MTV Unplugged in New York

MTV Unplugged began airing on MTV in 1989, with artists performing their hits on acoustic instruments in intimate settings.[2] Nirvana had been in negotiations to appear for some time; Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain finally accepted while touring with the Meat Puppets.[3] Nirvana wanted to do something different from a typical MTV Unplugged 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."[4]

The group looked at Mark Lanegan's 1990 album The Winding Sheet for 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.[5] Still, the prospect of an entirely acoustic show reportedly made Cobain nervous.[3]

Nirvana rehearsed for two days, at SST Rehearsal Facility, in Weehawken, New Jersey.[6] The rehearsals were tense and difficult, with the band running into problems performing various songs. During the sessions, Cobain disagreed with MTV about the performance. Producer Alex Coletti recalled that the network was unhappy with the lack of hit Nirvana songs, and with the choice of the Meat Puppets as guests, saying: "They wanted to hear the 'right' names - Eddie Vedder or Tori Amos or God knows who."[7]

The day before filming, Cobain refused to play, but 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 ... everyone was more than a little worried about his performance."[3]

Nirvana taped their performance on November 18, 1993, at Sony Studios in New York City. Cobain suggested the stage be decorated with stargazer lilies, black candles, and a crystal chandelier. Producer Alex Coletti asked, "You mean like a funeral?" Cobain replied, "Exactly. Like a funeral."[8]

Nirvana was joined by guitarist Pat Smear and cellist Lori Goldston, who had been touring with them. Despite the show's acoustic 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."[7]

Unlike many artists who appeared on the show, Nirvana filmed the entire performance of 14 songs in a single take.[9] It included one song from their debut Bleach (1989), four from their second album Nevermind (1991), three from the recently released In Utero, and six covers.[8] As In Utero's "All Apologies" had not yet been released as a single, the only contemporary hit the band performed was the Nevermind single "Come as You Are".[9]

Cris and Curt Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets joined to perform three of their songs with Nirvana. "Kurt purposely wanted the Meat Puppets songs to be a struggle for him vocally," remarked Coletti. "So instead of finding a key he could sing them in comfortably, he chose to strain."[10]

The set ended with a performance of the traditional "Where Did You Sleep Last Night", following the arrangement of blues musician Lead Belly, whom Cobain described before the song as "his favorite performer ever". 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.[11]

The Nirvana episode of MTV Unplugged was first broadcast in December 1993.[12] It was 45 minutes long and omitted the songs "Something in the Way" and "Oh Me". After Cobain was found dead in April 1994, MTV aired the episode repeatedly.[13] To meet demand for new Nirvana material and to counter bootlegging, in August 1994, DGC announced a double album, Verse Chorus Verse, comprising live performances including the entire MTV Unplugged performance. However, the task of compiling the album was too emotionally difficult for Novoselic and Grohl, so the project was cancelled a week after the announcement;[14] the group opted to release just the Unplugged performance.[15] Scott Litt, who produced the performance, returned to produce the record.[7] The performance was released on DVD in 2007.[16]

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[17]
Blender	[18]
Christgau's Consumer Guide	A[19]
Entertainment Weekly	A[20]
The Guardian	[21]
NME	9/10[22]
Pitchfork	9.5/10[23]
Q	[24]
Rolling Stone	[25]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[26]

MTV Unplugged in New York was released on November 1, 1994. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and sold 310,500 copies, the highest first-week sales of Nirvana's career.[14] By March 1995, the album had outsold In Utero with 6.8 million copies sold.[27]

The album received positive reviews from critics.[28] Tom Hibbert of Q said that as an acoustic ensemble, Nirvana sounded "most moving, possessed of a ragged glory".[24] Rolling Stone writer Barbara O'Dair 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".[25] 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.[29] In Entertainment Weekly, David Browne 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."[20]

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.[30] Robert Christgau, the poll's supervisor, also ranked the album fourth in his own year-end list,[31] 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."[19]

Nirvana

• Kurt Cobain – lead vocals, electro-acoustic guitar (1–9, 13, 14)
• Krist Novoselic – acoustic bass (1, 2, 4, 6-9, 13, 14) accordion (3), acoustic rhythm guitar (10–12)
• Dave Grohl – drums (1, 2, 4, 6-14), backing vocals, acoustic bass (3)
• Pat Smear – acoustic guitar (1–4, 6–9, 13, 14)

Additional musicians

• Lori Goldston – cello (3, 4, 6–9, 13, 14)
• Cris Kirkwood – acoustic bass, backing vocals (10–12)
• Curt Kirkwood – acoustic lead guitar (10–12)

Production

• Alex Coletti – production
• Robert Fisher – art direction, design
• Scott Litt – production
• Stephen Marcussen – mastering
• Frank Micelotta – photography
• Jennifer Youngblood-Grohl – photography
• Nirvana – production

The MTV Unplugged In New York performance was released on DVD on November 20, 2007. The DVD release featured the entire taping, in 5.1 DTS surround sound, 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 full-band songs taped during the pre-show rehearsal: "Come as You Are", "Polly", "Plateau", "Pennyroyal Tea", and "The Man Who Sold the World".[147]