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MTV Unplugged in New York

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MTV Unplugged in New York is a live album by the American grunge band Nirvana. It features an acoustic performance taped at Sony Music Studios in New York City on November 18, 1993, for the television series MTV Unplugged. The show was directed by Beth McCarthy and first aired on the cable television network MTV on December 16, 1993. As opposed to traditional practice on the television series, the band played a setlist composed of mainly lesser-known material and cover versions of songs by The Vaselines, David Bowie, Lead Belly, and Meat Puppets, whose Cris and Curt Kirkwood joined Nirvana onstage.

MTV Unplugged in New York was the first Nirvana album released following the death of Kurt Cobain. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, and has become the group's most successful posthumous release, having been certified 5x platinum in the United States by 1997.[2] It also won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in 1996. The performance was released on DVD in 2007.

The performance

Nirvana had been in negotiations with MTV to appear on its acoustic-based show MTV Unplugged for some time. It was while touring with the Meat Puppets that Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain finally accepted.[3] The band wanted to do something different from a typical MTV Unplugged episode for its performance. According to drummer Dave Grohl, "We'd seen the other Unpluggeds and didn't like many of them, because most bands would treat them like rock shows—play their hits like it was Madison Square Garden, except with acoustic guitars." The group looked at Mark Lanegan's 1990 album The Winding Sheet as a source of inspiration. Among the ideas the band members came up with included covering David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World" and inviting members of the Meat Puppets to join them on stage.[4] Still, the prospect of performing an entirely acoustic show made Cobain nervous.[3]

The band dedicated two days to rehearsals. The rehearsal sessions were tense and difficult, with the band running into problems performing various songs. During the sessions, Cobain disagreed with MTV as to how the performance should be presented. Producer Alex Coletti recollected that the network was unhappy with the band's choice of the Meat Puppets as guests ("They wanted to hear the 'right' names-Eddie Vedder or Tori Amos or God knows who", Coletti recalled) and the dearth of hit Nirvana songs on the setlist.[5] Upset, the day before filming was set to take place, Cobain refused to play. However, he appeared at the studio the following afternoon. Cobain was suffering from drug withdrawal and nervousness at the time; one observer said, "There was no joking, no smiles, no fun coming from him... Therefore, everyone was more than a little worried about his performance."[3]

Nirvana taped its performance for MTV Unplugged on November 18, 1993, at Sony Studios in New York City. Despite the show's premise, Cobain insisted on running his acoustic guitar through his amplifier and effects pedals. Coletti built a fake box in front of the amplifier to disguise it as a monitor wedge. Coletti said, "It was Kurt's security blanket. He was used to hearing this guitar through his Fender. He wanted those effects. You can hear it on 'The Man Who Sold The World.' It's an acoustic guitar, but he's obviously going through an amp." Nirvana was augmented by guitarist Pat Smear and cellist Lori Goldston, who had been touring with the band.[5] Cobain suggested that the stage be decorated with stargazer lilies, black candles, and a crystal chandelier. Cobain's request prompted the show's producer to ask him, "You mean like a funeral?", to which the singer replied, "Exactly. Like a funeral."[6]

Unlike many artists who appeared on the show, Nirvana filmed its entire performance in a single take.[7] The band's fourteen-song setlist included a single song from its debut album, Bleach, four songs from the 1991 album Nevermind, three tracks from the then-recently released In Utero, and six cover songs.[6] The group shied away from playing its better-known songs; the only hit the band performed was its 1992 single "Come as You Are".[7] Ten songs in, Cris and Curt Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets joined the band onstage to perform three of their group's songs with Nirvana. The set ended with a performance of a traditional song "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" arranged by blues musician Lead Belly. This rendition has been regarded by many as one of the greatest live single song performances of all time.[8] As The Atlantic critic Andrew Wallace Chamings described, "For the final line, 'I would shiver the whole night through,' Cobain jumps up an octave, forcing him to strain so far he screams and cracks. He hits the word 'shiver' so hard that the band stops, as if a fight broke out at a sitcom wedding. Next he howls the word 'whole' and then does something very strange in the brief silence that follows, something that’s hard to describe: He opens his piercingly blue eyes so suddenly it feels like someone or something else is looking out under the bleached lank fringe, with a strange clarity. Then he finishes the song."[8] After the band finished, Cobain argued with the show's producers, who wanted an encore. Cobain refused because he felt he could not top the performance of that song.[9]

Release and reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[10]
Blender[11]
Christgau's Consumer GuideA[12]
Entertainment WeeklyA[13]
Los Angeles Times[14]
NME9/10[15]
Q[16]
Rolling Stone[17]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[18]
Sputnikmusic4/5[19]

After Cobain was found dead in April 1994, MTV aired the Nirvana episode of MTV Unplugged repeatedly.[20] In order to fulfill demand for new Nirvana material and to counter bootlegging, DGC announced in August 1994 that it would be releasing a double album titled Verse Chorus Verse, which was to include live performances from 1989 to 1994, as well as the entire MTV Unplugged performance. However, the task of compiling the album was too emotionally difficult for the surviving band members, so the project was cancelled a week after the official announcement.[21] Instead, Novoselic and Grohl opted to commercially release just the Unplugged performance.[22] Scott Litt, who had produced the performance, returned to produce the record.[5]

MTV Unplugged in New York was released on November 1, 1994. The following week, it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and sold 310,500 copies, which was the highest first-week sales of Nirvana's career.[21] The album received positive reviews from critics.[23] Q magazine said that as an acoustic ensemble, the band sounded "most moving, possessed of a ragged glory",[16] while Rolling Stone found the record "stirring and occasionally brilliant" with "spare and gorgeous spots everywhere", highlighting the band's chemistry on "All Apologies" and Cobain's unaccompanied performance of "Pennyroyal Tea".[17] Ben Thompson from Mojo felt that unlike most "unplugged" releases, the format's "colourless, generic aspect" and not seeing the actual performance benefits Nirvana's record because of how intense it seems in light of Cobain's death.[24] In Entertainment Weekly, David Browne also felt unsettled listening to it: "Beyond inducing a sense of loss for Cobain himself, Unplugged elicits a feeling of musical loss, too: The delicacy and intimacy of these acoustic rearrangements hint at where Nirvana (or at least Cobain, who was said to be frustrated with the limitations of the band) could have gone."[13]

At the end of 1994, MTV Unplugged in New York was voted the fourth best album of the year in Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of prominent American critics published by The Village Voice.[25] Robert Christgau, the poll's supervisor, also ranked the album fourth in his own year-end list,[26] deeming it a testament to Cobain's depth of feeling, "sincerity" as a vocalist, and distinction from other sensitive alternative rock types such as Eddie Vedder and Lou Barlow: "The vocal performance he evokes is John Lennon's on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band. And he did it in one take."[12] By March 1995, the album had outsold In Utero with 6.8 million copies sold.[27] In a retrospective review for AllMusic, senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine said MTV Unplugged in New York was fearlessly confessional unlike most other records as it found Nirvana and Cobain "on the verge of discovering a new sound and style".[10] Jason Mendelsohn from PopMatters believed its intimate folk rock quality was radical from a band that had revolutionized rock music the way they had and from a musician as introverted as Cobain, "as crass of a business move as it was" by their record label.[28] In The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), journalist Charles M. Young called it the band's "second masterpiece", alongside Nevermind, and claimed that Cobain could have "revolutionized folk music the same way he had rock" because of his striking voice, exceptional taste in covering songs, and the quality of his own songs, which proved to be great with "a loud band bashing away behind you" or "with just an acoustic guitar".[18]

According to Acclaimed Music, MTV Unplugged in New York is the 316th most ranked record on critics' all-time lists.[29] In 2012, it was placed at number 313 on Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time".[30] The magazine also named it the 95th best album of the 1990s.[31] NME placed MTV Unplugged in New York at number 1 on their list of the "50 Greatest Live Albums".[32] In July 2014, Guitar World ranked MTV Unplugged in New York at number 30 in their "Superunknown: 50 Iconic Albums That Defined 1994" list.[33] The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.[34]

Track listing

All songs written by Kurt Cobain, except where noted.

  1. "About a Girl"  – 3:37
  2. "Come as You Are"  – 4:13
  3. "Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam" (Eugene Kelly, Frances McKee) – 4:37
  4. "The Man Who Sold the World" (David Bowie) – 4:20
  5. "Pennyroyal Tea"  – 3:40
  6. "Dumb"  – 2:52
  7. "Polly"  – 3:16
  8. "On a Plain"  – 3:44
  9. "Something in the Way"  – 4:01
  10. "Plateau" (Curt Kirkwood) – 3:37
  11. "Oh, Me" (Kirkwood) – 3:26
  12. "Lake of Fire" (Kirkwood) – 2:56
  13. "All Apologies"  – 4:23
  14. "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" (Traditional; arranged by Lead Belly) – 5:08

Personnel

Nirvana
Additional musicians

Meat Puppets

Production

Charts

Certifications

Region Certification Certified units/sales
Argentina (CAPIF)[57] 3× Platinum 180,000^
Australia (ARIA)[58] 5× Platinum 350,000^
Austria (IFPI Austria)[59] 2× Platinum 100,000*
Belgium (BEA)[60] 3× Platinum 150,000*
Brazil (Pro-Música Brasil)[61] Platinum 250,000*
Canada (Music Canada)[62] 9× Platinum 900,000^
France (SNEP)[63] 2× Platinum 600,000*
Italy (FIMI)[64] Gold 25,000*
Japan (RIAJ)[65] Platinum 200,000^
Poland (ZPAV)[66] Platinum 0*
Spain (PROMUSICAE)[67] 2× Platinum 200,000^
Sweden (GLF)[68] Platinum 100,000^
Switzerland (IFPI Switzerland)[69] 2× Platinum 100,000^
United Kingdom (BPI)[70] 2× Platinum 600,000^
United States (RIAA)[71] 5× Platinum 5,000,000^
Summaries
Europe (IFPI)[72] 2× Platinum 2,000,000*

* Sales figures based on certification alone.
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

DVD release

The MTV Unplugged In New York performance was released on DVD on November 20, 2007. The DVD release featured the entire taping, including the two songs ("Something in the Way" and "Oh Me") excluded from the broadcast version. Bonus features consisted of the original broadcast version of the performance, a 1999 MTV special titled Bare Witness: Nirvana Unplugged featuring the recollections of MTV producers and audience members, and five songs taped during the pre-show rehearsal: "Come as You Are", "Polly", "Plateau", "Pennyroyal Tea", and "The Man Who Sold the World".[citation needed]

Charts

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