Dirt is the second studio album by American rock band Alice in Chains, released on September 29, 1992 by Columbia Records.

The album's lyrics explore depression, pain, anger, anti-social behavior, relationships, drug (primarily heroin) addiction, war, death, and other emotionally charged topics.

It has since been certified 5× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), making Dirt the band's highest selling album to date.

produced, engineered and mixed by Rick Parashar, was recorded before the album, and first appeared on the soundtrack to the 1992 movie Singles.

[2] Dirt was recorded during the Los Angeles riots that erupted following the acquittal of four LAPD officers caught on camera beating unarmed black motorist Rodney King.

They took Slayer vocalist Tom Araya with them and went to the Joshua Tree desert for four or five days until things calmed down, then moved back into the studio and started recording the album.

"[15] Staley was not the only one who went through heavy drug use; drummer Sean Kinney and bassist Mike Starr were also struggling with alcohol addiction.

The first theme is about "dealing with kind of a personal anguish and turmoil, which turns into drugs to ease that pain, and being confident that that was the answer in a way.

"[21] Staley later expressed regret about the lyrical content of some songs on Dirt, explaining, "I wrote about drugs, and I didn't think I was being unsafe or careless by writing about them ...

[24]In the liner notes of 1999's Music Bank box set collection, Cantrell cited "Junkhead" and "God Smack" as "the most openly honest" songs about drug use.

"[8] Discussing the title track "Dirt", Cantrell stated that "the words Layne put to it were so heavy, I've never given him something and not thought it was gonna be the most bad-assed thing I was going to hear.

[8] It features Tom Araya of thrash metal band Slayer on vocals, as well as Layne Staley.

[27] Cantrell explained the song in the liner notes of 1999's Music Bank box set: "["Down in a Hole"]'s in my top three, personally.

", was written by Cantrell as a tribute to his friend and late lead singer of Mother Love Bone, Andrew Wood,[28] who died of a drug overdose in 1990.

"[8] The album's cover art features a nude woman half-buried in a cracked desert landscape.

The cover was photographed by Rocky Schenck, who created the image along with the album's art director, Mary Maurer.

[31] The cover shoot took place at Schenck's Hollywood studio on June 14, 1992, with the supervision of drummer Sean Kinney.

At the 6:55 mark of the video, a woman (played by Sacha Senisch) is seen lying on a cracked desert floor similarly to Dirt's cover.

[33] "A Looking in View" was featured on Alice in Chains' fourth studio album, Black Gives Way to Blue, released exactly 17 years after Dirt, on September 29, 2009.

In a retrospective review, Steve Huey of AllMusic said "Dirt is Alice in Chains' major artistic statement and the closest they ever came to recording a flat-out masterpiece.

It's a primal, sickening howl from the depths of Layne Staley's heroin addiction, and one of the most harrowing concept albums ever recorded.

"[56] Chris Gill of Guitar World called Dirt "huge and foreboding, yet eerie and intimate," and "sublimely dark and brutally honest.

[65] In 2011, Joe Robinson of Loudwire named Dirt as one of the best metal albums of the 1990s, alongside other albums such as Megadeth's Rust in Peace and Tool's Ænima, writing "In the battle between metal and grunge, Alice in Chains are a rare band that is embraced by fans of both genres.

The band members themselves didn't bother much with labels, they just churned out some of the finest alt-metal with classics like 'Would?,' 'Rooster' and 'Them Bones' leading their charge all the way to the headlining spot on Lollapalooza '93.

Days before the tour began, Staley broke his foot in an ATV accident, forcing him to use crutches on stage.

[57] During the tour, Starr was fired following the Hollywood Rock concert in Rio de Janeiro on January 22, 1993, and was replaced by former Ozzy Osbourne bassist Mike Inez.

[69][70] During June–August 1993, Alice in Chains joined Primus, Tool, Rage Against the Machine and Babes in Toyland for the alternative rock festival Lollapalooza, which was the last major tour the band played with Staley.

Before the name "Iron Gland" was revealed, it was labeled in some online databases as "Intro (Dream Sequence)".

On the back cover of the edition in which "Iron Gland" is track 9, "Hate to Feel", "Angry Chair", "Down in a Hole" and "Would?"

"Fear the Voices" was released as a single in 1999 to promote Music Bank and became a radio hit that same year.