Facelift

This is the first studio record by four musicians from Seattle. A demo the band sold at its own shows, The Treehouse Tapes, reached an A&R man at Columbia and led to a contract in 1989. The label put out the We Die Young EP in July 1990, and when its title song became a hit on metal radio it rushed the album into production with Dave Jerden producing. Jerry Cantrell has said the brooding air of the record came straight out of the atmosphere of Seattle. The idea of running the vocal on "Man in the Box" through a talk box was Jerden's, and Cantrell has described that song's beat and weight as the moment the band found out what it was. The piece he singles out as the masterpiece of the album is "Love, Hate, Love". "We Die Young" and "Man in the Box" were issued as singles, and the second was nominated for Best Hard Rock Performance at the 1992 Grammy Awards. The RIAA certified the album gold on 11 September 1991 — the first record of the grunge era to get there. The running order here is the original's as printed.