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UR003: Unplugged 101, Part 3 (2000-2024)
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UR003 - "Unplugged 101, Part 3" (2000-2024) is the third explainer episode outlining the entire 35-year-plus spectrum of MTV Unplugged. This episode kicks off with the Unplugged 2.0 reboot of 2001 (the return of R.E.M., Lauryn Hill, Jay-Z and the Roots, Dashboard Confessional, and more) and tracks the dynamic peaks and valleys of the subsequent two-and-a-half decades of award-winning revivals, inactive stretches, and one-off specials. This episode features both seasoned vets (such as a-ha, Bon Jovi, Scorpions, Liam Gallagher, and the return of Tony Bennett) and some of the most popular and polarizing artists of the twenty-first century (including Paramore, Alicia Keys, Korn, Adele, Lil Wayne, Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry, Bleachers, and many more).
If you dig the show, want to share your own Unplugged memories, ask a question, request a show topic, or connect with the pod for any reason, there are a couple ways you can get in touch:
- You can email me at unpluggedrevisited@gmail.com,
- You can reach out on twitter at @unplugged_pod,
- You can leave a voicemail (that’ll maybe get played on the show) by dialing 234-REVISIT (234-738-4748)
Recommended![UR014: Mark Bryan (Hootie and the Blowfish) [1996 MTV Unplugged] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/66ea0b235fcf51d2c9a0b7cd/43cbefc3-777c-4d93-9915-92abd82876d2.jpg)
Transcript
Introduction to Unplugged 101 Series
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Unplugged. Unplugged. Unplugged.
00:00:23
Speaker
i'm your host music journalists pop culture anthropologist and unplugged obsessive will hodge As I said in the last episode, if this is somehow the very first time you're hearing my voice, while I'm so glad you're here and I really appreciate you checking us out, please pause right here and go back and listen to part one and part two of my Unplugged 101 introductory trio of episodes as this is part three. Alrighty, you still here? All caught up on the majestic grandeur of Unplugged's entire 90s run? Beautiful.
00:00:52
Speaker
Let's all lock arms and take a big ol' cannonball plunge into Unplugged 101 Part 3, covering the last 25 years of MTV Unplugged.
00:01:02
Speaker
Due to the nature of how MTV Unplugged truly dominated the 90s pop cultural landscape with a ton of magical moments, countless top-notch episodes, and multiple platinum-selling, Grammy-winning album releases, it made perfect sense for me to really dig into the year-over-year cultural machinations in Part 1 and Part 2. For Part 3, however, I'll be moving at a much quicker clip, which won't be a problem, because there were more Unplugged episodes broadcast in the single year of 1990 alone, Then there were in the entire decade of 2000 to 2009. So to navigate the remaining two and a half decades in this episode, I'm breaking things down into four easily digestible chunks. First, unplugged in the early 2000s, covering 2000 to 2004. Second, unplugged in the late 2000s, covering 2005 to 2009. Third, unplugged in the 2010s. And finally, unplugged in the 2020s. So let's do it. Let's get unplugged, 21st century style.
Reboot of Unplugged as 2.0 in 2001
00:02:03
Speaker
As boy bands, girl groups, and teen pop divas ushered in the new millennium's pop musical landscape, it seemed like MTV Unplugged might be destined to just become a fossilized and amber bygone relic of peak 90s pop culture. But that was not to be. the unparalleled series is back mtv two presents unplugged two point zero with performances from r re m stained lauren hill shakira and more unplugged two point zero encore presentation premies on mtv with r re m tomorrow at ten In 2001, four years after the shuttering of its last official season, the Unplugged franchise received a celebrated reboot under the Unplugged 2.0 moniker with some incredibly memorable episodes from acts like REM, Jay-Z and the Roots, Dashboard Confessional, and others. It also included the still-to-this-day controversial episode with Lauryn Hill, but a more on that in a minute.
00:02:52
Speaker
The 2.0 reboot, which by the way, Logo Watch Update, was accompanied by a new streamlined circular logo that once again aesthetically overemphasized the U-N of Unplugged like it did all the way back in 91, featured new episodes that were trimmed back down a bit in scope, forsaking the larger ornate venues of its late 90s run and returning to the cozier vibes of its earlier seasons by filming in its own smaller MTV Studios space featuring a stunning multi-windowed view of Times Square.
00:03:21
Speaker
You remember it, the TRL one, where they filmed all those cool New Year's Eve performances. With the more intimate audience setting, they really tried to harken back to Unplug's earlier days and recapture some of that golden era magic for these new episodes, which, especially in the cases of REM and Jay-Z, I think they absolutely did.
00:03:39
Speaker
My beloved REM kicked off this new era of Unplugged in late spring of 2001 by becoming the first, and if I really want to be pedantic about it, the only band to have two proper standalone MTV Unplugged episodes. Yes, some other bands may have made two appearances on the show in one way or another, but not two individual, archetypal Unplugged episodes featuring only themselves. For example,
00:04:02
Speaker
10,000 Maniac's first episode from 1990 was one of the Season 1 double build episodes that they shared with Michael Penn. And sure, Adele, Miley Cyrus, and Lenny Kravitz all technically filmed two solo unplugged episodes, but I've got very specific, very nitpicky reasons for notching them all below REM on the multi unplugged appearance hierarchy I have painstakingly self constructed. I'll get into all of that a bit later, but for now, you get my point.
00:04:30
Speaker
I'll eventually be doing a whole episode on artists who appeared more than once on Unplugged, so just stay tuned for that hyper-focused, hyper-quibbling, deep in the weeds fun.
Notable Performances in Unplugged 2.0 Era
00:04:39
Speaker
If you remember from part one, REM first played Unplugged in 1991.
00:04:45
Speaker
when they were still a four-piece unit, had just released their superstar-making out-of-time record, and were in the middle of a fan-bewildering touring hiatus. Ten years later, however, they took the unplugged stage as alt-rock elder statesman, who had just released their twelfth studio album, Reveal, and were still working to find their legs as a trio after the health-induced departure of original drummer Bill Berry. With a handful of new songs, one of the best-back catalogs in the business, and three phenomenally-insinct touring musicians,
00:05:14
Speaker
REM once again turned the unplugged stage into a masterclass of musical excellence.
00:05:26
Speaker
While they didn't have any special guests or cover songs, a few lines of Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone during country feedback notwithstanding, the prototypical Unplugged vibe was heavy throughout thanks to their transcendent acoustic reworkings and their 91 Unplugged episode playing on a TV in the background, which at one point prompted Stipe to comment, well, here's what he said. he's so sincere my god um He looks great though, doesn't he? Jesus. What a fox. Also, I should note that even with two unplugged episodes under their belts, it took another 13 years before we got official album releases from them, with both episodes being reissued for the first time as part of Record Store Day 2014.
00:06:06
Speaker
And just to land the daunting Pete and P3P, I'd be remiss not to mention that yes, Michael Stite did guest star as the disgruntled ice cream vendor Captain Scrummy on the adventures of Pete and Pete. That's three for three. Drink! You look like a bona fide sludge sickle man. After REM recorded their Unplugged 2.0 episode in May, the Unplugged crew quickly reconvened in the summer to film two more new episodes. One was with post-grunge nu metal band Stained, and the other ended up being one of the most controversial episodes in the show's entire catalog. Of course, I'm talking about Lauryn Hill's Unplugged, which was filmed in July of 2001, but wouldn't air until early spring of 2002 for a few different reasons. I'm not sure how much I want to say about the nuances surrounding this episode in such a condensed, high-level overview, because I think it's got some real raw humanity and beauty and honesty in it, and it truly deserves to be talked about respectfully and with some extra breathing room to get into all of the intricacies and complex layers woven into its narrative. So I'll just say most of the commentary about this one for a standalone episode. However, if you're not familiar with its contentious legacy, here are a few of the bullet points.
00:07:12
Speaker
After the global success of her multi-platinum-selling, multi-grammy-winning debut solo album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, she entered the ah TRL studios in the summer of 2001 with just a nylon string acoustic guitar, some new, mostly unfinished songs, a Bob Marley cover, and a lot on her mind to share. The inescapable honesty, fragmented flow, and extended speaking segments of Hill's extemporaneous thoughts on a variety of topics created a deeply emotional, nowhere to hide performance that left many audience members and MTV executives confounded as to what they had just experienced. In fact, after a brief delay where MTV was figuring out how to properly package the episode, they ended up releasing the full, unedited performance, talking segments and all, one of which is over 12 minutes long, all by itself, on a double disc album that stretched over 106 minutes. There were multiple flashes of musical and emotional radiance throughout the performance,
00:08:07
Speaker
the finger-picked vulnerability of I Find It Hard to Say, the gorgeous hook of Mystery of Iniquity that Kanye West ended up interpolating for his All Falls Down single from his debut album, and the fragility of her tearful catharsis on I Gotta Find Peace of Mind. So yeah, I'm just gonna focus on those until we can unpack the whole unwieldy thing in its own episode. Until then, here's a little bit of Hill's Mr. Intentional, a song that may or may not be about her fellow Fuji Wyclef Jean.
00:08:53
Speaker
Next up on the Unplugged 2.0 reboot roster was the absolutely phenomenal episode featuring Jay-Z backed by The Roots.
00:09:12
Speaker
All hyperbole aside, with The Roots as his otherworldly talented backing band, Jay delivered one of the greatest, purest, mind-blowingest unplugged performances of the show's whole run with his live acoustic rearrangements that were overflowing with charisma, artistry, and technical proficiency.
00:09:29
Speaker
This was blueprint era J at the top of his game and the roots were absolute kings in their element for the whole performance. Having a four-piece string section, two percussionists, two keyboardists, a beatboxer, a flute player, guitar, acoustic bass, quest love on drums, and Jaguar ride on background vocals really took the performance to a whole nother stratospheric level.
00:09:50
Speaker
Jay also invited along some pitch perfect special guests as well, including Pharrell on I Just Wanna Love You and the incomparable Mary J Blige for a medley of Can't Knock the Hustle, an album track she appeared on from Jay's 96 debut album Reasonable Doubt mixed with her own smash hit of the moment, Family Affair from her No More Drama album that had just come out earlier that summer. Family Affair was actually the Billboard number one single for six weeks at the time. sitting atop the chart during both Jay's Unplugged filming in November and also when it aired in December. Here's Jay talking a little bit about his early days connection to Blige and why he invited her along for his Unplugged taping.
00:10:27
Speaker
married a new married married since my first album reasonable doubt i was nobody guy with a nobody label And she came through for me and she and she performed on that record, you know what I mean? So anything that Mary needs for me is done like anything. Also as a cool side note, it should be noted that Blige was making her second Unplugged appearance after the Uptown Unplugged episode back in 1993. Also also, this won't be the last time you'll hear her name in this episode. See you in 2007.
00:10:56
Speaker
Before I move on from the Jay-Z episode, and believe me, I'll go deep on this one in a standalone episode soon enough, I just want to talk some more about the wonders of live acoustic sampling. Jay's catalog is overflowing with sample heavy hits, and the roots not only didn't miss a beat, they elevated the dynamic intensity and melodic nuance of every single track.
00:11:15
Speaker
During the show, the roots impeccably interpolated the Jackson 5's I Want You Back for Izzo, the Doors 5 to 1 for Takeover, Rick James's Give It To Me Baby and Carl Thomas's I Wish on I Just Wanna Love You, plus many many more for Jay's charismatically deft lyricism to bounce off of again and again. I'm telling you, if you've never listened to this one, you're missing out on some otherworldly musical magic.
00:11:41
Speaker
Closing out the official 2.0 reboot in 2002 was an episode filmed with mainstream emo faves dashboard confessional, often reported to be the first non-platinum selling band to get their own unplugged episode. Which is kind of an ironic fun fact since their resulting album MTV Unplugged 2.0 is still their only release to actually achieve platinum status.
00:12:02
Speaker
Though that's technically due to the video component of the DVD that came bundled with it. But you know, Tomato Tomato. While this episode kind of eschews some of the standard unplugged ingredients, for example, there's like no cover songs and no special guests, the unplugged elements it does hit, unpolished acoustic performances and some never heard like this before catalog cuts debuted in front of a small, intimate audience, are perfectly nailed.
00:12:26
Speaker
Of course, this shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, as Dashboard started out as an acoustic solo side project from Chris Karaba while he was still in Further Seems Forever. Dashboard's Unplugged episode is not only a pretty fantastic live album that showcases Karaba's introspective songwriting and passionate vocals at an early point in the band's ongoing, almost 25-year career,
00:12:47
Speaker
It's also a nice snapshot of the early 2000s music scene because A. Dashboard was a new band that didn't really have a presence in the 90s like the other 2.0 bands did. B. It was filmed mostly in the round at the TRL studios amongst a rabid audience of enraptured teens and early 20-somethings earnestly singing along to every word. And C. It came out on one of those CD-DVD combo packages when labels were doing everything they could do to combat illegal downloading and encourage physical album sales.
00:13:16
Speaker
Also, for my fellow vinyl nerds, Dashboard finally pressed their MTV Unplugged 2.0 album to wax just a couple of years ago, and they seem to have a lot of fun pressing up a bunch of different variants. I've seen at least a half dozen different color options myself, and I still routinely spend my pale dusty pink variant.
00:13:32
Speaker
Let's see, if you're only familiar with one dashboard song from their Unplugged, it'd probably be hands down. But since this is my podcast, and I'm feeling wildly drunk with power, I'm gonna play the Unplugged version of Screaming Impedalities, the very first dashboard song I ever heard back in the spring of 2000, when my local Christian bookstore sold me the only copy they received of Swiss Army Romance. Or, as the crusty sales clerk called it, some solo acoustic garbage from the singer on the 27th state
Challenges and Short Run of Unplugged 2.0
00:13:58
Speaker
EP. either way take it away
00:14:11
Speaker
After the short but promising Unplugged 2.0 reboot of 2001 and 2002, the show sadly disappeared again for another few years. 2.0 ended up being the first of many, uh, failed seems too harsh a word, but maybe short-lived, reboots that came from Unplugged. As we'll get into, this formula of exciting but temporary resuscitations of Unplugged has been attempted many times, but nothing has ever seemed to properly catch and build some momentum.
00:14:38
Speaker
even though each attempt has resulted in at least a couple really, really cool moments. As we get to each subsequent reboot in this Explainer episode, I'll maybe try to throw my quick two cents in on what may have marred each one. For this first 2.0 reboot of 01 and 02, I think they reconfigured the Unplugged Ethos for a new era really well, and I really like the genre diversity of the half-dozen artists they filmed.
00:15:01
Speaker
However, I think what it mostly lacked was the consistent feel of being a regularly recurring show, so it didn't really build any progressive momentum and instead kind of just fizzled out. Possibly feeling like the reboot may have come a little too quick after the 90s heyday, the Gone Too Soon 2.0 reboot ended up being the only new unplugged content during the first half of the new decade.
00:15:23
Speaker
But hey, over 20 years on, I still listen to 4 of those albums, REM, Lauren, Jay, and Dashboard, quite frequently. I think this first reboot was an issue not with quality at all, but totally just quantity, or more specifically, a lack thereof. Over the next couple of years, there weren't any new Unplugged episodes aired in the States. However, we did get a really cool trio of the very best of Unplugged compilations, whose releases were staggered out over 2002, 3, and 4.
00:15:50
Speaker
I'm not going to break them down too much right now, because I'll actually devote an entire episode to the show's four official compilations. But just know for now, I'll say that if you're a fan of 90s unplugged performances, and like me, are constantly bemoaning which of your favorites never got released as full albums, some of the tracks on these comps might provide a soothing balm for you.
00:16:10
Speaker
Each one has a really good mix of popular cuts you can find on some of the bigger Unplugged album releases and, previously, unreleased tracks. And in many cases, still to this day the only place you can get official high-quality versions of them. Plus, the very best of Unplugged Volume 3, the one that was released in 2004, was also paired with the DVD of the performances.
00:16:30
Speaker
So if you haven't heard or seen some of the unplugged episodes from acts like Sheryl Crow, The Cure, Elton John, or Live since the original airings, the CD-DVD combo of Volume 3 is a highly recommended pick. More to come on me really drilling down into these incredible unplugged compilations in their own episode. Okay, onto the next chronological chunk. 2005-2009.
Revival with Alicia Keys in 2005
00:16:54
Speaker
Unplugged's presence during the second half of the 2000s was a genuinely interesting mixture of return-to-form highs and head-scratching lows. While it was kind of a sparse five years for the show overall, there were some real highlights from the 0509 era, namely Alicia Keys, Paramore, Adele, and stay with me here, Korn.
00:17:13
Speaker
which is probably pretty surprising to hear me say for anyone who knows my personal feelings towards late 90s, early aughts, rap rock, and nu metal. Looking first at the Alicia Keys and Korn performances, it's undeniable that both artists put a lot of work into making their unplugged episodes just as special and memorable as many of the upper tier 90s episodes by putting a lot of intention and creativity into their stage aesthetics, musical arrangements, cover songs, and special guests.
00:17:40
Speaker
Even their filming locations were a nod to monumental unplugs from the past, with Keys filming her show at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, home to many of the 95-97 unplugged shows, and Korn filming theirs at the Times Square MTV studios in New York City, where REM, Jay-Z, Lauryn Hill, and others filmed their unplugged episodes during the 2.0 reboot. So let's start in 2005 with Alicia Keys.
00:18:15
Speaker
Much like the Alanis, Shakira, and Kors episodes back in 1999, Keys' episode was approached more as an unplugged one-off instead of being attached to some sort of larger reboot. The Young Phenom was only two albums into her career at this point, but she showed she knew exactly what to do with her unplugged opportunity.
00:18:33
Speaker
She flawlessly blended reworked hits like Fallen, A Woman's Worth, and If I Ain't Got You with incredible covers of Prince, The Rolling Stones, and Motown soul singer Brenda Holloway. And she also invited along special guests like Common, Mostef, Damian Marley, and Adam Levine of Maroon 5.
00:18:51
Speaker
When her Unplugged album was released in October of 2005, it debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 album charts. Before Keys, the last Unplugged to debut at the top of the Billboard 200 was over a decade prior with Nirvana back in 1994. That's how well this incredible album was received by music fans in 2005. Not to mention the fact that it also went platinum and was nominated for four Grammy Awards at the 06 ceremonies.
00:19:17
Speaker
Here's a little bit of her unplugged version of Prince's early 80s B-side, How Come You Don't Call Me, which she also covered on her debut album.
00:19:36
Speaker
Another small note from 2005 before moving on, Japanese pop singer-songwriter Hitomi Aida filmed an unplugged session exclusively for MTV Japan that year, and during the episode, she rolled out an absolutely gorgeous piano-led, violin-spiced cover of Tracy Chapman's Fast Car. While I'm not familiar with the Aida's own songwriting catalog, when I first came across this cover back on some forgotten mid-2000s MP3 blog, it became an immediate unplugged, hidden gem favorite of mine.
00:20:05
Speaker
To hear one of the greatest songs of all time anew simply by it being reframed in a language unfamiliar to my unenlightened ears is such a cool gift and really speaks to the universal nature of enchanting melodies and honest emotions. Here's just a snippet to see if you dig it as much as I do.
00:20:36
Speaker
The following year, 2006, MTV filmed a standalone Unplugged episode with Ricky Martin for broadcast in their Latin American and Puerto Rico markets. While the episode also aired stateside a few times, Martin wanted to do an Unplugged that focused on his Puerto Rican musical influences and the Spanish language side of his catalog that both predated his late 90s early-odds English language hits and that he had also recently returned to with his 2003 record, Almas del Salencio.
00:21:05
Speaker
Fans who may have been tuning in to his unplugged, hoping-to-hear acoustic rearrangements of his big English-language smashes, like Livin' La Vida Loca or She-Bangs, were instead treated to an exciting mix of his older 90s and more recently released Spanish language numbers, as well as three brand new debuts that were all released as singles.
00:21:24
Speaker
The acoustic ballad lead single, 2 Recuerdo, ended up hitting number one on the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart and overall the album won two Latin Grammys and has netted worldwide sales of over two million units.
Diverse Acts and Format Changes in Late 2000s
00:21:48
Speaker
Moving into 2007, Unplugged ended up having a pretty wild, unwieldy year. There was no official multi-episode reboot or anything like that. Although, another LogoWatch update, we did start seeing a new Unplugged logo in 07. The black rectangle one with that blocky UN and the handwritten Plugged part. It looked like the thin label side of a VHS tape.
00:22:10
Speaker
Alongside that admittedly minor footnote, there were at least four interesting unplugged items that occurred in 2007 that I think are noteworthy. One, let's start with what is in my opinion the year's hands down standout entry, corn. And if like me, your impulse might be to hit the skip ahead 30 seconds button, just hang with me a moment.
00:22:29
Speaker
At the time of their unplugged taping in late 06, the band was at an interesting crossroads in their career due to one of their founding guitarist having quit the band the year prior and their founding drummer going on an unexpected hiatus just prior to their unplugged taping. In fact, it hadn't even been reported at the time of the taping, as I remember MTV News reporting on how some confused fans in the 50-person audience could be heard asking the band members about the drummer's absence between songs.
00:22:56
Speaker
In spite of that substantial roster wrinkle, within Korn's impressively adventurous episode, the 90s nu-metal torchbearers showed a really deft hand in structuring their unplugged performance to be a memorable, one-of-a-kind event that still rang very much true to who they were as a band. I mean, they were so serious about it, they even brought in composer and former Oingo Boingo keyboardist Richard Gibbs to serve as music director and arranger.
00:23:21
Speaker
Even their special guest felt like thoughtful, kindred, before and after spirits on a shared musical continuum. They invited Amy Lee of Evanescence and The Cure, who were making a return unplugged appearance after their own 91 episode, with guitarist Pearl Thompson making his third unplugged show after having also played on the Page & Plant unledded show back in 94. Even their requisite unplugged cover song, in this case Creep by Radiohead, seemed like a personal choice that they were really connected to.
00:23:50
Speaker
However, where they really took their unplugged into unexpectedly uncharted territory was in their unconventional instrumentation and dramatic rearrangements. To help them maintain their signature bottom end rumble, they added a stand up bass and a couple extra guitars into the mix of their already heavy 5 string bass and 7 string guitar instrumental bed. They also made use of a couple cellos and horns as well.
00:24:13
Speaker
On top of all that, someone played a saw, a marxophone, box drum, there were multiple choral hand bells, and not seen since Bjork's Unplugged in 1994, The Return of the Glass Harmonica. They also brought out a six-piece drum line of Japanese taiko players for the closer, Throw Me Away. Here's a little bit of that awesomeness.
00:24:43
Speaker
Also, because, I mean, Korn's gonna Korn, many of the background musicians were also wearing animal masks, like a horse, a pig, a rabbit, which added a charmingly unsettling vibe to the whole moody spectacle as well. Even if you're not someone who listens to Korn's music on a regular basis, which, full disclosure, is 100% me, I think they're very talented musicians and it's just that the whole nu-metal genre is not my personal cup of tea at all. I do, however, really respect the creativity, forethought, and gravitas Korn brought to their unplugged performance, especially during an era where it seemed like Unplugged might have been losing the plot a little bit. Second point. During this period, some new Unplugged episodes not only started broadcasting on VH1, but those episodes were officially rebranded to be called VH1 Unplugged, which, as someone who was a teenager in the 1990s, is still a hard phrase for me to say without getting a bit of a cold shiver. As I mentioned in part two, my middle school friends and I used to talk about the two music channels as MTV and MomTV.
00:25:42
Speaker
So the term VH1 unplugged is just so weird and wrong to my ears. They even aesthetically fussed with the logo to swap out the MTV icon for VH1 branding. Ugh, bad form. Anyway, it wasn't just the channel change and naming logo switch that made certain unplugged shows feel like something of an imposter during this era.
00:26:02
Speaker
It was also the abrupt and totally visceral change in tone of the new episodes. The new shows had no audience, no imaginative stage designs, no cool cover songs, no special guests, and perhaps most importantly, while some artists still kept things acoustic based, for example, Life House and the genuinely mesmerizing One Voice One Guitar Amy Winehouse episode.
00:26:32
Speaker
Other episodes were very much plugged. I'm talking cranked electric guitars everywhere. Most egregious were the VH1 unplugged episodes from the Black Crows and Lenny Kravitz, who were both proper MTV unplugged alumni on their own, from 90 and 94 respectively. To be fair, acoustic instruments were, shall we say, present on some of the Crows and Kravitz tracks But they definitely weren't the central focus of the performances. The shows themselves were fine enough if they had been framed as just chill, in-studio live sessions. It's just that, to me at least, they didn't earn or even resemble the unplugged moniker in any way. Musically, visually, tonally, anything.
00:27:11
Speaker
I can't in good faith fully relegate these 2007 VH1 unplugged shows to the un unplugged penalty box since they technically were a part of the official unplugged canon, but I am totally side-eyeing them and marooning them to stand just outside the door.
00:27:26
Speaker
3. Speaking of Unplugged, the patron saints of the penalty box themselves, Bon Jovi, a band who had been anecdotally linked to the Unplugged franchise since its early days, revisit my part 1 explainer for the full story, finally got their own Unplugged episode in 2007.
00:27:54
Speaker
As seasoned rock veterans with a hugely charismatic frontman, and at the time, two and a half decades of rock superstardom under their belts, of course their episode was filled with chart-topping hit singles, John's stellar vocals, and the band's talented lockstep playing.
00:28:09
Speaker
However, this was during the full court press of their pop country crossover period, so there were some, shall we say, curious choices made as well. Bon Jovi's Unplugged was actually the first, but not last, Unplugged to be broadcast across all three major music video channels, MTV, VH1, and CMT, and each one got a different runtime.
00:28:30
Speaker
It ended up being 30 minutes on MTV, an hour on VH1, and an hour and a half on CMT. You know, if there were any lingering questions about which genre audience they were most catering to at the time. This is definitely one of the unplugs that feels ripe for a standalone episode from me, because there's just so many things going on with this one. Both successful and a bit clumsy. So I'll save most of my comments and analyses for that.
00:28:54
Speaker
I will say though, their little jazz shuffle adaptation of You Give Love a Bad Name is a pretty interesting reworking of their 80s hair metal classic. Here's a little bit of that.
00:29:15
Speaker
Okay, fourth and final note on Unplugged's Hit or Miss 2007. During the summer, there ended up being a bit of a weirdness, drama, confusion surrounding a press release that named artists who had been scheduled to appear on forthcoming Unplugged episodes that hadn't been filmed yet.
00:29:31
Speaker
This is not the usual order of operations for how things like this get announced. They're usually already in the can before a press release goes out. But what happened next kind of proves the point of why that's a good succession of steps. Let me just read you a snippet from the actual press release that came across the Billboard Newswire dated May 31st, 2007.
00:29:50
Speaker
New York. Billboard. MTV's on-again, off-again, unplugged program will return in a big way this summer with new episodes featuring the police, Bon Jovi, Kenny Chesney, Mary J. Blige, and John Mayer.
00:30:04
Speaker
Now, you may be asking yourself, wait, how did I forget the police didn't unplugged? Did I miss Mary J. Blige making what would have been her third appearance on the show? No, sadly, you did not. Because out of the five big names mentioned in that press release, only one of them, Bon Jovi, actually materialized into an episode. None of the other four ever ended up happening, and there's never really been any official word I can find as to why. Though I do have a couple conspiracy-esque theories about a couple of them.
00:30:33
Speaker
Kenny Chesney, I have no info on, so nothing on that. With John Mayer, I can't find an official reasoning for it not happening, but I speculate that the five-song solo acoustic set that opens his Where the Light Is CD DVD, which was recorded in December of 2007 and features a previously unreleased cover of Tom Petty's Freefallen, was probably a part of the acoustic set he was working out for his Unplugged and then just repurposed it for that live album.
00:30:59
Speaker
The police, well, according to their own website, I was able to find out that they went so far as having an unplugged filming date set in Miami for mid-July of 2007. But it got postponed without explanation just a week or so beforehand, and then was just never rescheduled. Can you imagine how great a police unplugged would have been? I've already talked about how much I love Sting's solo unplugged from 91, But if you throw in all of Stewart's wild percussive toys and Andy's jazz influenced guitar work, I mean, they could have made something really special. And then there's Mary J. Blige's What If dream scenario as well. I can't find any direct reference as to why hers fell through, but with her incredible voice, her deep catalog of R and&B and hip hop hits, her vast network of collaborators, and the fact that this would have been her third time on the show, I mean, Unplugged Producers, it's not too late. Please, please, please give us a Mary J. Blige Unplugged.
00:31:53
Speaker
So yeah, with Korn's True to Form unplugged on one end of the spectrum, the Black Crow's Kravitz not so unplugged on the other end, and Bon Jovi falling somewhere in the middle with a healthy splash of Where's Our Promised Police and Mary J. Blige episodes, 2007 was hands down the weirdest year and unplugged 30 plus year
Unplugged's HD Era and Online Evolution
00:32:13
Speaker
history.
00:32:13
Speaker
Alrighty, one more notable unplugged entry in the 2000s era before we jump in to the 2010s. 2009 marked both the 20th anniversary of MTV Unplugged's 1989 debut and it also being a full decade since the original 90s run had officially gone off the air. It also proved to be a pretty substantial comeback year for the Unplugged franchise.
00:32:43
Speaker
The 2009, um, we'll call it a mini reboot of Unplugged featured six brand new episodes, and for the first time, the show had to decide how to sustain its impact just as richly in the digital space as it did in the standard terrestrial landscape it was used to functioning within.
00:32:59
Speaker
To meet that challenge, the half dozen new unplugged episodes were filmed in HD for the first time, and most of the new batch of shows would simultaneously debut both online and on television. Additionally, the full episode releases were supported by a lot of extra online content. Interviews, single song videos, behind the scenes footage, stuff like that. available only on the all-new unplugged.mtv dot.com website. This compact, quote-unquote, season of Unplugged included some really memorable episodes from artists like Paramore, Adele, Katy Perry, Silver Sun Pickups, Vampire Weekend, and All Time Low, with the strongest standout moments unquestionably coming from the women.
00:33:41
Speaker
Seriously, just go check out Paramore's impressively punchy misery business, Adele's powerful coffee house jazz meets string trio take on chasing pavements, or Katy Perry's refreshingly smooth cover of Fountains of Wayne's Hackensack as evidence of the unplugged stage still being one of the best platforms for showcasing unfiltered talent and passionate musicality. I know folks have all kinds of opinions on the Katy Perry episode, but I personally really dig it, so let's hear a little of her Hackensack cover.
00:34:25
Speaker
Man, still miss you and your song so much, Adam. As a tiny random postscript, the 2009 online Anchored Revamp is also notable for earning the Unplugged franchise its very first Emmy Award, winning for Best New Approach over the Ellen DeGeneres Show and the New York Times Screen Test Series. Alrighty, let's keep it moving into the next section. On to the 2010s we go.
00:34:48
Speaker
After the show rejuvenating Emmy-winning 2009 season, the 2010-2011 years proved to be quite an active period that mostly resulted in a bit of a scattered, hit-or-miss affair for the series. As an experiment in digital-focused cross-pollination, new episodes mostly debuted online before airing on television. and they were also spread out across three different websites, unplug.mtv dot.com, unplug.vh1.com, and unplug.cmt dot.com, all depending on the artist. As another somewhat shocking twist, the shows were once again even occasionally rebranded as VH1 Unplugged or CMT Unplugged, again depending on the artist.
00:35:27
Speaker
During this 2010-2011 period, the artists featured on Unplugged were, for the most part, newer acts with just an album or two under their belts. And I think it made the show lose a bit of that seasoned magic, allowing it to become, well, not much more than another quick hit outlet through which to promote a new album or single. Most of the Hallmark Unplugged characteristics, dramatically reworked originals, special guests, interesting one-time only covers, all those things fell by the wayside in favor of kind of pedestrian, paint-by-numbers acoustic versions of an artist's latest single. Because of that, not all, but still most, of the episodes during this period weren't exactly memorable enough to document and convert into album releases. However, just for the sake of tracking and the grand scheme of this triple-decade-plus retrospective, the artist who filmed unplugged episodes during this somewhat less-than-inspired period include Adam Lambert, Trey Songz, Trane, and B.O.B. all in 2010, though B.O.B. does get infinite credit from me for bringing out the incomparable Janelle Monae as a special guest for his unplugged mash-up of his own vampire weekend interpolating the kids with a cover of MGMT's kids. The artists in 2011 were Mumford & Sons, 30 Seconds to Mars, and Kelly Clarkson.
00:36:41
Speaker
Plus, Lil Wayne taking the page out of Springsteen's book by delivering a bombastic, very electric, not quite unplugged at all episode. That being said, I do really love that he covered Tupac's Hell Mary from his Machiavelli era. And since we don't get near enough hip hop on Unplugged, here's some of that incredibleness.
00:37:07
Speaker
Another quick note on 2010, Swedish alt-rockers Mando Dial filmed an Unplugged in Berlin, and it turned out to be a really inspired, wildly creative affair in front of a much smaller audience than the larger ones they had become accustomed to playing in front of. Musically, they augmented their thoughtful acoustic reinterpretations with a string quartet and a handful of musical guests that included actor-musician Gen X icon Juliette Lewis, Lana Del Rey, and Rey Davies of the Kinks.
00:37:35
Speaker
Visually, they crafted a dynamic four-room stage setup that represented the garage where they started out as a band, a hotel room to evoke touring life, a living room to represent home, and a storage room symbolizing a place to hold future memories yet to be made. German artist slash musician Klaus Wurman, perhaps most well known for designing the cover art to the Beatles' Revolver album, also appeared on the show as well. They released the whole gorgeous 24-song set on CD and DVD under the title Above and Beyond. And if you're not already familiar with them, I really recommend checking that out. Here's a little bit of Juliette Lewis singing with them on the Slinky song, High Heels.
00:38:25
Speaker
Alrighty, continuing on to 2011. Back in the States, we saw the quickest turnaround of a repeat performance when they brought back Adele for a second Unplugged, although technically it wasn't her second MTV Unplugged as much as it was her first VH1 Unplugged. Again, such a weird concept for me to vocalize.
00:38:42
Speaker
At least it gave us her cover of Aretha Franklin's You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman, which is inarguably one of the most vocally transcendent moments in Unplugged's entire run. If Adele pressed up a WEP with her 09 Unplugged on one side and her 2011 Unplugged on the other, I'm telling you, I'd be first in line to buy it.
00:39:04
Speaker
joe one Two cool notes about Unplug's international footprint in 2011 before moving on. First, MTV India launched their own weekly MTV Unplugged show in October of 2011, and it ended up being successful enough to run for 8 straight seasons, all the way up until 2019. Each season also boasted between like 7 and 10 episodes, so we're talking an incredible amount of week over week unplugged goodness.
00:39:30
Speaker
I am admittedly extremely unversed in India's pop music scene, so if anyone has a few recommendations of unplugged artists and songs to check out, please shoot me an email or leave a message on the unplugged revisited voicemail box. Second, Renal Norteño act Los Tigres del Norte, who had been recording albums since the late 1960s, filmed and unplugged for the new MTV Trace brand, which had recently been built to combine new bilingual programming produced in the States with English subtitled content brought over from the MTV Spain and MTV Latin American channels. Deciding to go the same route as Babyface did with his 97 episode, Los Tigres invited multiple musical friends along, including legendary Latin pop superstar Paulina Rubio, Puerto Rican hip-hop trio Calais 13, Argentinian rock star Andres Calamaro, Argentinian singer Diego Torres, who had recorded his own solo Unplugged back in 2004, and Colombian singer Juan Ace, who would film his own Unplugged the next year, which won him a Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Album and two Latin Grammys, including Album of the Year. For an extra level of crossover appeal to mainstream US rock audiences, they also invited Rage Against the Machine frontman, Zac De La Rocha, to add his signature sonic touch to the song, Somos Masamericanos.
00:40:46
Speaker
The resulting album was a hit as well, as it ended up hitting number one on multiple charts and would also go on to earn the band a Grammy and a Latin Grammy. For a familiar taste of this historically notable entry in the unplugged oeuvre, here's Los Tigres with De La Rocha on Bajo Quinto and vocals, introing Somos Masamericanos with a playful little twist on Rage's Killing in the Name, their first big hit from almost 20 years prior.
00:41:30
Speaker
Moving on to 2012, MTV Once More announced a new set of unplugged episodes, specifically using the reboot verbiage again. You know, as much as they've used it, I feel like the word reboot was perfectly accurate for 2001, weirdly botched in 2007, and successfully concise in 2009.
00:41:47
Speaker
By 2012, the word reboot, while unquestionably feeling a bit overused at that point, was at least properly employed, as the franchise seemed to want to continue casting a wider net, but to do so in a more focused way than the scattershot, cross-channel pollination they had been experiencing with in the few years leading up to this.
Memorable Performances in the 2010s
00:42:06
Speaker
In late March 2012, Unplugged announced upfront that it would be unrolling eight new episodes during the year, with three premiering on MTV, three premiering on VH1, and two premiering on CMT. MTV's trio was Florence and the Machine, Walk the Moon, and Rita Ora. VH1's trio was Carrie Underwood, The Civil Wars, and Gym Class Heroes. And CMT had Dirks Bentley and Little Big Town, who, in a potentially intentional crossover appeal move, both adapted pop hits for their unplugged cover songs.
00:42:37
Speaker
Bentley did Adele set fire to the rain and Little Big Town did Lady Gaga's Born This Way. As far as memorable moments from the 2012 season, I recommend tracking down Carrie Underwood's B3 meets Dobro meets String Quartet cover of Coldplay's Fix You and the entire sets from both The Civil Wars and Florence and the Machine. Those two are definitely the shining stars of the 2012 season for so many cool reasons.
00:43:18
Speaker
The Florence and the Machine Unplugged episode ended up being a real treat both sonically and visually, and it even got a proper album and DVD release, which was certainly nowhere near as much of a foregone conclusion in the 2010s as it had been in the 1990s. Musically, the band's dynamically lush, heart-fueled instrumental palette was augmented for the show by six string players and a 10-person choir. Visually, it is absolutely stunning thanks to it being filmed inside the gothic revival-style Angel Laurence's center.
00:43:48
Speaker
The building itself was originally constructed as a synagogue back in 1849, like pre-Civil War era, making it New York City's oldest still-standing synagogue building. It mostly operated as a synagogue all the way up until the mid-1970s, and then it fell into a few years of inoccupancy-fueled vandalism and disrepair before the city acquired it in the early 1980s.
00:44:10
Speaker
celebrated Spanish sculptor Angel Arrances purchased it in the mid-80s and rehabbed it into a gorgeous art gallery and performance space. Florence and the Machines Unplugged would not end up being the only unplugged episode filmed within its historically hallowed walls, but more on that a little later.
00:44:26
Speaker
During the show, Florence and her crew beautifully checked off all the tried-and-true unplugged boxes. They created unique, stripped-back arrangements, crafted a couple cool covers, including Otis Redding's Try a Little Tenderness and the Johnny Cash June Carter popularized Jackson, and even brought out a special guest, Josh Holme of Caius slash Queens of the Stone Age slash Eagles of Death Metal slash Them Crooked Vultures slash many other bands. who helped turn Jackson into a really haunting duet. As a cool side note, hip-hop luminary Q-tip and also Kanye West reportedly both big fans of Florence's bombastic voice were both in the front row and could be seen enjoying the show in a couple cool live shots from the broadcast.
00:45:07
Speaker
As far as The Civil War is unplugged, listen, there's a lot that went on, good and bad, with the singularly stellar vocal duo comprised of Joy Williams and John Paul White in a pretty short span of time. Back during my tenure as the editor of Noise Trade, The Civil War has employed our site to release their very first offering, a live album called Live at Eddie's Attic.
00:45:28
Speaker
and it was a shockingly good introductory musical statement from the duo, both for capturing the music and also the undeniably charming dynamic in their stage banter. I was living in Nashville at the time and was lucky enough to catch a handful of their mind-blowingly alchemic early shows in 2009 and 2010 before they skyrocketed and subsequently imploded within the span of just a few years. They recorded their Unplugged in early 2012, which was only a year after the release of their debut album,
00:45:56
Speaker
Barton Holler, but an intensely jam-packed year that saw them, among other things, tour with Adele, co-write and perform the song Safe and Sound with Taylor Swift for the Hunger Games soundtrack, and win two Grammy Awards. By November of 2012, they would end up abruptly canceling their in-progress European tour due to, and this is their words, quote, internal discord and irreconcilable differences of ambition, effectively ringing the death knell for the musical duo.
00:46:22
Speaker
They had so much material already recorded at the time of their dissolution that they may have ended up releasing more music after breaking up than they did while together. In 2013 alone, they released their self-titled second album, their 14-track A Place at the Table soundtrack with T-Bone Burnett, four separate studio EPs, and their Unplugged on VH1 album, which I believe may be the only official album release that carries that wonky VH1 and Unplugged pairing.
00:46:50
Speaker
I mean, they even won two more Grammy Awards, one in 2013 and one in 2014, after they had already called it quits. All that to say, they are still one of my all-time favorite musical acts, and you'd be hard-pressed to find two more musicians whose combined voices create such a distinctly otherworldly third. Plus, their songwriting chops were so refined and so unmistakably their own that it really is such a shame that things didn't work out more healthily for them.
00:47:17
Speaker
But hey, they are both still alive and both are still making their own music, so never say never. Just in case this short-lived band may not be on your own radar, I'll play you two quick snippets from their massively enjoyable, two-voice, one-guitar Unplugged. Here's a bit of what's probably their most popular song, Poison and Wine, featuring Joy playing piano on the only song that wasn't just guitar.
00:47:50
Speaker
And here's one of two genuinely amazing unplugged covers they did, Portishead's slinky trip hop classic, Sour Times.
00:48:09
Speaker
Following the substantial 2012 reboot, Unplugged went pretty dark again for the next couple of years, save for a couple special one-off events that occurred at a rate of about once a year. For the 2013 one-off show, German hard rock legend Scorpions took part in only the second ever Unplugged fully filmed in an open-air venue by setting up shop on top of a mountain in Athens, Greece for three nights of stunningly picturesque filming at the Lycobetus Amphitheater.
00:48:36
Speaker
While their signature glass-nose saluting 1990 power ballad, Wind of Change, was certainly not out of place among their army of acoustics and eight-piece string section, it was their classic 80s hits like No One Like You and Rock You Like a Hurricane that received the most dynamic changes, with the latter featuring another unplugged first. The first, and so far only, appearance of an acoustic flying V, a guitar whose electric counterpart is pretty synonymous with Scorpion's guitarist, Rudolf Schinker.
00:49:04
Speaker
The band released the monumental show as a sprawling 25-track album-film combo titled MTV Unplugged Live in Athens to great critical and commercial fanfare.
00:49:28
Speaker
But the 2014 one-off show, Unplugged, picked one of the most popular and also most polarizing artists of the entire 2010s, Miley Cyrus. To the surprise of no one, the larger cultural conversation around the episode seemed to be predetermined by one's own assessment of Cyrus going in. Which, it should be noted, this was just a few months after her controversial VMAs performance with Robin Thicke, so hot takes about Miley were all over the map and not exactly in short supply.
00:49:55
Speaker
Of course, Cyrus herself was beholden to no one's expectations but her own, which meant that her creative whims for her unplugged episode led to extreme vacillations between performance and personality that found her duetting with special guests Madonna and covering both Dolly Parton and Arctic Monkeys, but also dancing with a costumed little person and twerking on one of those two-person elementary school playhorse outfits.
00:50:20
Speaker
However, truth be told, her Unplugged may contain one of her purest vocal takes on Wrecking Ball, with the live strings behind it seriously lifting the emotional delivery. This Unplugged truly embodies an of-the-moment cultural snapshot of 2014 as evidenced by the fact that, although it garnered a reported 1 million TV views and 1.7 million streams in its first 24 hours of availability, it has never received an official album release.
00:50:57
Speaker
For the 2015 one-off show, Unplugged filmed UK alt-rock outfit Placebo in London during their celebratory 20-year anniversary era, which resulted in an incredibly thought-out and meticulously planned performance for Placebo fans, both old and new. While most casual listeners may only know Placebo from their 1998 radio hit, Pure Morning, the bands Unplugged was filmed during an almost 10-year period where they didn't play that song.
00:51:22
Speaker
Instead, those who tuned into their Unplugged episode, or bought the subsequent album, were treated to a retrospective of the band's back catalog through nuanced rearrangements, including some songs that they had never played in a live setting before. They also incorporated an ensemble of strings and woodwinds, glockenspiel, harmonica, whirli-tube, and a zither-like instrument called a canoon. Alongside their own career spanning originals, placebo also performed two mesmerizing covers.
00:51:48
Speaker
Sinead O'Connor's Jackie and the Pixies Where Is My Mind that are equally worth seeking out if you haven't heard them. I'll play you a little bit of Jackie here because not only is it a beautiful piece of Sinead's songwriting, but it also features accompaniment from a whirly tube, a long, hollow, almost toy baseball bat-like instrument that creates sustained musical notes as you spin it, slow spin for low notes and faster spins for higher ones. It's easy to pick out when watching Placebos Unplugged, mostly because the instrument was an eye-catching lime green color, but you can totally pick it out in this audio-only setting as well, as it's the thing that sounds like an airy synthesizer pad.
00:52:41
Speaker
Also of note for 2015, another logo watch update? This placebo show debuted a newer, cleaner unplugged logo that was streamlined down to just being the classic MTV icon next to the word unplugged in all caps with an ever so slightly italicized lean.
00:52:57
Speaker
After those few fallow years and skipping 2016 entirely, 2017 proved to be a fruitful year for Unplugged due to four notable episodes, all of which got album releases. First up was Norwegian synth-pop trio Aha, who MTV was finally able to lock down after quite a few years of courting them. The Unplugged crew traveled to Norway in June of 2017 and filmed Aha over two gorgeous summer nights at the stunningly back-dropped Giski Harbor Hall.
00:53:24
Speaker
Looking to conjure a little bit of the same sonic magic of some of the more classic unplugged sessions, Aha! hit all the high notes. They had a really small studio audience, they significantly reworked a couple of their biggest hits, they threw in a cool, unconventional cover song, and they had an imaginative guest list that included fellow 80s pop icons Allison Moyet of Yaz and Ian McCullough of Echo and the Bunnymen, as well as two younger singer-songwriters.
00:53:50
Speaker
Lissy and Ingrid, whose 80s years were spent, uh, just being toddlers, I guess. Cool side note, aha frontman Morton Harkett was actually making his second unplugged appearance as he was brought out as a special guest to sing on Wind of Change during the Scorpions unplugged just a few years prior.
00:54:07
Speaker
The Aha! episode resulted in the MTV Unplugged Summer Solstice double album, which was incredibly well received by fans and critics and garnered them their seventh top ten record on the yeah UK album charts. It even inspired them to go out on a short European Unplugged tour the following year.
00:54:44
Speaker
in a day or two.
00:54:50
Speaker
Scottish alt-rock trio Biffy Clyro also recorded an episode of Unplugged in 2017, performing on the famed circular stage of London's Roundhouse Performing Arts Centre. Along with augmenting their acoustic reworkings with a piano, cello, and second guitar, the band also made smart use of the spacious setting, positioning themselves around a giant tree with all sorts of foliage strewn about the stage and wrapping around the venue's columns that encircled the audience.
00:55:16
Speaker
The band chose a broad setlist that featured some songs that were over a decade old, some that wouldn't be released until their next record, and a wonderfully dreamy cover of The Beach Boys' God Only Knows. Biffy Clyro released their episode as a proper 15-track live album in mid-2018, and much like Aha! were inspired to undertake a short acoustic tour in the UK for a couple weeks.
00:55:37
Speaker
The other two notable Unplugged episodes from 2017 skewed a bit younger, and both were a little loose with their definitions of the term Unplugged. Then-19-year-old singer-songwriter Shawn Mendes played an acoustic guitar for about half of his episode, but gave over almost equal time to being strapped with an electric guitar.
00:55:55
Speaker
including his show-closing mashup of Kings of Leon's triple Grammy-winning hit, Use Somebody, and his own song, Treat You Better. The following week, Jack Antonoff's post-fun outfit, Bleachers, aired their Unplugged episode, which, again, featured mostly acoustic instrumentation, but also a prominently plugged-in drum machine on tracks like Hate the Chinomi, which also featured special guest background vocals from Lorde and Carly Rae Jepsen.
00:56:21
Speaker
Mendez's Unplugged album was released in all formats less than two months after his episode aired, while the Bleacher's Unplugged album was initially only available digitally, but eventually got a limited vinyl pressing for Record Store Day 2018. Here's a little of Antonoff kicking off the 80's pop homage, Hate That You Know Me, by building up some live drum loop programming before launching into the acoustic guitar riff.
00:57:03
Speaker
The next year, 2018, MTV Australia decided they would dip their toes in the unplugged waters for the first time, and I must say they ended up churning out some really incredible sessions from some of the country's best acts, all backdropped by some really gorgeous settings. I'm serious, the MTV unplugged Melbourne sessions are as much a feast for the eyes as they are for the ears.
00:57:23
Speaker
Gang of youths performed with a string quartet in Melbourne's meat market under a stunning canopy of upside-down, long-stemmed roses. Amy Sharpe played a charmingly earnest cover of Wetus's teenage dirt bag amidst a sea of candle flame and string lights. Courtney Barnett did a deeply moving rendition of Leonard Cohen's So Long Marianne from the lush outdoor courtyard of Haller Bar and Theatre in Brunswick.
00:57:47
Speaker
I'm telling you, these MTV Unplugged Melbourne sessions are genuinely worth trying to track down the videos as well as buying the albums. Which, I should note, Barnett's is pressed on a lovely aqua blue wax, and it sounds seriously, seriously amazing. Here's a little bit of her enchanting cello-backed Coen cover.
00:58:17
Speaker
And just because it's a great performance, let's hear a little bit of Amy's shark covering Teenage Dirtbag as well.
00:58:33
Speaker
Moving into 2019, uh, everybody buckle in. We've got a doozy here. An unplugged almost 25 years in the making. The prodigal son of unplugged returns. Of course, I'm talking about former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher's episode that aired in late summer 2019 after the release of his second solo album, Why Me, Why Not.
00:58:52
Speaker
If Gallagher was looking to make good after his dramatic bowing out of Oasis' 96 unplugged episode, he managed to really come through in spades the second time around. His episode was filmed inside the stunningly cinematic Whole City Hall, and he was exquisitely backed by the 24-piece Urban Soul Orchestra for a pitch-perfect mixture of solo material and Oasis favorites, including closing the show with a somewhat wistful champagne supernova.
00:59:17
Speaker
For the other four Oasis tunes he played that night, he invited out Oasis guitarist Bonehead to join him as a special guest on Some Might Say, Stand By Me, Sad Song, and Cast No Shadow. Gallagher also leaned on Bonehead a bit to acknowledge the elephant in the room. Would he reference his previous band's previous Unplugged? Of course he did.
00:59:36
Speaker
this was called
00:59:41
Speaker
dedicated to bohead who gets to do mtv on why But even amidst all the mid-90s nostalgia of the oasis-ness of it all, Gallagher managed to really keep things fresh and present as well by rolling out the live debut of five new songs and singing a cover of Bob Marley's Natural Mystic, which he hadn't played in a couple of years.
01:00:01
Speaker
The evening's most emotionally rich performance actually blended together both of those competing story threads, his past Oasis legacy and his present solo journey, and his brand new song, Once, which was also making its live debut. The song's lyrics are clearly about reassessing the past from his previous viewpoint and understanding that you can only move forward into the future.
01:00:22
Speaker
I could listen all day to Liam singing literally anything, but here's just the beautiful, heart-tugging chorus of once, which I imagine is laser-focused sung in the direction of Noel's innermost beat.
01:00:47
Speaker
Oh, also, please forgive my constant vinyl asides, but I must say that his Unplugged album was pressed on a beautiful green and white splatter variant that just dazzles when you're spinning it. Good stuff. Go pick one up. One final note on 2019. That year, MTV Latin America invited Mexican alt-rockers Cafe Tacuba back to record a much anticipated second Unplugged.
01:01:10
Speaker
They had first filmed the band for broadcast back in 1995, and that session eventually got released as an album and DVD in 2005. This second invitation also resulted in an album release, appropriately titled Un Segundo MTV Unplugged.
01:01:25
Speaker
which was incredibly well received and even got nominated for two Latin Grammys. This time around, one of their special guests was former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne, who was also making his second unplugged appearance after being a guest on the 10,000 Maniacs episode back in 93. Here's a bit of Byrne singing with the band on the song, Elle Outsider.
01:01:57
Speaker
Moving on to the 2020s. We did it, everybody. We made it to the final decade of my unplugged, full, canon-spanning, initial explainer episodes.
Unplugged's Adaptation During COVID-19
01:02:08
Speaker
Let's enter the 2020s. As I'm sure everyone remembers with startling clarity, the first few months of 2020 were indelibly marked by the COVID-19 global pandemic and the worldwide shelter-in-place community mitigation strategies.
01:02:21
Speaker
While most artists tried to help their fans navigate this fraught period with a variety of chill at-home livestream performances, some of the larger media conglomerates were able to organize some of those self-quarantine encouraging efforts under a more cohesive banner. For example, the as stripped back as you can get MTV Unplugged at home run of virtual
01:02:51
Speaker
The Unplugged At Home series kicked off the last week of March 2020 with Grammy-winning former Fuji-turned-guest artist extraordinaire Wyclef Jean. Self-recorded at his home in front of a gorgeous aquarium, Wyclef's quick-hit 10-minute show featured him playing a trio of chilled-out, bona fide classics, If I Was President, Hips Don't Lie, and Gone Till November, all by himself on a nylon string guitar.
01:03:15
Speaker
Whenever you find yourself in need of a genuine exhale and mood lifter, I recommend revisiting this one out on MTV's YouTube channel. You know, if you can do so without it bringing up any bad vibe flashbacks or triggering a disassociated fugue state or anything like that. MTV ended up doing 14 of these unplugged at home performances throughout March, April, and May.
01:03:35
Speaker
And the virtual lineup was a nice mix of seasoned recognizable artists like Melissa Etheridge, Jewel, and Marcus Mumford, who had all previously done their own proper unplugged episodes in the past, and some younger, new to me, names. If you're in the revisiting mood, I'll also say that the episodes from Phineas and the forever out-of-pocket Shaggy are pretty great.
01:03:56
Speaker
How about a little Steve Miller Juice Newton interpolating goodness to take us back to both 2020 and 2001 with a bit of Shaggy's unplugged version of his globally chart-topping hit, Angel. she
01:04:19
Speaker
So, from an unplugged perspective, these were, of course, not your typical full-production unplugged shows. They most certainly sit as anomalies in the unplugged canon, with a big ol' asterisk by each one. That being said, they were incredibly nice to have at the time, and I watched pretty much every single one of them, even the artists I had never heard of before, so that new music exposure part was pretty cool as well.
01:04:41
Speaker
This is another example where I think the unplugged branding was applied with more thought to the immediate moment than to, for lack of a better phrase, continue building the legacy or anything like that. I'm not saying that's bad at all. It's just that, for me, one of the reasons I started this podcast is because I would love to see unplugged be remembered and talked about in cultural conversations in a more expanded, nuanced way, outside of just comparing every unplugged performance to Nirvana, or every unplugged cover song to Mariah, or every unplugged album sells to Clapton, and so on. There are some truly rich, multi-layered musical depths to be plumbed within the varying stages of unplugged history, and I want to try to shine a light on each and every corner of its 35 years and counting history.
01:05:23
Speaker
Okay, let's keep it moving. We've got one more unplugged goodie from 2020. In the fall, Miley Cyrus made her return to unplugged with a still-at-home, yet aesthetically elevated, multi-camera, multi-outfitted outdoor performance that was picturesquely filmed during Golden Hour and features her tastefully accompanied by a responsibly masked backing band calling themselves the Social Distancers, which was made up of two acoustic guitars, stand-up bass, pedal steel, keyboard, and drums.
01:05:52
Speaker
Cyrus had been sporadically filming these cover-heavy Backyard Sessions-style performances since at least 2012, so this one was officially dubbed MTV Unplugged Presents' Miley Cyrus Backyard Sessions. Even with only a seven-song setlist, Cyrus perfectly packed her second Unplugged with her charmingly raspy vocals, twangy acoustic arrangements, and some truly inspired cover song choices.
01:06:14
Speaker
She kicked things off with a slinky reworking of Britney Spears' Gimme More and a railroad-shuffled take on Jackson Brown's These Days, crediting Nico's version on the on-screen graphic. She then moved into an insanely good trio of jams, including an atmospherically dreamy sweet Jane, clearly inspired more by the late 80s cowboy junkies cover than the Velvet Underground's livelier studio version from Loaded.
01:06:38
Speaker
a straight-ahead guitar-only run-through of Pearl Jam's Just Breathe, and a beautifully pedal-steel forward version of the cardigans under the radar gem Communication. Cyrus closed things out by duetting with her sister Noah on a piano-only version of Noah's song, I Got So High That I Saw Jesus, and a chilled-out version of her own new single, Midnight Sky, from her album Plastic Hearts that was coming out the next month. There are actually quite a few stellar moments from this one that I could sample for you, But to get a good taste of the overall vibe, here's a moment from probably my favorite performance of the show, her mesmerizing Cardigan's cover of Communication.
01:07:26
Speaker
Moving into the next year, Unplugged offered up a trio of somewhat back-to-conventional standalone episodes in 2021. Plus, cue the non-existent Logo Watch theme song, the Unplugged logo got a small, fresh font facelift as well, now boasting a starkly simplified, all-caps posture stretching slightly above and slightly below a smaller MTV icon hanging out to the left.
01:07:50
Speaker
In early February, South Korean K-pop superstars BTS were riding the wave of having four of their albums hit number one in the US in less than two years, which was a feat last accomplished by The Beatles more than six decades prior. Since we were still in the thick of COVID-era social distancing, there was no live audience component for the BTS Unplugged, so they instead tried to keep it visually interesting by changing up their performance spaces and outfits.
01:08:15
Speaker
For example, the show kicked off with them performing their song Telepathy, decked out in casual gear in a warehouse-style hangout, while the follow-up song Blue and Gray found them in a lush greenhouse setting wearing suits, sweaters, and ties. Playing pretty loose with the whole Unplugged ethos, most of their performances were done to tracks with no instrumentalists visible. However,
01:08:36
Speaker
Their band-backed performances of Life Goes On and their disco-kissed English-language hit Dynamite edged the closest to feeling like an unplugged performance, even if most of the instruments were very much electrified. While I am admittedly pretty ignorant when it comes to BTS's catalog, I will say that I connected with their tender unplugged cover of Coldplay's Fix You, featuring all seven members trading lines and harmonies with each other.
01:09:07
Speaker
The other two unplugs of 2021 both aired in December. One was with British indie pop rockers Bastille, and let me start by saying after all of the much appreciated, thick of the pandemic, unplugged adjacent offerings, this one felt like a real true blue, returned form unplugged that we hadn't really seen since Liam Gallagher's back in 2019.
01:09:26
Speaker
Again, completely understandable, world-shaking global pandemic and all. I'm just saying that in looking at these things through an unplugged, anchored lens, this one really felt like a classic, tried-and-true magical unplugged. It was filmed in front of an intimate studio audience and performed on acoustic instruments in an in-the-round style setting, meaning you could see audience members from almost every angle, even stretching almost completely around the back of the band, which it had been a minute since Unplugged had done that.
01:09:53
Speaker
Alongside the traditional acoustic instruments, you know, guitar, bass, piano, drums, the band sonically spiced things up even further with things like glockenspiel, mandolin, lap steel, melotron, whirlitzer, stand-up bass, and what maybe looks like a lute, I think? Plus, they invited along two horn players, a trio of background singers and a cellist.
01:10:14
Speaker
I was only tangentially familiar with Bastille's back catalog before they're unplugged, but I came out the other side of it incredibly impressed with their songwriting, their musicianship, their instrumental versatility, and the creative gravitas they brought to their unplugged moment. Plus, their two unplugged covers were just absolute chef's kiss perfection. One was a really cool version of Killing Me Softly that seamlessly blended together the tenderness of the Roberta Flack original with some of the funk-grooved elements of the 96 Fugees cover.
01:10:43
Speaker
And the other one, a genuinely breathtaking cover of Nirvana's Come As You Are, was doubly ingenious. Both for its stirring, gorgeous, on its own musical merit, but also for it being a fittingly respective tip of the hat to Nirvana's transcendent Unplugged from almost 30 years prior.
01:10:59
Speaker
Anchored around a fragile, nowhere-to-hide piano arrangement and arrestingly elevated by cello, bowed double bass, glockenspiel, organ, lap steel, timpani drum, and more, this version immediately takes its place as one of the most moving and inspired unplugged covers of the entire series. I'd love to just play you the whole thing, but here's a little bit of the second verse to tide you over until you get lost in the beauty of the whole track later on. Seriously, chase it down. It's more than worth a full listen.
01:11:37
Speaker
The other December 2021 Unplugged was the program's first double-bill duet-style show. It featured renowned crooner Tony Bennett making his celebrated return to Unplugged. Go back and listen to part two of my retrospective if you want a refresher on his mind-boggling Unplugged Ubiquity in 1994. And he was in a shared bill with pop star polymath Lady Gaga.
01:11:59
Speaker
MTV's Unplugged presents Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga for one extraordinary night. Their favorite duets stripped down. MTV Unplugged, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga premieres Thursday, December 16th at 9 on MTV. A little context on Bennett and Gaga. Their creative relationship stretched all the way back to 2011, when she was one of 17 artists he picked to sing with on his triple Grammy-winning Duets II album, the one that featured Amy Winehouse's last recording before her untimely passing.
01:12:28
Speaker
On Bennett's duets album, he and Gaga delivered a charismatically snappy version of the Rodgers and Hart show tune, The Lady is a Tramp, that was chosen to kick off the album, be released as a single, that hit number one on the Billboard Jazz chart, and was even performed by the duo as the opening number to Lady Gaga's A Very Gaga Thanksgiving TV special that aired during the 2011 holiday season.
01:12:51
Speaker
A couple years later, the unlikely yet undeniably complimentary twosome embarked on an incredibly productive creative partnership that ended up resulting in the 2014 chart-topping Grammy-winning collaborative album, Cheek to Cheek, which also spawned a live PBS television special that also got a DVD, Blu-ray, and vinyl release, and a much-buzzed-about co-headlining tour that ran from 2014 into the late summer of 2015.
01:13:19
Speaker
In September of 2021, the same year they did their Unplugged together, the duo released their second collaborative album, a 10-song collection of Cole Porter covers titled Love for Sale, which ended up being Bennett's final album release as he passed away in the summer of 2023, just two weeks shy of turning 97 years old. Part of the promotion cycle for Love for Sale included Bennett and Gaga performing two nights at Radio City Music Hall to film the one-last-time TV special.
01:13:47
Speaker
which ended up being Bennett's final live shows before his retirement due to health concerns. As far as timing goes, The One Last Time Show was filmed in August and aired in November, while their Unplugged episode had been filmed in July and aired in December, making The One Last Time Show Bennett's actual last live performance and Unplugged his last televised live performance.
01:14:10
Speaker
I remember there were a couple outlets at the time that really couldn't seem to parse that distinction quite accurately, so it's understandable if there's a little confusion around all that. Bennett and Gaga filmed their Unplugged at New York's scenic Angel La Ronces Center, the same location as the gorgeous Florence and the Machine Unplugged back in 2015.
01:14:28
Speaker
They performed their pristine six-song set in the round, backed by a phenomenally uncluttered hybrid jazz sextet, comprised of Bennett's piano player, guitarist, stand-up bassist, and drummer, and Lady Gaga's trumpet and sax players. Four of the songs came from their recent Love for Sale covers album, Night and Day, Love for Sale, I've Got You Under My Skin, and the Gaga solo ballad version of Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love. Their other two unplugged selections were a pair of Bennett's tried and true standards,
01:14:58
Speaker
Irving Berlin's Stepping Out with My Baby, which had played a big part in Bennett's early 90s resurgence, and of course Fly Me to the Moon, which Bennett had been performing since the mid-60s and would often trot out as an unamplified show-stopping closer. Bennett had also performed both tracks on his celebrated 94 Unplugged as well.
01:15:16
Speaker
While the whole show was rich with emotion, existentialism, and pop music history, it was Bennett's solo closing version of Fly Me to the Moon performed at Gaga's own request that really brought the entire moment to full resonance. Here's a bit of just shy of turning 95 years old Mr. Tony Bennett channeling almost 60 years of singing Fly Me to the Moon into one more magical moving rendition with Lady Gaga both literally and figuratively sitting at his feet in reverence and admiration.
01:16:00
Speaker
Let me know what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars Alrighty, there seems to be some dust or something getting in my eyes, so let's just keep it moving into 2022. Unplugged 2022 featured a pair of pretty interesting episodes that both ended up being a bit of an acoustic-electric hybrid with an impressive array of layered musical showmanship. One was with Australian multi-instrumentalist phenom Tash Sultana, and the other was with American indie pop duo 21Pilots.
01:16:31
Speaker
Sultana's Unplugged was filmed for MTV Australia under the MTV Unplugged Melbourne banner, and it ended up being a pretty cool acoustic-electric hybrid kind of show. For example, on a song like Crop Circles, Sultana started off on acoustic guitar,
01:16:48
Speaker
and then switched to an electric halfway through the song to rip a gnarly distorted guitar solo.
01:17:06
Speaker
Throughout the show, Sultana also played at various times, trumpet, sax, flute, mandolin, and a few different synthesizers and percussive beat makers. It was honestly a musical tour de force from the wildly talented Australian artist and their band. Plus, their solo acoustic-only cover of Bon Iver's flume nailed that quintessential unplugged charm. Additional bonus points to Sultana's Unplugged for A being filmed in the stunning stained glass boasting church turned theater chapel off chapel,
01:17:35
Speaker
and B, being released on swanky marbled pink vinyl. The 21 Pilots Unplugged featured just the musical duo of Tyler Joseph and Josh Dunn on a stage gloriously littered with a variety of acoustic and electronic instruments they would employ throughout the show. There was an upright piano, ukulele, bass, and a traditional drum set, all scattered amongst at least a half dozen keyboard synthesizers and electronic drum pads.
01:18:00
Speaker
I'm admittedly pretty basic when it comes to their catalog. I'm pretty much just familiar with the big hits like Stressed Out and that Heathen song that they matched up with the Stranger Things theme song. But watching their Unplugged, I was really impressed with their ability to build up these lushly looped instrumental music beds across multiple instruments in a live setting. Like, speaking of Stressed Out, for their Unplugged version,
01:18:22
Speaker
They both built the percussive and melodic grooves up on separate synthesizers, then switched over to one of those electronic drum pads and a couple other synths to play the underlying chords and lines for the verse and chorus. By the bridge, they had pulled the percussion out and layered additional synthesizer lines while singing locked-in harmonies together, and then they eased out of that into some ukulele and synth interplay that carries through to the end of the song. Yeah, we used to play pretend
01:19:02
Speaker
For the song Ride, they built the percussion loop by recording four individual sounds created by unplugged audience members, processed them on the fly, fed them into a drum pad, and then played the drum pad live for the first part of the song before hopping over to the full-on drum kit for a bit and then hopping back and forth between them once more.
01:19:21
Speaker
I commend their Unplugged for doing a really good job of showing the tactile differences between making music on computers versus making music through computers. In my opinion, though, what is critically important to keeping the electronic instrument-rich episodes from both Tash Sultana and 21 Pilots snugly within the Unplugged realm is the visual component of the show.
01:19:42
Speaker
It's important to be able to watch them build up these instrumental beds, play the instruments themselves, and manually trigger the loops weaving throughout the different parts of the song. Are synthesizers and electronic drum pads the traditional instrumental choice for an unplugged episode? Of course not. Can they still be used in a manner that showcases the human musicality behind playing a melodic line live, looping it, and manually triggering it in and out of musical passages in a way that still unpacks a song's instrumental inner workings and harnesses the inherent human touch of live musical performance that Unplugged was designed to showcase?
01:20:17
Speaker
Absolutely, at least when it's done in the specific soundscape building manner of which I think both acts did incredibly well. Don't forget, at the end of the day this whole unplugged thing was envisioned as a television show and the visual component remains an integral ingredient to the successful conjuring of the mystical unplugged melting pot.
01:20:37
Speaker
And that brings us to 2023 and the two most recent entries in the illustrious Unplugged Cannon, at least at the time of this recording. The first one I'll mention is the return of Swedish rocker Mando Diao filming their second Unplugged after their truly mesmerizing 2010 episode. Crafted 13 years apart, the two shows certainly have their own unique flavors, including the second one being comprised of only the Swedish language side of their catalog.
01:21:14
Speaker
The other 2023 episode is the MTV Unplugged presents a hip-hop 50th celebration of Jersey's finest, featuring a jaw-dropping list of hip-hop greats, including Queen Latifah, Redman, Wyclef, Tretch from Naughty by Nature, Heather B, Old School Legends the Sugarhill Gang, and many more.
01:21:32
Speaker
Now, I was absolutely ecstatic when I heard that there were plans to do another hip-hop Unplugged. As I mentioned in part one of these explainer episodes, not only was the 91 YO Unplugged Raps show with A Tribe Called Quest, MC c Light, De La Soul, and LL Cool J, one of the inarguably greatest episodes of the show's whole existence, but all throughout the 90s, as well as for the last two decades,
01:21:54
Speaker
My biggest critique of the show has been its utter lack of hip-hop performances when multiple unplugs, The Whole 91 Show, Arrested Development, Jay-Z and The Roots, have shown how amazing the genre can elevate the show's musical ethos. The Hip-Hop 50th Unplugged was an absolutely incredible and wildly enjoyable live hip-hop performance retrospective, and I genuinely loved seeing all of the performances.
01:22:19
Speaker
However, my only beef with it is that they framed it as an unplugged episode. Which, granted, I may have personally been putting too much expectation on it to feel more like the small, eye-level audience intimacy and uncluttered acoustic instrument a versatility of the other hip-hop unplugs I mentioned.
01:22:35
Speaker
where, instead, this felt like an incredibly cool hip-hop show with a great live band that was happening on a big stage in front of a big audience. As a raucously fun live concert celebrating hip-hop's bicentennial, I absolutely adored it. No notes. As an unplug, though, I just wish they hadn't casually tacked that framing onto the show's title because my own hopes were way too stratospheric.
01:22:56
Speaker
But hey, there's still time, MTV Unplugged crew. We have a ton of great rappers, upstarts and season vets still going strong in the game. You could make up for lost time and have an entire new season of Unplugged devoted just to hip-hop. Until that may or may not happen, just know to expect quite a few Unplugged Revisited episodes from me devoted not only to the scant few hip-hop unplugs, but also a few to deep-diving all the fun corners of live acoustic sampling that has transpired on the show.
01:23:26
Speaker
Okay, so there we go friends, we made it through my three-part Unplugged 101 cursory-level overview of the last 35 years of MTV Unplugged. If you're still here, thank you so much. Now that we're all up to speed and the narrative groundwork has been laid out, new episodes of Unplugged Revisited will be devoted to single topics.
01:23:45
Speaker
I'll be looking at individual shows and interviewing some of the artists who appeared on Unplugged, as well as members of the Unplugged crew who helped bring the show to life. For some episodes, I'll be analyzing certain components of the show's cultural legacy and talking about what elements made it such a pop culture phenom in the 90s, and what missing elements may have kept it from really re-establishing its footing in the intervening decades.
01:24:08
Speaker
There's so much to discuss, and more importantly, so much great music to revisit, recontextualize, and hopefully reintroduce to new audiences. So I hope you'll stick with the show. As always, if you dig the show, want to share your own unplugged memories, ask a question, request a show topic, or connect with the pod for any reason, there are a couple ways you can get in touch.
01:24:28
Speaker
You can email me at unpluggedrevisited at gmail dot.com, or you can reach out to me on Twitter at unplugged underscore pod, or you can leave a voicemail that'll maybe get played on the show by dialing 234 revisit. That's 234-738-4748. The next episode will be available in two weeks at the same place you're listening to this now. So please take a moment to follow the pod on your platform of choice so that it'll automatically pop into your feed when it goes live.
01:24:58
Speaker
and Until then my friends, be kind to yourself and look out for each other.