It’s easy to dismiss the band as a sort of mascot for the 1990s the thrift-store clad, lo-fi, high volume antidote to the spandex excess of the 1980s. They were incredibly gifted musicians.Ī few specific Unplugged performances came up again and again in an informal poll of colleagues and friends. Their Unplugged set is riveting-and a reminder that Alice in Chains wasn’t just a bunch of dudes from Seattle who got a record deal on the back of a passing cultural trend. When Alice in Chains performed in 1996, lead singer Layne Staley was in the grip of crippling depression and drug addiction, hadn’t performed in several years, and would soon step away from public life all together. Unplugged often generated that kind of electricity, coaxing incredible, genre-bending performances out of many of the musicians it highlighted. Ask anyone who has ever performed in a high school band or a community theater production-you can hit all the right notes and say all the right lines, but some nights have an electricity to them that can’t be explained. Even among all that choreography and rehearsal, some nights are higher energy than others. There’s a lot of show biz in live music these days, with costumes, video components, dance routines, and elaborate sets. With the decline of album sales, touring has become the most reliable way for artists to make money. It also highlights the magic alchemy of performance. Unplugged required an ability to connect with an audience, choose a great set list, and actually make great music. You can’t smash a guitar, jump into the crowd, or rely on back-up dancers to fill the stage. The point of the show was never to promote a specific album, and the songs that emerged as hits were often covers. There’s nowhere to hide a mediocre song, or off night, in this kind of setting. The set lists feel autobiographical in a way most tours don’t. Rod Stewart reunited with Ronnie Wood, from their days in the band Faces. Natalie Merchant sings “Because the Night” with as much force as Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith combined on the 10,000 Maniacs’ wildly joyful Unplugged. Nirvana added a cello, as well as three additional musicians. These standouts vary wildly in genre, but they share a few common qualities: special guests, surprising covers, and a reimagining of the structure of the band itself. But while the format has been much-copied since, it’s still great, and the best episodes are worth revisiting. Two decades later, Unplugged is still airing new episodes. Dozens of artists, including A Tribe Called Quest, Alanis Morrisette, and Alicia Keyes, have done Unplugged sets, and while there are plenty of mediocre performances in the mix, when the show is good, it’s transcendent. In 2003 it was ranked number 311 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.When MTV Unplugged launched in 1989, the format was novel and refreshing: take musicians used to performing huge stadium shows with electric guitars, synthesizers, or turntables, and have them play an intimate, all-acoustic show. The album won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album. MTV Unplugged in New York includes two songs which were not aired on the original television broadcast of the concert: "Something in the Way" and "Oh, Me". It was hailed by critics as proof the band was able to transcend the grunge sound they were commonly associated with. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and has become the group's most successful posthumous release, selling five million copies in America by 1997. MTV Unplugged in New York was the first Nirvana album released in the wake of the April 1994 suicide of singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain. As opposed to traditional practice on the television series, Nirvana played a setlist composed of mainly lesser-known material and cover versions of songs by The Vaselines, David Bowie, Meat Puppets (during which they were joined by two members of the group onstage) and Lead Belly. The show was directed by Beth McCarthy and first aired on the cable television network MTV on December 14, 1993.
NIRVANA MTV UNPLUGGED ADDITIONAL MUSICIANS SERIES
It features an acoustic performance taped at Sony Music Studios in New York City on Novemfor the television series MTV Unplugged. MTV Unplugged in New York is a live album by the American grunge band Nirvana. As one of the best albums of 1994, it was best summed up by Mojo as "…a performance of raw vulnerability that served as the perfect epitaph for poor Kurt Cobain".
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