MTV Unplugged
The stool, the acoustic guitar, the candles: the MTV series that had rock stars strip their hits down to wood and strings, and turned a few of those nights into era-defining albums. Eric Clapton's 1992 set became the best-selling live album ever, and Nirvana's November 1993 session, staged with lilies and black candles "like a funeral," became the band's farewell.
MTV Unplugged was created by producers Robert Small and Jim Burns; the first episode was taped on October 31, 1989, and aired that November 26. Songwriter Jules Shear hosted the first thirteen episodes before the host role was dropped, and associate producer Alex Coletti took over production and ran the show through 2001. It is often said to have been inspired by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora's acoustic turn at the 1989 Video Music Awards, but the show was already in production; what the showrunners have admitted is that it was first meant for young, up-and-coming artists rather than stadium acts. The word itself became shorthand for music usually played on electric instruments rendered on acoustic ones, bass amp and all.
The early 1990s made it an institution. Paul McCartney's 1991 appearance became Unplugged (The Official Bootleg). In 1992 Mariah Carey's cover of the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There" went to No. 1 on the Hot 100 and her EP peaked at No. 3 on the album chart, and Eric Clapton's set, recorded at Bray Studios in England, produced an album that sold 26 million copies worldwide, the best-selling live album of all time, and took Album of the Year at the 1993 Grammys, where Clapton won six awards in all. Pearl Jam's March 1992 set, with Eddie Vedder writing PRO CHOICE on his arm, went unreleased until 2009. Rod Stewart, 10,000 Maniacs, Tony Bennett and Page and Plant all had platinum Unplugged albums.
Nirvana taped theirs on November 18, 1993, at Sony Music Studios in Manhattan. Kurt Cobain asked for stargazer lilies, black candles and a crystal chandelier on the stage; when Coletti asked, "You mean like a funeral?" Cobain answered, "Exactly. Like a funeral." The band played fourteen songs in a single take, six of them covers, with cellist Lori Goldston and the Meat Puppets' Kirkwood brothers sitting in, and the only current hit in the set was "Come as You Are." After Cobain's death in April 1994 MTV aired the episode repeatedly; MTV Unplugged in New York, released that November 1, debuted at No. 1 and won Nirvana's only Grammy. Alice in Chains' April 1996 taping was the band's first concert in more than two years.
The series aired regularly until 1999, then sporadically as Unplugged No. 2.0 through the 2000s, with Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys and Ricky Martin among the later hit sets. Of the more than a hundred performances MTV filmed, only a fraction were ever released as albums. The original run earned a Peabody Award, and a six-act online reboot in 2009 won the show its only Emmy.
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