MTV Unplugged in New York

MTV Unplugged began airing on MTV in 1989, with artists performing their hits on acoustic instruments in intimate settings. Nirvana had been in negotiations to appear for some time; Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain finally accepted while touring with the Meat Puppets. 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." The group looked at Mark Lanegan's 1990 album The Winding Sheet, which Cobain had performed on, for inspiration. 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. Still, the prospect of an entirely acoustic show reportedly made Cobain nervous. == Rehearsal ==

Nirvana rehearsed for two days, at SST Rehearsal Facility, in Weehawken, New Jersey. 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." 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." == Recording ==

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. Coletti asked, "You mean like a funeral?" Cobain replied, "Exactly. Like a funeral." 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." 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. "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." 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". Mark Lanegan had covered this song previously on The Winding Sheet (1990) with Cobain on guitar. 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. == Releases ==

The Nirvana episode of MTV Unplugged was broadcast in December 1993. It was 45 minutes long and omitted the songs "Something in the Way" and "Oh Me". After Cobain died in April 1994, MTV aired the episode repeatedly. 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; the group opted to release just the Unplugged performance. Scott Litt, who produced the performance, returned to produce the record. 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". == Reception ==

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. The album received positive reviews from critics. Tom Hibbert of Q said that as an acoustic ensemble, Nirvana sounded "most moving, possessed of a ragged glory". 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". 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. 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." 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. Robert Christgau, the poll's supervisor, also ranked the album fourth in his own year-end list, 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." Retrospective In a retrospective review for AllMusic, senior editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine said MTV Unplugged in New York was "fearlessly confessional", as it found Nirvana and Cobain "on the verge of discovering a new sound and style". In The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004), journalist Charles M. Young called it Nirvana's "second masterpiece" after Nevermind, and claimed that Cobain could have "revolutionized folk music the same way he had rock" because of his striking voice; he said his songs worked equally well with "a loud band bashing away behind you" or "with just an acoustic guitar". Maeve McDermott of USA Today called it "an album of transcendent folk rock that glimpsed what could've been the band's next post-grunge era, had frontman Kurt Cobain survived long enough to see its musical leanings through." The Guardian wrote that MTV Unplugged in New York had become "inextricably linked" to Cobain's death a few months after its recording, citing the funereal set design and the sense that Nirvana was "on the verge of a new musical direction, beyond their grunge roots". It named an image from the performance an "era-defining photograph". A 2013 article by critic Andrew Wallace Chamings in The Atlantic described it as one of the greatest live performances of all time: In 2012, Rolling Stone placed MTV Unplugged in New York number 313 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". The 2020 edition of the list placed it at number 279. Rolling Stone also named it the 95th best album of the 1990s. In 2012, Rolling Stone readers voted it the 8th-best live album. NME named MTV Unplugged in New York the greatest live album in 2011, and Kerrang listed it among the 11 best live albums of all time. In 2014, Guitar World ranked named MTV Unplugged in New York one of the "50 iconic albums that defined 1994", and in 2019 named it one of the best live albums. In 2020, the Telegraph named it the 13th-greatest live albums of all time, and 2020, Planet Rock named it one of the 100 greatest live albums. It was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Reviewing the DVD release in 2007, the Los Angeles Times wrote that it "deserves a place on the rock TV history shelf alongside the informal, sit-down section of Elvis Presley's epic comeback special in 1968". In 2018, during their divorce settlement proceedings, the court rejected Silva's request for spousal support, ownership of their house, and reimbursement of his legal fees but awarded him the guitar. In 2020, it was sold at Julien's Auctions for US$6 million to Peter Freedman of Røde Microphones, making it the most expensive guitar ever sold at auction. ==Track listing==

Credits adapted from CD liner notes. Nirvana • Kurt Cobain – guitar, vocals • Krist Novoselic – acoustic bass; accordion (3), guitar (10–12) • Dave Grohl – drums, vocals; acoustic bass (3) • Pat Smear – guitar Additional musicians • Lori Goldston – cello (3, 4, 6–9, 13, 14) • Curt Kirkwood – guitar (10–12) • Cris Kirkwood – acoustic bass (10–12), back-up vocals (10, 12) Technical • Alex Coletti – production (MTV) • Nirvana – production (sound) • Scott Litt – production (sound) • Stephen Marcussen – mastering • Robert Fisher – art direction, design • Jennifer Youngblood-Grohl – photography • Frank Micelotta – photography ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts Decade-end charts DVD charts == Certifications ==

{{certification Table Entry|title=MTV Unplugged in New York |artist=Nirvana |type=album |region=Argentina DVD release == References ==