Robbed Hit of the Week 4/29/19 - Alice In Chains' "No Excuses"...

"No Excuses" - Alice In Chains
from the EP Jar Of Flies (1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: did not chart
Billboard Hot 100 airplay chart peak: #48

This week's "robbed hit", like the one from Nirvana last week, was not released as a single in the U.S., but got so much radio love that it just missed the top-40 on the airplay chart in Billboard magazine. This one is from another grunge/hard rock band from Seattle, Alice In Chains. Led by guitarist Jerry Cantwell, along with singer Layne Staley whose previous band provided this act's name, and drummer Sean Kinney and bass player Mike Starr, the band got together in the late 1980s. Their debut full-length album Facelift was released in 1990, and shortly after the band scored their first rock radio hit with "Man In The Box" which hit #18 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart. The song would go on to be nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance, which went to Van Halen's more mainstream For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge album. Their next big break came when they contributed a track to the movie Singles. The result, "Would?", granted them another rock radio hit at #31, while becoming their first single to go international, hitting the top-40 in the UK (#19) and the Netherlands (#33). That song would also appear on Alice In Chains' sophomore full-length album Dirt. A top ten sales record, Dirt would spin off four top-40 hits in the UK, and five to make the Mainstream Rock radio list, including their first top ten song "Rooster". Also, two of the tracks crossed over to the Alternative Rock format chart, with "Angry Chair" reaching #27. The Dirt album would be nominated for another Grammy for Hard Rock Performance, which they lost to Red Hot Chili Peppers for "Give It Away".

While opening for Ozzy Osborne on tour, Starr would leave/get fired (depending on who you ask) and Ozzy's bassist Mike Inez joined to replace him. After their own world tour, the band went back into the studio and emerged with an seven-track EP of songs, Jar Of Flies. The lead single from the set would be their most subdued and accessibly one to date. "No Excuses", written by Cantrell, finally had some pop radio station taking notice and including in their playlists...

Since "No Excuses" wasn't released as a physical "single" in the U.S., it wasn't eligible to appear on Billboard's pop Hot 100 chart. However, on the airplay component of the chart, the song climbed to #48. On the magazine's Mainstream Rock chart, "No Excuses" climbed to #1 for two weeks, their sole charttopper with Staley. The song also took three weeks at #3 on the Alternative Rock chart as well. Internationally, "No Excuses" peaked at #17 in Canada. Second release "I Stay Away" hit #10 on the Mainstream Rock chart, and nabbed a third Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance, which went to fellow grunge band Soundgarden for "Black Hole Sun". That was followed by "Don't Follow", which rose to #25 on the Mainstream Rock list. The Jar Of Flies EP was the band's first #1 effort. They were about to tour behind the EP but Staley's growing heroin addiction derailed it before it began, eventually even causing the group to split for a bit. During that time the song "Got Me Wrong", from their earlier EP SAP from 1992, became a rock radio hit at #7 Mainstream/#22 Alternative due to its use in the movie Clerks. During the hiatus Stakey recorded an album with the grunge "supergroup" Mad Season, and hit the top ten on rock radio with "River Of Deceit" (#2 Mainstream/#9 Alternative).

The band finally reunited in 1995 and released their self-titled third album, which topped the albums sales chart and produced three rock radio hits. One of those, "Heaven Beside You", hit #3 on the Mainstream Rock chart, climbed to #52 on the pop Hot 100 airplay list, and was a top-40 single in the UK at #23. But by this time, Cantrell has been singing lead on most of their hits instead of Staley, and nixing a tour behind the record only fueling rumors. In 1996, the band instead recorded an episode of MTV Unplugged concert show, and subsequently released it as an album, adding guitarist Scott Olsen to the lineup. The live set hit #3 in the U.S., with their version of "Over Now" from the Alice In Chains record hitting #4 on the Mainstream Rock list, and #24 on the Alternative Rock tally. The band played a few shows supporting KISS, but Staley ended up overdosing but not dying after one of the shows.

The band couldn't last beyond that. While not officially done, Cantwell went and recorded a solo album, Boggy Depot, which spun off two top ten rock hits, with "Cut You In" hitting #5 in 1998. Later that year, Staley and Alice In Chains recorded a couple of songs that ended up on a compilation record. The result, "Get Born Again", hit #4 on the Mainstream Rock/#12 Alternative Rock charts. At the same time, Staley covered Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall" for the Faculty soundtrack, which went to #18 Mainstream/#34 Alternative rock chart. In 1999, another collection from Alice In Chains, Music Bank (this time and odds-n-sods lot) came out, and Dirt outtake "Fear The Voices" reached #11 on the Mainstream Rock list. A year later, a Live record was released, and a concert version of "Man In The Box" returned to the rock radio chart at #39, which would be Staley's last chart appearance with the group.

In 2002, Cantrell came back with a second solo album, Degradation Trip, and another top ten rock radio hit with "Anger Rising" (#10 Mainstream). But while Jerry's single was rising, Layne Staley himself was falling, found dead in April of 2002 of an overdose of heroin and cocaine. The band was dropped by Columbia, and it was thought that would be the end of Alice In Chains.

The remaining bandmates of Kinney, Inez, and Cantrell reunited originally for a benefit concert in 2005 that proved so successful they decided to start performing as Alice In Chains again. Eventually they officially made former Comes With The Fall singer William Duvall as their co-lead singer to fill in Staley's part. After a long wait, finally in 2009 the promo track "A Looking In View" appeared, and hit the rock charts (#12 Mainstream/#38 Alternative) and was nominated for yet another Grammy for Hard Rock Performance (which Them Crooked Vultures won for "New Fang"). The second relaese (and technically "first" single) from the reinvented band's Black Gives Way To Blue album, "Check My Brain", topped the Mainstream Rock chart and got nommed for the Grammy again (again losing to AC/DC's "War Machine"). It was also so far the band's only entry into Billboard's pop Hot 100 chart so far, peaking out at #92. There was also a second #1 Mainstream Rock hit with "Your Decision". However tragedy hit the band again as their former original bass player Mike Starr died overdosing in 2011.

That year the band was recording their next album The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here, which came out the following year. They had two more Mainstream Rock #1 hits with "Hollow" and "Stone", and the album was nominated for a Grammy for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical, which went to Daft Punk's Random Access Memories. Their latest album, Rainer Fog, arrived in 2018, with lead single "The One You Know" going to #9. Their most recent single, "Rainier Fog", went to #22, and the album was nominated this year for Best Rock Album, which Greta Van Fleet won for From The Fires.

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And here's the band performing "No Excuses" on MTV's Unplugged...