Holy Shit. Nirvana's "MTV Unplugged In New York" Was Released 30 Years Ago
Holy moly man. 30 freaking years? Where does the time go?
Let's take a trip back, down memory lane shall we?
The year is 1993, Kurt Cobain is on top of the world. He's the frontman of the hottest band at the forefront of the hottest genre in music at the time- alternative rock. Hailing from Seattle, the hotbed of grunge, he and his Nirvana bandmates have taken their sound worldwide. It has culminated in one of the greatest televised musical performances of all time; Nirvana: Unplugged on MTV.
A little background on Unplugged. MTV today is a shell of its former 90's self. There's a direct correlation between 1990's MTV vs. today and 1990's Tara Reid
MTV in the 90s
MTV today
The point is MTV was the creme de la creme. You watched it in the morning while Sportscenter went to commercials, you watched it first thing when you got home from school, and you watched it at night.
Just look at this daily lineup from 1994
6AM- MTV's Rude Awakening
7AM - The Grind
7:30 - MTV's Rude Awakening
9AM - MTV Blocks
10AM-MTV Jams
12N - Music Videos
4PM - The Grind
4:30 - Lip Service
5PM - The Real World
5:30 - MTV's Most Wanted Jams
6PM - Music Videos
7PM - Alternative Nation
7:30 - Yo!
8PM - MTV Unplugged: Bob Dylan (N)
9PM - Dumb & Dumber Movie Special (N)
9:30 - House Of Style: Best Of '94 (N)
10PM -MTV's Xmas With Mariah Carey (N)
11PM- Beavis and Butthead
12md-Alternative Nation
1:30 - MTV Dreamtime
3AM - Beavis & Butthead
3:30 - MTV Dreamtime
Not one hole in the entire thing. Maybe House of Style but when you factor in that a young, fresh out of Dekalb, Illinois Cindy Crawford was hosting it, it wasn't too bad.
Today it’s rare to find music videos on MTV. It’s stockpiled full of Teen Mom type trash tv shows running in between pregnancy test commercials and quit-smoking PSAs. They're an afterthought now which is such a shame. The people responsible for programming should be ashamed of themselves.
Arguably the greatest program to ever be born from MTV was the “Unplugged” series.
Its premise was simple.
Get an artist or band in front of a small studio audience of die-hards and lucky SOBs, give them acoustic instruments with no amplifiers (hence unplugged) and let them go to town.
The result was magic.
Over and over again.
I’ll rank the best of the best below, but when Nirvana did their set in 1993 it was a game-changer.
Up until that show, the band had been seen as a group that had caught lightning in a bottle during the grunge explosion. The quintessential band your parents didn’t want you to listen to. Everything from their song titles, lyrics, cd covers, and press they received. Nirvana were fuckin badasses. Plus you have to take into account this was the 90s. There wasn’t porn at the flick of a button on your phone, there weren’t even cell phones, or internet, and music still came primarily from FM radio, cds, cassettes, and vinyl, and MTV. That was it.
So late summer of 1993 it's announced Nirvana will be doing Unplugged in November. Up until then, the series had seen Elton John, Joe Walsh, Paul McCartney (whose album release of the show caused it to explode), LL Cool J, Tribe Called Quest, Mariah Carey, Eric Clapton, and Pearl Jam to name a few. Monster names. Nirvana was known for their antics for breaking shit on stage and their crowds breaking noses in mosh pits. Nirvana shows were battles up by front of stage. The only time they really died down was when Cobain would crowd surf-
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Paul Bergen. Getty Images.So the idea of them doing a calm acoustical set was intriguing.
What took place was nothing short of epic.
For starters, the performance would be one of the last televised performances by Cobain, recorded on November 18, 1993, about five months before Cobain's death on April 5, 1994. Nirvana's setlist consisted of some of their b-sides, and covers of songs by David Bowie, Meat Puppets, Lead Belly, and The Vaselines. The only real commercial "hits" played during their performance were "Come as You Are", "Polly" and "All Apologies". This stood out from with other Unplugged performances, where artists mainly performed their hits and other originals. The performance was released on CD a year later as MTV Unplugged in New York, and ended up selling over 5 million copies and won Best Alternative Music Performance at the 38th Grammy Awards in 96.
Aside from the commercial success and critical accolades, the performance demonstrated Nirvana's, and Cobain's, genuine talent. They weren't some flavor of the month gimmick. These guys were musical geniuses. Sure, maybe their sound was a bit abrasive to some and wasn't everybody's cup of tea, but when you stripped down the moshing, guitar breaking, and electric guitars, you were left with 5 insanely talented men. And holy shit, Cobain had an incredible (and unique) voice, and could play guitar pretty fuckin well.
This was THE cd to own in the mid-90s.
The tragic fact that Cobain took his own life (allegedly) a few months later, at the age of 27, only added to the allure of the performance. All of a sudden this incredible set had become this transcendent moment in musical history. This band that had just arrived 3 years prior and burned white-hot was no more because it's frontman was gone too soon.
What we are left with was an acoustic masterpiece.
Here's the entire thing on Youtube
and spotify and apple