On This Day— “Facelift” became the first grunge album to be certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), achieving this feat September 11, 1991.
“Nutshell” originally appeared on Alice in Chains’ 1994 EP Jar of Flies, but it gained one of its most powerful interpretations during the band’s MTV Unplugged performance in 1996, one of the last major shows with Layne Staley. Even more stripped-down and vulnerable than the studio version, the acoustic performance laid bare the loneliness and pain in Staley’s lyrics.
Marked by the band’s visibly emotional delivery, it has since become one of the most revered performances in Alice in Chains’ catalog, especially in the years following Layne’s death.