Monthly Archives: November 2019

Nirvana Unplugged at 25

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It was 25 years ago this week that Nirvana released their final album, “Unplugged.” To celebrate, LiveXLive is featuring it as our “Greatest Album Ever…This Week,” which means you can listen to it on-demand, for free, as much as you want.  As you get ready to dig in, here are some fascinating facts surrounding what many critics call Kurt Cobain’s greatest performance:
- Nirvana’s "MTV Unplugged" was recorded on November 18th, 1993 at the Sony Music Studios in New York.
- The trio of Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl were joined by guitarist (and future Foo Fighter) Pat Smear, cellist Lori Goldston and two of Kurt Cobain’s musical heroes, Chris and Curt Kirkwood of the Meat Puppets (for a portion of the performance)
- Cobain helped design the set, asking for stargazer lillies and black candles. When Unplugged producer Alex Coletti asked if he was going for a funeral look, Kurt said, “Exactly."
- Under his ratty cardigan, Kurt wore a Frightwig t-shirt. Frightwig are a feminist punk band from San Francisco.
- Nirvana performed four songs from “Nevermind,” three from “In Utero,” and one from “Bleach.” They also covered songs by the Vaselines, Lead Belly, David Bowie, and Meat Puppets. Their “hits,” for the most part, were avoided. Only “Come As You Are” had been previously released as a single.
- They closed their set with Lead Belly’s arrangement of the traditional song “Where Did You Sleep Last Night.” Producers asked Nirvana to do an encore but Cobain refused, saying he could not top that performance.
- The MTV Unplugged performance was first broadcast in December of 1993, and the album was released on November 1, 1994. It debuted at #1 on the Billboard album charts, seven months after the death of Cobain.