![MTV (Logo) Unplugged In New York [VINYL]](https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61kVo9GKvjL._AC_UL165_SR165,165_.jpg)
![Nevermind [VINYL]](https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61ZhsEYnSdL._AC_UL165_SR165,165_.jpg)
![Nirvana [VINYL]](https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51eEh784GjL._AC_UL165_SR165,165_.jpg)
The first one being, naturally, Nevermind.
Of course, back in the day, I had all of them, the live albums, B-sides and other off-cuts, videos official and bootleg, and the fudge t-shirt. Where did all those things go? A car boot sale? The answer is lost in the spiral.
Youtube helped me find my way back to Nirvana, the videos, and the responses of a younger generation openly curious about Grunge. What was it all about, they wonder. To us, it was the medium of our angsty days. Loud guitars were the order of the day, and songs about pretty despair. It was all very raw and unpolished, stripped back and soulful. A deliberate reaction against the excesses of '80s stadium rock. Slackers striking back against a world that had little room for their feelings. Better to use a guitar and mic, some fx pedals, rather than an automatic weapon, right? Of course right.
I say that Unplugged (rec.1993, released 1994) is the other essential album, but the concert recorded in New York for MTV begins with a wonderful bit of advertising by Kurt Cobain. He plugs Nirvana's first album: "Good evening...This is off our first record. Most people don't own it." The band then goes into About A Girl, and what a song it is! I can tell you, that plug for...what was it called, Bleach? It worked on me, back then. With the passing of the years we inevitably pare things back, and so it has to be Unplugged and Nevermind, if it's gonna be anything.
The set has a surprising number of covers in it, although none of them are famous songs exactly, not even the Bowie track. If anything Nirvana made Bowie's track famous by singling it out. Nirvana are joined by a cellist, Lori Goldston, as well as new member Pat Smear (guitar), and for three (three!) Meat Puppets songs, well, the Meat Puppets themselves. I guess one can understand why MTV execs were nonplussed about all these weird songs and the general absence of Nirvana's big-name numbers (no Teen Spirit, no In Bloom, no Lithium). The set closes with an unforgettable rendition of a blues number, Where Did You Sleep Last Night?
Unplugged was crucial to my becoming a Nirvana fan in my youth. It revealed the music behind the noise, the distortion, and helped me hear the noise for what it was, a vehicle for the expression, its intensification. I was able to appreciate Nevermind and In Utero, and beyond that all loud guitar records, because Unplugged unlocked them for me. Now, it's the fragile beauty of these arrangements that I respond to. Was Kurt Cobain the Bob Dylan of the '90s? Neither man had/has a beautiful voice, or the most polished singing technique, but their sincerity has always overriden gripes about nasality or gruffness, or in Kurt's case all that shrieking. Could I have loved the Pixies if it hadn't been for Kurt bellowing "My girl! My girl! Don't lie to me! Tell me where did you sleep last night?!"?
Not even six months later he was dead.
This is Kurt's and Nirvana's swansong, and in a way the Grunge movement's heart got shot out when Nirvana ended. This is a testament to how good they were, and for how short a space of time, but how rich a period.
Unmissable.
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Top reviews from other countries
- Joseph JohnsonReviewed in the United States on 19 November 2024
Kurt Cobains at his greatest!
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Gregorio JimenezReviewed in Mexico on 8 October 2023
Excelente compra! Tanto el arte como las citas están excelentes.
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Nickel rien à dire emballages top.Reviewed in Belgium on 2 December 2024
Tout est top
