Alice in Chains "MTV Unplugged"

Alice in Chains’ MTV Unplugged is an essential grunge album and a career-high point for the band. Before Unplugged, Alice in Chains had indeed been offstage for about two and a half years. The recording of their previous album—Alice in Chains, released in November 1995—was painful and prolonged. Due to his heroin addiction, Staley would frequently miss sessions, and the band, who had drifted apart, wrote much of the material in the studio, stretching the recording time to four months. (This would be the group’s last studio release to feature Staley; in a 2018 interview, Cantrell called it “the sound of a band falling apart”.) They did not tour in support of the album.MTV had been after Alice in Chains to do an Unplugged taping for some time, and they finally agreed, rehearsing first in Seattle and then New York. Combining the long break with the band’s numerous personal obstacles during the actual show was a major risk, and the night could’ve easily gone south. By all accounts, Staley