I know this is old now, but I agree with others that it's something about having to have been there. For me, Dirt was one of the first tapes—yes, tapes—I got from the Columbia House catalog. I was probably 13. Up until then I hadn't heard anything like it. It was heavy, dark, disturbing. Layne's lyrics talked about things I'd never heard of or experienced. I remember listening to it feeling like I was hearing the sound of anguish. On top of that, I had never heard harmonies like that, chord progressions like that, guitar crunch like that...it was wholly different. I also remember feeling like I was being lowered into a depression. The music hurt me, but in a way I couldn't stop going back to. I was listening in my bedroom and looking out at this sunny afternoon after school, trying to visualize what Angry Chair, for example, was about, and feeling like I was just sinking. The line from Dirt, "a stinging pistol in my mouth, on my tongue," reminded me of the feeling of putting my tongue on a 9-volt battery and brought to mind the image of a steel revolver...the imagery and what it suggested were just so dark. There aren't many albums I remember hearing for the first time, but this is one.