And while Unplugged is the greatest live album (ever), Dirt will forever stick with me for its unrelenting sense of hopelessness. In fact, I bought two: Dirt and Unplugged.
Plus, I'd probably heard their name mentioned in some 90s American teen drivel I'd obsessively binged on as a kid who was desperate to grow up. They had my name in the title – a name I wasn't particularly fond of – so it felt comforting to find a band who had actively decided to take it as their own. While browsing through the metal and punk section of Cardiff's Virgin Megastore I happened upon Alice in Chains. Grunge was where it was at.Īfter endlessly repeating Nirvana's discography, playing Ten until it skipped, screeching Hole's Violet at the top off my voice and writing the lyrics to Smashing Pumpkins' Bullet With Butterfly wings over and over again in my notebook (don't tell me the immortal words ' Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage' didn't speak to you on a deeply spiritual level at age 15), I needed something even more hopeless. No female figures to make me feel more at ease with my own fury. If that wasn't enough, I couldn't see any women in nu metal. Plus, the lyrics might have been nihilistic, but the music was too poppy – I was after something bleaker sounding, that spoke to my miserable teenage angst. I didn't want to be into whatever my generation was into.
It was too trendy, and of course I liked to think I was edgy. I would buy soundtrack after soundtrack, obscure genre-specific compilation albums, music magazines by the pile and search compulsively online for voices that spoke to me.Īfter growing up listening to classic rock, 80s pop (thanks, mum) and an eclectic selection of whatever was in the charts, I finally discovered punk and grunge – perhaps because of the sudden resurgence of punk pop thanks to anthems from the likes of Blink-182 and Sum 41 – and it was a welcome relief from the only other alternative to Radio Top 40 sounds, nu metal. I didn't have any older siblings or friends to introduce me to new bands, instead I had to actively seek them out.
Like many other metalheads, music and other forms of media became my only refuge and I devoured it all. I was bitter, resentful, full of rage and frustration. I had a deep, visceral hatred towards authority figures, towards the venomous harpies I had to share a classroom with, day after day. We're struggling to come to terms with the hormonal changes tearing through our bodies, and going head-to-head with the torment of school, authority, bullying, exams and anything else that might rear its ugly head during those formative years. We are discovering ourselves our likes, our dislikes. Most of us first discover – and I mean really discover – music when we are still within the thralls of puberty.
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