Paul McCartney's entry gets included for one simple reason – it was the first in the then-two-year-old series to be released on CD, as Unplugged (The Official Bootleg). To celebrate the anniversary, here are eight of the most memorable performances for MTV Unplugged, most of which spawned stand-alone albums that would go down as classics in their own right. The lo-fi aesthetic pervades today in the content-hungry streaming age, replicated by everything from the intimate Spotify Sessions to the secret Sofar Sounds and NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts. Amid grunge’s overdriven scream and hip-hop’s block-rocking beats, something about stripping things back to basics clearly chimed with the times. Clapton and Tony Bennett both won Grammys out of their Unplugged releases, while Mariah Carey earned a chart-topping single with her cover of The Jackson 5's "I'll Be There" from her Unplugged album.Nirvana's performance for MTV Unplugged was the series' most iconic entry – the cigarette-holed cardigan Cobain wore that night sold last month for $334,000 (Dh1.2 million) at an auction, reportedly unwashed since.īut it was far from the only career-defining performance embracing the unplugged format. Eric Clapton's Unplugged, from his 1992 taping, sold 26 million worldwide, making it the best selling live album of all-time. Of course, that opened the way to more artists issuing Unplugged sets. By the time we got home, we’d decided we’d got an album – albeit one of the fastest I’ve ever made." "We heard the tapes in the car driving back. "I figured that as MTV Unplugged would be screened around the world there was every chance that some bright spark would tape the show and turn it into a bootleg, so we decided to bootleg the show ourselves," said McCartney of Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) album. One of his reasons for releasing the show was his fear of it being bootlegged. Paul McCartney was the first to take his performance from the show and offer it as an album release. READ MORE: Revisit Photos From Nirvana's MTV Unplugged Performance in New York When Did MTV Unplugged Start Yielding Albums? John Stevie Ray Vaughan and Joe Satriani Michelle Shocked and The Indigo Girls Sinead O'Connor and The Church Don Henley Great White and Damn Yankees and Crowded House and Tim Finn. After the first 13 episodes, the show continued without a host.Īmong the initial performances taped and aired included The Smithereens and Graham Parker 10,000 Maniacs and Michael Penn The Alarm and Nuclear Valdez Joe Walsh and Dr. Many of the initial MTV Unplugged tapings featured multiple artist bills for short acoustic sets and there was a host, musician Jules Shear. While the program primarily served as a sole artist showcase once it got going, it didn't start that way. READ MORE: 11 Best MTV Shows That Were Actually About Music What Format Did the First MTV Unplugged Follow? Where are the acoustics? It’s Unplugged.’ They looked at each other and went, ‘Riiight… Make a phone call, quick!'" Producer Alex Coletti recalled to EW that the two Squeeze members showed up to the taping with two electric guitars. But the show almost got off on the wrong foot. The taping took place at the National Video Center in New York City on Oct. Though names such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Eric Clapton and Mariah Carey immediately come to mind when thinking about the MTV Unplugged series, the show started rather quietly with an opening show lineup of Squeeze's Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford, playing on a show with Syd Straw and The Cars' Elliott Easton. Who Played the First MTV Unplugged Episode? Springsteen would appear on MTV Unplugged in 1992, just a few years after the show's initial launch. So who did inspire the series? Per , Small and Burns got the idea after attending a Bruce Springsteen concert in which the musician played an acoustic encore. The show had already been in production at the time of that buzz-generating performance. Did Bon Jovi Inspire the MTV Unplugged Series?īon Jovi's Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora may have wowed viewers with their acoustic performance at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards, but despite the frequently floated narrative, they were not the inspiration for the MTV Unplugged series.
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