The black candles, white lilies, chandelier, and draperies were all Cobain's idea. 'I don't think MTV will let us play that,' he responded when someone called out for the song ' Rape Me.' The network had, in fact, previously banned Nirvana from playing the song during the band's performance at the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards. Cobain had an especially good reason for turning down one audience member's request. 'That would've been horrendously stupid.' When prompted by an audience member request, Cobain asked, 'How are we supposed to play ' In Bloom' acoustically?' 4. 'We knew we didn't want to do an acoustic version of 'Teen Spirit,'' Grohl later said of the band's breakthrough single. MTV tried its best to convince Cobain and the band to incorporate ' Smells Like Teen Spirit' and other well-known Nirvana material into the set, but to no avail. Other than ' Come As You Are ,' the band refused to play their own hits. They're not doing any hits, and they're inviting guests who don't have any hits to come play. 'But when I said 'the Meat Puppets,' it was kind of like, 'Oh, great. In a 1995 Guitar World interview with contributor Alan di Perna, Coletti recalled how 'everybody's eyes lit up' when he told the network that Nirvana would be bringing along some special guests. According to producer Alex Coletti, MTV had been hoping for guest artist appearances from the likes of Eddie Vedder or Tori Amos.

While David Bowie's 'The Man Who Sold The World' was familiar to mainstream audiences, Nirvana also used the telecast to bring attention to esoteric personal favorites such as the Vaselines' 'Jesus Don't Want Me For A Sunbeam' and Leadbelly's 'Where Did You Sleep Last Night.' The group was also joined onstage by Chris and Curt Kirkwood for three songs by their band, the Meat Puppets.Ģ. Six of MTV Unplugged In New York's 14 tracks are covers, and mostly obscure ones at that. (Among the albums it bested was Grohl's Foo Fighters debut.) But his artistic spirit lives on in what many consider to be one of the greatest live albums ever.įollowing are 10 lesser-known facts about the album and performance that marked the premature end of a promising career. 1 and went on to win a GRAMMY for Best Alternative Music Performance. But with their 'Unplugged' performance, the band netted an even broader audience while performing in the more intimate Sony Studios in New York rather than the arenas they'd begun headlining.Ĭobain would not live to see the 1994 release of the MTV Unplugged In New York album, which debuted at No. Cobain and bandmates Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic had already become internationally recognized as the godfathers of grunge, which was as much a marketing construct as it was a musical movement. Recorded less than five months before his death at the age of 27, the telecast and subsequent album capture the Seattle trio at its creative and commercial peak. 1 on Billboard’s Modern Rock tally.More than two decades after its release, Nirvana's performance on MTV's 'Unplugged' still stands as a convincing testimonial to Kurt Cobain's unmistakable musical genius and enigmatic charisma. The live version of “About a Girl” reached No. Nirvana’s “Unplugged” date is arguably the most famous in the long-running series, as the band eschewed most of its hits in favor of lesser-known album tracks and obscure covers (particularly, three Meat Puppets songs). The DVD also sports four tracks from the band’s soundcheck and previously unreleased behind-the-scenes footage. Like the CD, the DVD will include the songs “Something in the Way” and “Oh Me,” which did not appear on the original MTV broadcast. 1, 1994, on CD, the first Nirvana product to appear following Kurt Cobain’s suicide that April. “MTV Unplugged in New York” was released Nov. 18, 1993, “MTV Unplugged” taping will make its DVD debut Nov.

Nirvana unplugged date