Double agreed.
Listened to Unplugged in its entirety the other day during a workout.
So f'n good.
Jerry Cantrell came out with his solo album Boggy Depot. You could tell that he was definitely the musical brains of the band. But Layne was the soul. Without Layne the magic wasn't there.
I saw them live at Tiger Stadium in 95 or 96. They opened up for Kiss. Fucking wild, wild, wild night. Kiss playing Detroit Rock City on stage at Tiger Stadium was an incredible experience.
Just 3 years later grunge was almost completely removed from the radio and Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera were all over the radio. I was like "WTF is this shit? Who TF wants to hear this bile?" I honestly believe the shift in music at the turn of the century was the first signs of what would become known as "The pussyification of America."