Nirvana: MTV Unplugged In New York (2LP, 25th anniversary expanded edition) [DGC]

Why you'll love it

MTV Unplugged in New York won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album and went to No. 1 in the U.S. This 25th anniversary 2LP set adds five rehearsal takes, including "Come as You Are" and "The Man Who Sold the World."

This edition

• 25th anniversary expanded edition
• 2LP set with five previously unheard rehearsal takes
• Gatefold jacket

About the album

Nirvana's performance on the already-growing-rather-wearisome MTV Unplugged show was a proper jaw-dropper when it first aired on Dec. 16, 1993. And it's still a proper jaw-dropper when you listen to it now, more than 30 years later.

Rather than simply trotting out an hour's worth of acoustic versions of their own hits, Kurt Cobain and bandmates Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl used their MTV Unplugged In New York special to pay homage to some of the songs that helped turn Nirvana into the band it was: David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold The World," the Vaselines' "Jesus Doesn't Want Me For A Sunbeam," Lead Belly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" and three Meat Puppets covers ("Oh Me," "Plateau" and "Lake Of Fire") with Curt and Cris Kirkwood of the actual Meat Puppets onstage alongside Nirvana. Coming as it did after 1993's caustic In Utero, this set was a tantalizing window into another side of the band. The most punk-rock thing about it was how punk-rock it wasn't. But that's what makes this delicate, heartfelt and utterly indelible performance one of the most punk-rock things Nirvana ever did.

The expanded 25th-anniversary edition adds five alternate takes recorded during pre-show rehearsals to the immaculate original: "Come As You Are," "Polly," "Pennyroyal Tea," "Plateau" and "The Man Who Sold The World."

Also at Kops: more Nirvana on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On DGC (cat# B002951201), the 25th anniversary edition of the 1994 album.