Alice in Chains - Greatest Hits

From 1999's Music Bank box set and its one-CD compilation offshoot, Nothing Safe: The Best of the Box to a 1996 Unplugged CD, the Alice in Chains titles continue to arrive even while the band--and especially reclusive frontman Layne Staley--stagnates. The quartet's heavy, dirgelike music is aging well, but the 10 songs that comprise Greatest Hits are the basic radio hits. Greatest Hits features no new music, no liner notes, no lyrics, no new photos, and no elaborate packaging. Still, for the rock fan, every song on the disc (five of them penned solely by talented guitarist Jerry Cantrell) is a bona fide hit, from the band's earliest, their 1990 breakthrough "Man in the Box," to the lush orchestration of "I Stay Away" to 1995's dark pop gem "Heaven Beside You." Greatest Hits provides a quick fix for newer fans, but with The Best of the Box boasting 9 of Greatest Hits' 10 songs, plus an additional 5 selections. Skip Hits and go for The Best. --Katherine Turman

From 1999's Music Bank box set and its one-CD compilation offshoot, Nothing Safe: The Best of the Box to a 1996 Unplugged CD, the Alice in Chains titles continue to arrive even while the band--and especially reclusive frontman Layne Staley--stagnates. The quartet's heavy, dirgelike music is aging well, but the 10 songs that comprise Greatest Hits are the basic radio hits. Greatest Hits features no new music, no liner notes, no lyrics, no new photos, and no elaborate packaging. Still, for the rock fan, every song on the disc (five of them penned solely by talented guitarist Jerry Cantrell) is a bona fide hit, from the band's earliest, their 1990 breakthrough "Man in the Box," to the lush orchestration of "I Stay Away" to 1995's dark pop gem "Heaven Beside You." Greatest Hits provides a quick fix for newer fans, but with The Best of the Box boasting 9 of Greatest Hits' 10 songs, plus an additional 5 selections. Skip Hits and go for The Best. --Katherine Turman