This is Would? by Alice in Chains, starting with a bass line and Drums cymbals with some confusing clean parts and a vocals melody, it starts to playing some kind of tribal drums notes, Its time signature is 4/4 and the intro atmospheric long sustaining notes in the lead gave it a special mood. the verse starts with that mood which started in the intro and then it rise with a drums fill to the Chorus section, the reverbs on lead guitar and Vocals are so nice and the guitar's distortion and drums filled the chorus part so well. after the second verse it goes back to the chorus which it ends with Staley's vocal melody which he performs it like a guitar solo, 2:05 a nice solo in that section and then this time it gets back to chorus with a reversed vocals, which it is how it feels but surely it was performed and it is not a computer reversed sound, and to do that he might have stand away from the mic and coming close to the mic slowly. his vocal fries are perfect. In 2:41 the song suddenly surprise us with an odd change which makes it really great. and Staley keeps singing perfectly in that part and the drummer is also playing awesome fills in that ending section.
This song has a dark theme and it also has a feeling that says something bad is going to happen. It is about addiction and losing something and frustration and being judged. as Jerry Cantrell, Guitarist and Vocalist of the band also said about this song, It is written for his friend Andrew Wood, He'd died of a heroin overdose.
And to bring that darkness into their music, they composed and performed this song by using a Phrygian mode (as Phrygian is generally considered the darkest of all the diatonic modes) and it also includes a bottom heavy arrangement with a special form of music which makes you feel the situation of an addicted person. and as we know what Grunge bands were doing with their chord progressions we can hear those amazing and unique changes in the chords in This song.
and I also decided to share another version of this song which it was performed live in a MTV Unplugged show. Recorded in April 10, 1996 , I love what Layne Staley had done in this performance, the notes he performs, he even performs a part of the guitar solo and this time it is live and well the guitars were performed perfectly which made this live performance interested to me specially when I hear an acoustic version of a heavy music :D in acoustic versions you can hear notes more clear so it is why I like it :) .
The first time I heard Alice In Chains was when I was in University and I downloaded some of their MTV unplugged and started to knowing more about this band, I can say what made me interested about this band was their Unplugged live performance which I can't forget each part of that show from the time they go up on the stage the way they start their first song and how they perform all the songs with no mistake like if you are listening to a studio recorded version of those songs :) , though Layne Staley is not alive anymore but his songs are not forgettable, he had an amazing vocal with a special character and tone. RIP Layne Staley. \m/
Peace & Love!
Thanks for reading this blog post,
Davood Faramarzi aka @davidfar
They are not a band I know too well, but this is good. The rhythm and harmony do make it very dark. I know a lot of musicians go through tough times with drugs. Maybe it is what they need to make the music, but it cuts short a lot of lives. The adulation and the pressure can mess you up.
!BEER
I also started to hearing their songs when I was 22 years old, exactly, the way I think about music is more like watching a movie, like different genres of movie (Thriller, Romantic, Drama, Horror, Historical, etc), mostly this kind of music like Grunge music, I was listening to these types of music in those years to make myself feel relax, though it can have different effect on every person, but mostly when I hear someone singing with pain I feel like it makes me release my pains while I am listening to that song. Like Nirvana's songs or other grunge bands, I usually connect myself to songs emotionally, but you are also right about drugs, I hate of drugs, drugs has one effect on us, and it is making us stupid which we lose our control and we become weaker, etc. I don't know if it is only drugs which lead a guy to do suicide or it can also be because of their lives, their ideas, their mental health, the way they see the world? , I think there are many reasons why someone might kill himself, so I can't say that suicides are related to listening to a sad song or dark song, but I get what you mean and I agree that drugs has those negative effects on our brains which can also lead us to the suicide point.
What I think is bad is that some of these people do not get the support they need from the music industry. I remember when Kurt Cobain killed himself and that was partly due to the pressure he felt on himself. Going from writing songs in a bedroom about the pain you feel in your life to playing stadiums can be hard for some people, especially if they have mental issues.
Art is not always about pain, but we have lost so many fine musicians at an early age. We cannot know what they might have gone on to achieve.
Stay well.
!ENGAGE 25
Yes I totally agree, there are too many things happening in each one of those artists life, I can't really know what is inside their mind, but it is hard. I also had times like that pain, not to say that I am copying from them but it is just happened to me as a mental pressure, but I could save myself in all these years from all the pressure I was taking and I wish they could control it too, though as I said I can't say that it is so easy to control something like that. I don't know what was in Kurt's mind in that moment. but I am sure all those things you are also mentioning were part of his problems, Actually I am not able to describe art in one genre, like only a style for pain, but I can say It has too many emotions, because without emotions music becomes like a robot, so it can be happy, sad, full of honor, or full of sorrow, it can be motivational, it can be full of love or hate. I think it is also depends on the mood of the composer or what he experience in the music, cause sometimes some notes and chords can be chose by experiencing or Improvising with an instrument which the artist is actually not choosing them by an old idea, and those are just fresh and he can't even think if he knew that it would sound like that or not.
It is also sad that we have lost many of the young artists, I hope we all can heal and fix the problems whenever the life makes us feel much pressures and makes us feel tired of life.
Thanks my friend I wish you the best, stay well too :)
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