Local promoter Randy Hauser became aware of the band at a concert, and offered to pay for demo recordings. However, one day before the band was due to record at the Music Bank studio in Washington, police shut down the studio during the biggest marijuana raid in the state's history. The final demo – dubbed The Treehouse Tapes – found its way to managers Kelly Curtis and Susan Silver, who also managed the Seattle-based Soundgarden. Curtis and Silver passed the demo to Columbia Records' A&R representative Nick Terzo, who set up an appointment with label president Don Ienner. Based on The Treehouse Tapes (sold by the band at shows), Ienner signed Alice in Chains to Columbia in 1989.
Alice in Chains became a top priority of the label, who released the band's first official recording in July 1990: the promotional EP We Die Young. Its lead single and title song became a hit on metal radio. After its success, the label rushed Alice in Chains' debut album into production with producer Dave Jerden. "I told Jerry Cantrell, ‘Metallica took Tony Iommi and sped him up. What you’ve done is you’ve slowed him down again,’" Jerden recalled. "He looked at me and said, ‘You got it.’ That’s how I got the gig."
Drummer Sean Kinney claims to have played this album with a broken hand:
I almost didn't play on the record - they started rehearsing with the drummer from Mother Love Bone, Greg Gilmore. I was sitting there playing with one hand, guiding him through it. Dave Jerden came in and they started to try to do it. He was like, 'Screw it - pull the plug. This is not going to be the same.' Luckily, we took a tiny bit of time off. I had that cast on for a while, and was like, 'I can't miss this.' I cut my cast off in the studio and kept a bucket of ice by the drum set. Kept my hand iced down and played with a broken hand. I tried not to do that again - your first big break, and you fuck it up.
Facelift was recorded at London Bridge Studio in Seattle and Capitol Recording Studio in Hollywood from December 1989 to April 1990. Footage from the Facelift sessions can be found on Alice in Chains' Music Bank: The Videos DVD.
Guitarist Jerry Cantrell stated the album was intended to have a "moody aura" that was a "direct result of the brooding atmosphere and feel of Seattle." Regarding the music for "Man in the Box", Cantrell said, "That whole beat and grind of that is when we started to find ourselves; it helped Alice become what it was." Cantrell also credited "I Can't Remember" for helping the band find its sound. "It Ain't Like That" came out of a riff that Cantrell cited as a mistake, however he called it "a cool mistake."
Cantrell called "Love, Hate, Love" the "masterpiece of that record," adding about the song that Staley's vocals are "amazing" and that it features one of his favorite guitar solos he ever performed.
Regarding the lyrical content, Cantrell said he wrote "We Die Young" after "riding the bus to rehearsal and [seeing] all these 9, 10, 11 year old kids with beepers dealing drugs. The sight of a 10 year old kid with a beeper and a cell phone dealing drugs equaled "We Die Young" to me." In a recorded interview with MuchMusic USA, vocalist Layne Staley stated that the lyrics for "Man in the Box" are about censorship in the mass media, and "I was really stoned when I wrote it."
Discussing "Bleed the Freak", Cantrell stated that the lyrics represent "us against the world, those people who put you down."
Cantrell wrote "Sunshine" about his mother's death.
Facelift was released on August 21, 1990, peaking at number 42 in the summer of 1991 on the Billboard 200 chart. It was the first album from the grunge movement to reach the top 50 in America on the Billboard 200, and the first to be certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America on September 11, 1991, followed by Nirvana's Nevermind on November 27, 1991.
Facelift included the singles "We Die Young", "Man in the Box", and "Sea of Sorrow", all of which had accompanying music videos. The album was a critical success, with "Hollywood" Steve Huey of AllMusic citing Facelift as "one of the most important records in establishing an audience for grunge and alternative rock among hard rock and heavy metal listeners."
Facelift was not an instant success, selling under 40,000 copies in the first six months of release, until MTV added "Man in the Box" to regular daytime rotation.
"Man in the Box" hit number 18 on the Mainstream Rock charts, with the album's follow up single, "Sea of Sorrow", reaching number 27, and in six weeks Facelift sold 400,000 copies in the US.
Alice in Chains was nominated for a Best Hard Rock Performance with Vocal Grammy Award in 1992 for "Man in the Box", but lost to Van Halen for their 1991 album For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. The music video for "Man in the Box" was nominated for Best Heavy Metal/Hard Rock Video at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards.
In June 2017, Ozzy Osbourne ranked Facelift at number 2 on his list of "10 Favourite Metal Albums".
The band continued to hone its audience, opening for such artists as Iggy Pop, Van Halen, Poison, and Extreme. In early 1991, Alice in Chains landed the opening slot for the Clash of the Titans with Anthrax, Megadeth, and Slayer, exposing the band to a wide metal audience. During the tour the band found themselves subject to some hostile audiences; however, Anthrax bassist Frank Bello recalls them earning the respect of others by standing up for themselves: "If there was a guy starting shit, Layne would jump into the audience and beat the FUCK outta that guy!" Michael Christopher of PopMatters observed "With 1990's Facelift, before Nirvana blew the scene wide open, Seattle’s Alice in Chains were getting a metal push, thrown on tour with the likes of Slayer and Megadeth, repeatedly booed off stage in a genre where they didn’t belong." The band later released the video compilation Live Facelift, which was filmed at the Moore Theatre in 1990.
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