The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

Nirvana

[#] MTV Unplugged in New York (1994)

Going gently into that good night.

Reviewed November 18, 2024

I actually expected to go into this review feeling like MTV Unplugged in New York was a tad overrated by time. This show is just so well-trodden, so common to still hear cuts from it on the radio or in playlists, I kinda wondered if the finish hadn't started to wear off. A cold November 18, 1993 saw the five-months-from-the-grave Nirvana play MTV Unplugged, as all the big musicians did then, but famously, Nirvana weren't interested in a rock show with acoustic guitars. Everything from their choice in setlist (devoid of hits save "Come As You Are" and "All Apologies") to choice of guest (the brothers Meat) pissed off MTV, but Nirvana was right, and MTV wound up airing Nirvana's Unplugged on repeat in the wake of Kurt's death, with a CD of the show dropping the next year.

Despite a few mistakes from Kurt (there were concerns in rehearsal he'd be able to play at all), Nirvana pulled together a surprisingly pretty setlist: the folksy, Vaselines-arranged "Jesus Doesn't Want Me For a Sunbeam" features Krist on accordion, and the electrically-enhanced cover of "The Man Who Sold the World" might as well be about Kurt himself. "Polly" starts the chills proper, with Lori Goldston's nasally cello casting a dark, sad edge over one of Nirvana's oldest tunes, while the Meat Puppets chunk lets the stage banter and audience requests blossom in surprisingly amusing fashion. Alternative's innocent era came to an end with Kurt's suicide, and MTV Unplugged in New York, right down to that howl on "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?", is a wake for it, mournful and playful in equal amounts. No, I wouldn't call it overrated.

(I listened to my 5.1 downmix of the DVD for this one. The CD version seems artificially amped up with extra reverb and truncates a lot of the funniest moments of the show, like one of the Kirkwood brothers' reply to someone shouting for "Free Bird" and Kennedy's "Rape Me" request. It would've all fit on the CD just fine, DGC. Feel free to read that blog post for further details, and go with the DVD or Blu-ray, don't sell yourself short on Nirvana at their peak.)

Essential:	"The Man Who Sold the World", Polly", "Oh, Me"
Quintessential:	"Where Did You Sleep Last Night?"
Non-Essential:	Hmmmmmm
Rating:
Further listening:	"Experimenting with 5.1 Downmixes" on mari's Scratchpad