before this song is over, you will have imagined 7 ways to end your own life

alice in chains sophomore album “dirt” is undeniably one of the best pop metal albums of all time. no really, i dare you, deny it. tell me nine pop metal albums better than “dirt” and i will recant. you can’t, can you?

“dirt” featured thirteen songs that will make you dance, sing, and slit your wrists, all at the same time. song-by-song the album dealt with fear of dying, rage, the day you’re going to die, depression, junkies, vietnam veterans, junkies, suicide, heroin, noise, emotional emptiness, psychotic detatchment, and the heroin overdose of a rock super star who never lived to see his own rock super stardom. i’d like to see brittney spears touch on even one of those topics.

eight out of thirteen songs had a music video and/or heavy radio play. grunge made despondency cool. during the early part of the ’90s, we owe our total lack of suicide to alice in chains and bands like them. without them exorcizing their demons into our ears, we never would have known how to deal with 8 classes, sports, clubs, girls who hated us, and boys who beat us up. sure, we thought about suicide a lot more, but while we were thinking about and planning it, we forgot to do it. parents said this depressing music was leading kids to suicide.

i say today’s modern brand of bland, emotionless pop is leading our kids to end their lives just to get away from it. fuck you, hannah montana!