Nirvana – MTV Unplugged In New York (DGC – DGC-24727, 1994/2013 🇺🇸)
Recorded on 11/18/93 and released only a few months later, it’s hard to put into words the funky ennui that Unplugged offered to teens of the 90s. Even while revisiting the album tonight, my wife asked, “What is this? It’s so depressing.” I guess you had to be there. Or, maybe you didn’t. And it is depressing, honey. Unplugged was Nirvana, sure; but it kinda wasn’t, too. Did it hint at the next step the band might have been contemplating? Could Krist and Pat and Dave and Kurt have survived the leap, or was disaster always their destiny?
We’ll never know, but certainly the album - as put forth by this excellent 2013 pressing from Pallas Group - embodies late fall in a spookily visceral way. It’s curious to listen to today and to temporarily revisit the days when bitterly cold winds would blow through the gaping holes in my torn Levi’s knees, but I won’t be standing around waiting for an encore. They weren’t going to perform one anyway. Oh, well. Whatever. Nevermind.
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