountants got suspicious because he had stopped withdrawing money to buy heroin.

Kurt was embarrassed of his heroin use. He hid it and lied about it and made multiple attempts to get clean. He recognized it as a stupid, dangerous, escapist crutch. Meanwhile, this is Junkhead by Alice In Chains, lyrics penned by Layne Staley:

“Seems so sick to the hypocrite norm
Running their boring drills
But we are an elite race of our own
The stoners, junkies, and freaks
 
Are you happy? I am, man.
 
Content and fully aware
Money, status, nothing to me
'Cause your life is empty and bare
 
What's my drug of choice?
Well, what have you got?
I don't go broke
And I do it a lot
I do it a lot, yeah
 
You can't understand a user's mind
But try, with your books and degrees
If you let yourself go and opened your mind
I'll bet you'd be doing like me
And it ain't so bad”

Kurt Cobain is easily summarized by rampant media-perpetuated half-truths as a tortured soul too pure for this world, who didn’t want what was forced upon him. This is someone the world can look up to, can identify with, can pity. This is someone who captured the fears and anxieties and disillusionments and anger of a generation, turned it into something subversive and empowering and powerful and beautiful and pure, put his pain on display, and then was hounded mercilessly by paparazzi. The truth is obviously much more complicated than that, but the story that sold is that his death was beautiful and relatable and tragic. Layne’s death makes people uncomfortable. The actual specific moment of Layne’s death was accidental, but that he died was no accident; He had essentially been committing suicide for seven years straight. Layne reached the conclusion that heroin is better than life, and when he realized it wasn’t he felt it was too late to change and kept going with it. "Drugs worked for me for years," Staley told Rolling Stone in 1996, "and now they're turning against me, now I'm walking through hell." He changed his number and let his teeth fall out and waited to die. “I know I’m near death,” he said in his last interview, in 2002, “I know I have no chance. It's too late.”

He was found discolored, emaciated, 86 pounds. If Kurt Cobain’s death was a “f**k you,” Layne Staley’s death was an “oh, shit.” This is not a story that anybody wants to hear. It’s heavily disturbing. It was not a glorious burnout, not a tragic fall from grace, but a slow downward escalator ride from grace to hell. Its only silver lining is that it serves as a cautionary tale to anyone who thinks full blown heroin dependency would work out fine for them. Now this is not all to say that Kurt is more famous because he died better; this is a point unrelated to enduring fame. Kurt’s death was more famous than Layne Staley’s death, and Kurt is more famous than Layne Staley, but the two are not causative.

Nirvana is dark and pained but very pretty and mostly palatable. It’s pop music that’s punk enough for punk kids to enjoy and punk music that’s pop enough for everyone else to enjoy. Alice in Chains is genuinely and uncomfortably the darkest stuff out there. I don’t mean to make Alice In Chains seem second rate, because they’re not. They are one of the best and most unique bands of all time. Their eerie harmonies are otherworldly and impossibly catchy, and their music is breathtakingly honest and beyond heavy. But Alice In Chains is never accused of being overrated, so I felt compelled to defend Nirvana. The simple truth of the matter is that Nirvana is seen as so important because they are so important. Alice In Chains probably deserves more credit and fame, but Nirvana certainly doesn't deserve any less.

“I would never bother you
I would never promise to
I will never follow you
I will never bother you
Never say a word again
I will crawl away for good

I will move away from here
You won't be afraid of fear
No thought was put into this
I always knew it would come to this
Things have never been so swell
And I have never failed to fail

Pain”

- “You Know You’re Right,” by Nirvana. The last song they recorded before Kurt’s suicide, described by Kurt as a ‘really sick, good, Alice In Chains song.’ His wife Courtney Love covered the song with her band Hole, and a journalist from Rolling Stone corrected her that the chorus was not the word “hey,” but the word “pain.”