![]() ![]() You don't have to be a gearhead to realize Nirvana's MTV Unplugged in New York is hardly "unplugged." Everyone used acoustic guitars, and Kurt Cobain's guitar, a Martin D-18E, was outfitted with electric pickups as well as a tone and volume knob. The stories behind the album won’t change the way it sounds, or the way it makes you feel, but they do add a new layer of meaning to the performance. In the weeks leading up to the show, the band was breaking up, producers were freaking out, and Cobain was doing his best to stay clean. The narrative that Nirvana's Unplugged album is "Kurt Cobain’s final goodbye" is too suggestive and hyperbolic, but the stories behind the filming provide a new and interesting lens through which the performance can be seen. No one in Nirvana knew that Cobain would take his life only a few months later, but that’s the way audiences contextualized the recording. They were tired of playing the hits, and they wanted to give their fans something special.Īfter Cobain’s passing, the Unplugged album took on the grim tone of a funeral - each song was suddenly a dirge that signaled the singer’s fate. The group, their friends, and MTV producers have spoken at length about the concert, and they’ve noted that while the band was falling apart at the time, they were having a blast. The performance, recorded on November 18, 1993, has been called “personal" and “raw,” but it’s just Nirvana doing what they do best. In hindsight, the show mirrors Cobain’s life, one that was complicated by mental health issues and substance dependency. It was a lark, an afterthought, something recorded in roughly an hour that the band didn’t plan to release. It was ultimately Nirvana’s final album, giving fans one of the most unbelievable Kurt Cobain performances, as well as a strange foreshadowing of Cobain’s passing. ![]() Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York was never meant to be a big deal. ![]()
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