Nirvana: MTV Unplugged in New York [DGC]

Why you'll love it

It's the most famous MTV Unplugged ever, a No. 1 album in the US, a Grammy winner for Best Alternative Music Album, and home to their unforgettable take on David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World."

This edition

• Single LP, 14 tracks
• DGC pressing of the 1994 album
• The full live set from Sony Music Studios, New York

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.

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," blues belter Lead Belly's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" and three Meat Puppets covers ("Oh Me," "Plateau" and "Lake of Fire") that invited Curt and Cris Kirkwood of the actual Meat Puppets onstage to perform alongside Nirvana.

Coming as it did after 1993's caustic In Utero, the transfixing TV show and the album that would eventually be spun from it were 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.

Also at Kops: more Nirvana on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On DGC, a reissue of the 1994 album.