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![UR018: “6 Unplugged Songs that Explain the ‘90s” w/ Rob Harvilla [1990s MTV Unplugged] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=54,quality=85/image-files/66ea0b235fcf51d2c9a0b7cd/43cbefc3-777c-4d93-9915-92abd82876d2.jpg)
UR018: “6 Unplugged Songs that Explain the ‘90s” w/ Rob Harvilla [1990s MTV Unplugged]
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For our Season Two opener, we called in a Ringer! Writer, author, and podcaster Rob Harvilla (“60 Songs that Explain the ‘90s”) joins the show to discuss MTV Unplugged’s massive, multi-layered impact throughout the 1990s via six exemplary performances. I picked six songs as well, so you’re really getting a dozen different Unplugged gems that both highlight the show’s unique sonic alchemy and also broaden the lens beyond its often myopically misremembered legacy. Consider it a lovingly hand-crafted, 12-track Unplugged mixtape from us to you!
If you dig the show, would like to share your own Unplugged memories, offer up a correction, or connect with the show for any other reason:
- You can email me at unpluggedrevisited@gmail.com,
- You can reach out on Bluesky at @willhodge.bsky.social, or
- You can leave a voicemail (that’ll maybe get played on the show) by dialing 234-REVISIT (234-738-4748)
Recommended![UR019: Fergal Lawler (The Cranberries) [1995 MTV Unplugged] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/66ea0b235fcf51d2c9a0b7cd/43cbefc3-777c-4d93-9915-92abd82876d2.jpg)
![UR015: Mike Inez (Alice In Chains) [1996 MTV Unplugged] image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/66ea0b235fcf51d2c9a0b7cd/ce95ba92-1808-4cb4-b4f5-2fb578ff7daf.jpg)
Transcript
Introduction to Season Two and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Unplugged. Unplugged. Unplugged. Welcome to Unplugged.
00:00:14
Speaker
Greetings and salutations. Welcome back to season two of Unplugged Revisited, the podcast that celebrates, critiques, and dives deep into the last three and a half decades of MTV Unplugged.
00:00:25
Speaker
I'm your host, music journalist, pop culture anthropologist, and unplugged obsessive, Will Hodge. And yes, you heard that right, friends. It's season two of the podcast. And not to be an old colonizing the parlance of the youth or anything, but I think it goes without saying that we are so back.
00:00:41
Speaker
Hmm, you know what? I think I take too many daily multivitamins for that to sound right, so let's just keep it moving. I'm so excited for this episode, our season two opener, for two big reasons.
00:00:52
Speaker
One, while artists interview single Unplugged deep dives will always be the main through line of Unplugged Revisited, I really enjoy the occasional switch up to find an interesting and cohesive way to talk about a lot of Unplugs at once.
00:01:06
Speaker
Just like last season's episode on the four official Unplugged compilation CDs, or my MTV Unplugged Two-Timers Club show where I highlighted over 40 artists who appeared on Unplugged more than once.
00:01:19
Speaker
Today's show is one of those multi-unplugged sweeps, and I had a lot of fun putting it all together. The second reason I'm so excited is because my guest this episode, writer, author, and podcaster Rob Harvilla of 60 Songs That Explain the 90s fame, is, in my opinion, one of the most insightful and hilarious culture journalists you could ever hope to talk music with.
00:01:41
Speaker
Just a couple quick hit bullets from his decades-long resume. He's written for places like Pitchfork, Spin, and Rolling Stone. He's currently on staff at The Ringer. What a great website.
00:01:51
Speaker
And he's also the creator-host of genuinely one of the most smartly written podcasts around, 60 Songs That Explain the ninety s And just in case that sounds right up your alley, but you're like only 60 songs to do that, I want more. Then worry not, my friends, because dating back to late 2020, Rob did a full 60 episode season, then doubled the whole thing to 120 episodes, appropriately shutting down shop in early 2024 with an episode on Semisonic's closing time. And then he grand reopened last October under the pitch perfect banner of 60 songs that explain the colon the 2000s.
00:02:29
Speaker
In between all that, he also wrote an incredibly enjoyable companion book, appropriately titled 60 Songs That Explain the 90s. Without a doubt, Rob has crafted literally hundreds of hours of perceptive, wry, nostalgia-rich music analysis,
00:02:44
Speaker
And I wanted to say thank you by stealing some of his time to come on my show, making him do some homework and forcing him to keep it all between the lanes of my own crude facsimile of his genius framework.
00:02:55
Speaker
All for an episode I'm calling Six Unplugged Songs That Explain the 90s. ah See, they got the Big
Cultural Impact of MTV Unplugged
00:03:01
Speaker
Mac. I got the Big Mick. We both got two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions.
00:03:08
Speaker
But they use a sesame seed bun. My buns have no seeds. As long time listeners well know, one of my biggest reasons for doing this show is to highlight and celebrate the uniquely transcendent performances, stacked back catalog, and broad genre reach of MTV Unplugged's multi-decade legacy.
00:03:27
Speaker
Far beyond the woefully inaccurate, old rockers go acoustic box that it often gets shoved down into. So to analyze the trajectory of Unplugged's dynamic cultural footprints throughout its most impactful decade, I broke out the show's phenomenal 90s run into six thematic categories, asked Rob to pick a representative Unplugged song for each one, and then we talked about how the show was reflecting and responding within each specific cultural moment.
00:03:53
Speaker
Plus, in true 60 Songs fashion, we didn't stick to the number in the title because I also picked a song for each category, so you're really going to get like a dozen songs, but y'all get it. But before we
Podcast Announcements and New Segments
00:04:04
Speaker
get into all that six unplugged songs that explain the 90s goodness, let me take care of a couple quick announcements and more on the other side of this vintage unplugged commercial break. We're at MTV where some of the world's finest musicians are performing.
00:04:19
Speaker
What they don't know is we're making them play acoustic. Best of unplugged week. Monday, Tony Bennett. Tuesday, two all new spoken words. Wednesday, Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam.
00:04:32
Speaker
Thursday, Nirvana.
00:04:36
Speaker
They love the unplugged experience. why don't you try it at home? All next week at 8 on MTV. Okay, a couple quick announcements. Announcement one. As you may or may not already know, over the summer we saw another classic 90s MTV Unplugged episode get its first official audio release as the Cranberries, for the first time ever, finally released their entire Unplugged episode in audio form as a part of the 30th anniversary reissue of their 1995 sophomore album No Need to Argue. Okay, and this is your acoustic version of Zombie.
00:05:13
Speaker
This is a super special moment for Cranberries fans, as their Unplugged was one of the ones that didn't get a proper album release during the show's popular 90s run. It's important to note though that their Unplugged set isn't a part of every iteration of the reissue.
00:05:28
Speaker
There are a couple other versions, like a 2 CD set, a single vinyl, a double vinyl, and a digital release that do not contain the Unplugged songs. However, the limited edition triple LP vinyl reissue does contain their full 9 song MTV Unplugged set as stand alone bonus tracks encompassing the entirety of the third vinyl disc.
00:05:50
Speaker
The reissue also contains a couple other cool bonus tracks, like a previously unreleased demo of Zombie, a trio of songs from their Woodstock 94 set, and two new remixes of Zombie and Ode to My Family from Ian Cook of Churches.
00:06:14
Speaker
As of right now, this specific 3LP edition of the Cranberries' No Need to Argue 30th Anniversary reissue is the only official release to feature their entire MTV Unplugged set.
00:06:25
Speaker
But, uh, you know, stay tuned. Watch this space, as they say. And definitely don't miss my next episode. That's all I'm saying. Announcement 2. speaking of my next episode a little housekeeping about the podcast itself first thank you to everyone who reached out or left a review during the between seasons break i appreciate your encouragement and enjoy reading all your notes hope you all had a truly wonderful summer yourselves and i can't wait to read all of your what i did on my summer break essays that are due by the end of next week but as far as season two of the podcast
00:06:57
Speaker
most everything will be pretty much the exact same standard fare as last season with one minor tweak. Just a heads up that for now, the podcast is moving from every two weeks to a once a month cadence so that I can maintain A, my work and dissertation schedule and B, my sanity.
00:07:14
Speaker
Not that big of a deal, but I just wanted to make sure I explicitly noted the change. And if for some reason you've just got to have some brand new unplugged, revisited content every two weeks, Well then, maybe just split each episode up into two parts because we both know I make these things way too long in the first place.
00:07:31
Speaker
Okay, along with moving to once a month, another new thing about this season is that I'll also be dialing up the unpluggedness of each episode with a new recurring segment I'm calling Uncovered. um This'll be where I quickly highlight a handful of cool unplugged cover songs, all tied around some unifying theme.
00:07:50
Speaker
For this episode, the uncovered theme is Jimi Hendrix. Yes, the bluesy, purple-hazed, psychedelic rock god who essentially reinvented the electric guitar and was also known for such impressive incendiary theatrics as playing the guitar behind his back or with his teeth, or in the case of how he closed out his 1967 Monterey Pop Festival set, dousing his guitar in lighter fluid, setting it on fire, and then smashing it to bits. You know, the exact kinds of images that first come to mind when you hear the words MTV Unplugged.
00:08:22
Speaker
But believe it or not, there were at least a half dozen moments in Unplugged's history when Jimmy's swanky Sonic Spector was directly summoned. I really hope you're going to dig this new segment, but, you know, I'll take the same stance as Fiona Apple did during her Unplugged episode.
00:08:37
Speaker
Okay, so if you're a fan of Jimi Hendrix, you're either going to really like me or really, really not like me at the end of this. Okay, the
Exploration of Hendrix Covers on Unplugged
00:08:44
Speaker
first Hendrix cover to appear on Unplugged actually showed up pretty early, like single digits of season one, on the Stevie Ray Vaughan-Joe Satriani split episode, when Satriani and original Unplugged host Jules Shear did a one-time-only acoustic cover of May This Be Love from Hendrix's debut album, Are You Experienced? Fall with me for million days Oh, my water flow
00:09:15
Speaker
The next year, another Hendrix cover came extremely close to appearing on the show, so this one is technically an asterisk, when Sting played Little Wing during his unplugged pre-show run-through.
00:09:26
Speaker
can lie under the piano.
00:09:36
Speaker
Little Wing originally appeared on Hendrix's second album, Axis Bold As Love, and Sting had already released a gorgeous cover of it on his own 1987 record, Nothing Like The Sun.
00:09:47
Speaker
For whatever reason though, the song didn't make the cut for his actual unplugged taping that night, so this clip is from a couple hours earlier during his unplugged rehearsal.
00:10:01
Speaker
The next year, the Unplugged crew traveled to Switzerland and recorded a trio of interesting episodes at the 92 Montreux Jazz Festival, an absolutely top-tier Unplugged from Annie Lennox as she was just beginning her solo career, a covers-rich barn burner with idiosyncratic blues rock crooner Joe Cocker, and a curiously hard-to-find set from the one-of-one funk-rock misfits Was Not Was of Walk the Dinosaur fame.
00:10:27
Speaker
They covered the Hendrix ballad The Wind Cries Mary during their unplugged set, but sadly I do not have any audio of it. So moving on. Next up, while not an actual Hendrix cover, honorable mention goes to Neil Young, as during both of his unplugged appearances in 92 and 93, he invoked the rock icon by name in his song From Hank to Hendrix.
00:10:50
Speaker
From Hank to Hendrix I'll walk these streets with you Then in 96, Seal kicked off his Unplugged episode with a killer cover of the fan favorite Hendrix B-side, Stone Free.
00:11:13
Speaker
The next Hendrix Unplugged cover, and admittedly the whole reason I went with the Hendrix theme for this first uncovered segment, occurred the following year, in 97, when Fiona Apple launched her Unplugged into the stratosphere with an absolutely stunning piano-led cover of Angel from Hendrix's posthumously released Cry of Love record.
00:11:34
Speaker
Angel, come on down from heaven yesterday.
00:11:41
Speaker
Stayed with me just long enough to rescue me.
00:11:48
Speaker
And finally, in 1999, Hendrix's Little Wing was vindicated by making its proper unplugged debut at the hands of Irish pop rock sibling quartet, The Coors, who masterfully seasoned their version with tin whistle, violin, and a traditional Irish hand drum called a balron.
00:12:06
Speaker
Now
00:12:16
Speaker
So there you go for our first uncovered segment, seven different Hendrix-themed unplugged goodies, only two of which appear on official unplugged albums. So hopefully there was some new stuff in there for you.
00:12:27
Speaker
Who loves you, baby?
Significance of MTV Unplugged Performances
00:12:29
Speaker
Okay, that was pretty fun, at least for me. But let's get into the goods, shall we? Here's my unplugged revisited, six unplugged songs that explain the 90s chat with journalist, podcaster, author, and all-around rad dude, Rob Harvilla.
00:12:46
Speaker
I'm so supremely stoked to talk about the impact and legacy of MTV Unplugged with my guest today, who is, in my opinion, one of the most insightful, clever, and uniquely voiced music journalists in the game today.
00:12:57
Speaker
You may know him from his most excellent podcast, 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, and its perfectly named follow-up, 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, colon, the 2000s, or from his most excellent companion book, 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, or from his most excellent writing for outlets like Pitchfork,
00:13:15
Speaker
Spin, Rolling Stone, and The Ringer, where he's currently a senior staff writer, or from his most excellent bass work in the criminally underrated and gone-too-soon bands, Scantily Plaid and Artificial Intelligence.
00:13:28
Speaker
It's the pod god Sherpa of 90s Music Mountain. Thank you so much for being here. Rob Harvilla. I have to say that's the the kindest and raddest introduction I've ever received. That's all very kind of you to say.
00:13:40
Speaker
ah No offense to everyone else in those bands. I think Scantily Clad and AI went exactly when they were supposed to. i think I think we would have worn out our welcome going any longer than we did. So it all worked out for the best. That's very kind of you to say. Thanks for having me.
00:13:54
Speaker
Thanks for saying all that. I'm excited to be here. Very cool. Very cool. Well, first off, just as a huge fan of the whole 60 Songs franchise, I want to genuinely thank you for the literal hundreds of hours of insights and laughs that you have provided with your show.
00:14:08
Speaker
Yeah, it's great. Every time ah I see a new episode pop in, i like to see, you know, a if it's a song i actually like, though I will always listen either way. And B, see if I can nail the over under on how many pop cultural turnstiles you'll tailgate us through before getting to the actual song. It's such a fun listening experience every time. So thank you for that.
00:14:27
Speaker
It's a little rambly. lot of turnstiles there. lot of hours. It was not intended at the onset to be many hours, but it has for sure turned into many hours.
00:14:39
Speaker
Well, even, you know, even just this season alone, like you described Damon Albarn's Gorillaz voice as Muppet baby Bob Dylan, which, you know, first off, kudos for achieving such rhetorical Nirvana. And second, I'm just forever grateful for the phrase and the visuals. So.
00:14:55
Speaker
I forgot that I did that for my own protection, but thank you. I stand by that. I think that's that's that's kind of what it is. My daughter is now watching not the old Muppet Babies, but I guess the Muppet Babies reboot.
00:15:09
Speaker
Oh, they came back. They came back. it's I haven't really sat down and assessed its quality versus the original, but I mean, I guess there are worse things you could reboot at this point, and they do.
00:15:20
Speaker
Yeah, that's very true. Well, all right, so for the crux of the show today, six unplugged songs that explain the 90s, here's how it's going to work. Rob and I are going to try and widen the lens a bit and push back on the oftentimes myopic modern day recounting of MTV Unplugged as just the show where old rockers go acoustic.
00:15:39
Speaker
And to do that, we'll be breaking up the show's dynamic 90s arc into six individual chunks and picking a representative episode to talk about how the show was navigating and responding in each of those cultural moments.
00:15:51
Speaker
And in true spirit of 60 songs, we're not going to stick to the number in the title because we're both going to be picking a different song for each of the six categories. So all that sound good to you, Rob? That sounds
Early Years and Artist Diversity (1990-1991)
00:16:02
Speaker
fantastic to me. I dig the i dig your categorizations a lot. i dig these eras These eras make a lot of sense to me. This is a very cool structure have.
00:16:12
Speaker
Awesome. um Well, I guess, you know, before we fully jump into the category picks, just to kind of contextually table set a little bit, I wanted to briefly get just some of your quick hit broader thoughts on MTV Unplugged as a pop cultural entity.
00:16:27
Speaker
First, what you thought about it at the time, experiencing it as a teenager in the 90s. And then second, what you think about its cultural legacy now as a professional music journalist and culture critic.
00:16:38
Speaker
It kind of bummed me out almost when you send me this list of, I think every unplugged ever. And it's like, I don't recognize the vast majority of these as yoked as I was to MTV. So for so much of my youth, for so much of the eighties and early nineties,
00:16:54
Speaker
I did not spend a lot of time with unplugged in real time. And I don't know why that is like thinking about my MTV usage. i think the vast majority was like whatever the after school countdown show was, I think the name changed a couple times, a lot of 120 a little bit of UOM TV raps and headbangers ball, you know, and like the VMAs, stuff like that, right? Like I have very few conscious memories of watching Unplugged on television, right? Like I think my experience of it in real time was overwhelmingly the CDs, like apparently the relatively scarce, the few unplugged, you know, episodes that made it to CDs, you know? And I was gonna ask you like if Nirvana is just in another tier
00:17:42
Speaker
of existence from every other in terms of like the attention it got right like there's there's all kinds of famous unplugged but i it feels to me like nirvana unplugged is its own sort of planet you know of influence or whatever but yeah it's like i all my unplugged exposure at the time was through the cds which obviously drastically limits like i'm looking at this list you sent me and it's insane Right. Like it's it's it's everybody I can think of and it sounds rad and it's like that was on TV. I would have watched that if I was on TV and it was and I did it and I don't know why.
00:18:17
Speaker
I love that you actually bring up that point because that's one of the things that I think is so interesting is that sometimes nowadays when you read like modern day writings ah that someone is is writing about MTV Unplugged, you can almost guess their age by kind of how they refer to it, because I think sometimes people almost forget that it was a television show because very rarely, like when we think about music performances on television, sometimes it's like Saturday Night Live or like, you know, late night shows like Letterman and stuff.
00:18:47
Speaker
But like performances from those shows weren't hitting the Billboard Hot 100 or getting Grammys or all this sort of stuff. Like when Unplugged made the jump from TV to actually putting out albums. so Yeah, I was very excited about it to be able to carry the music around.
00:19:02
Speaker
But then also, I definitely think going back and and watching them, it's a completely elevated experience to see it. Of course. But yeah, your point about Nirvana is 100%. hundred percent I think that that's the one that transcended both their catalog and the unplugged canon to to be just in its own realm. And almost every single bit of it seems like it's a pathway into some other little corner of pop culture. Yeah.
00:19:25
Speaker
But you were all in at the time, pretty much like you were a big fan of the show. OK, cool, cool, cool. Yeah. and And it's kind of funny because it debuted in like the pilot episode was like November of 89. I was only nine years old, but for some reason I was just like, hey, like this is cool. And I did not know Squeeze really. And I did not know Sid Straw. That's right. It was Squeeze.
00:19:48
Speaker
What an 80s MTV thing. What a pre alternate. And I love squeeze, dude. Like that's a rad choice. But that is not like a cool to a nine year old choice.
00:19:59
Speaker
That is exactly. Yeah. I was just like, you know, what is this? And so i think what drew me to it is, number one, literally, I was one of those annoying kids. It's just like if I walked into a room, even if I was only going to be in there in five minutes, I'm like, let's turn on MTV. It was just like constant background. And so I would just, had an open posture to anything that was happening and Unplugged became a show that I liked in the same way that I really like, you know, like B-sides or real random compilations of rarities and stuff. It's just, you get to see the bands sort of bands you really like, you know, they're like eight color Crayola box, but Unplugged seemed to be the place where they could be like, we actually have a 64 count, you know, Sonic color box. So yeah, I think, I think that's where it came from.
00:20:41
Speaker
Well, congratulations on being early on this. Yeah, that that that was me, the ah chubby, bespeckled nine-year-old being like, have you guys heard the new squeeze on the floor? That's right. In like third grade.
00:20:54
Speaker
sure I'm sure you were very popular. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, let's jump into our first category. um So titling this one, the 80s hangover early years of the first two seasons, 90 and 91.
00:21:07
Speaker
This inaugural category covers those 90, 91 seasons, which were two very different seasons. Season one started out as this laid back two acts per episode, acoustic quasi song swap with a host holding everything together and occasionally joining in on some of the songs.
00:21:22
Speaker
before shifting gears mid-season into being the hostless single artist showcase that, you know, it would eventually perfect. And then season two continued that single artist format and really leveled up the talent roster. So before becoming the prominent 90s cultural fixture, you know, that it turned out to be, its first two seasons felt very 80s MTV coded, you know, Hall and Oates, Crowded House, Rat, Poison, stuff like that.
00:21:46
Speaker
So to talk about Unplugged's opening chapter, where it was spotlighting song craft and redefining the boundaries of acoustic music, kick us off with your first pick, Rob. You know, i I ended up trying to pick things with one major exception that sort of avoided, as you said, sort of the old guys with guitars vibe. Either they were old then or they feel old to me now.
00:22:08
Speaker
i And so for I picked Yo! MTV Raps, Unplugged, which is 1991.
00:22:24
Speaker
I have like a conscious memory of l l Cool J going, no color, and he's surrounded by acoustic instruments. Like this one I vaguely remember as a pretty big deal in real time. But again, I don't think I'd ever sat down and just watched it. I don't know Like YouTube had a lot of these.
00:22:41
Speaker
Probably not all of them, but YouTube, of course, are like... Daily motion or whatever, like some leg video sites that I probably downloaded some spyware, but it's worth it. I had never watched this whole thing. So this is Yo MTV Raps Unplugged.
00:22:55
Speaker
ah It starts out actually with a tribe called Quest, a tribe called Quest doing Can I Kick It? You know, it's got MC lights for a song. It's got De La Soul at the end. And like, I'm thrilled to see all of those people on stage. And I was I went into this also thinking I would pick like a cool, like unexpected counterintuitive song from each of these and that didn't happen because there is one obvious song it seems to me from all of these and so it's ll cool j doing mama said knock you out like it's incredible i had vaguely remember that he was shirtless and he is but i was not aware that his acoustic guitar player is also shirtless and that feels very important i feel like that's audible
00:23:35
Speaker
to you. This is an incredible performance. Like I did a thing recently where I went back and listen to LL Cool J's like early records, like sort of a deep listening type thing. And it's like, this is really cool, but I feel like I'm missing something. I don't know if it's because, you know, this is so revolutionary at the time. It feels almost antiquated now, but like Seeing him on stage, just how imposing he is, how charismatic he is, how much he owns the stage. like No offense to Tribe or De La Soul, but in a completely different way. yeah dude it' like This dude is a superstar. This dude is a superhero.
00:24:08
Speaker
like This performance is just so intense. you know, and just so full of life and intensity. It's just, it's, it's really, really cool, yeah you know, to hear, but to see, you know, just these giant shirtless dudes on stage, just throwing down.
00:24:23
Speaker
It's really something. Yeah. At one point he actually grabs the other guy's mic and he's like double fisting the mic. And then you, it zooms out a little bit and you're like, Oh, that's right. These guys are all playing like,
00:24:35
Speaker
Acoustic guitars and an actual piano, not a keyboard. Like it's really, i think the, the, one of the important things, even at the time about this, because you know, this is, I think I was like in fifth grade, maybe around this time, but as a huge fan of hip hop, there was a lot of dismissal in music writing, especially by like white rock writers about like the musicality of hip hop. They would always kind of talk about copy paste or whatever.
00:24:59
Speaker
And so even though as a kid, i knew that was like crap, having something like unplugged to be like, no, look like when you transfer the sample of, you know, like Lou Reed's walk on the wild side for a tribe called quest or, you know, slice stones trip to your heart for LL. Like you're talking about, it's like, no, no, no. It's like, this is the musicality of hip hop.
00:25:20
Speaker
Not to mention LL completely redefining like, oh, this is, yes, this is a quote unquote acoustic show, but like, this is also available with acoustic instrumentation, which is just mind blowing. You think you might've seen it from like a punk band or something, but it was, you know, LL Cool J. Exactly. But ah a fun a fun fact about that one. So the backing band they used was a band called Pops Cool Love that supported all of the artists because, you know, most hip hop backs didn't have a band behind them.
00:25:47
Speaker
So they did all the songs. And the bass player is actually, his name is Chris Shaw. He went on to become a Grammy winning producer who's worked a ton with Bob Dylan and Public Enemy and Run DMC and a bunch of other people.
00:25:59
Speaker
He actually engineered Weezer's Blue Out as well. So like... Right. He went on to this incredible like production engineering career, but also completely rocked the acoustic bass for the Yo Unplugged show.
00:26:13
Speaker
LL Cool J, Bob Dylan, ah Public Enemy, and Weezer. Yeah, exactly. What a career. Holy moly. I know. And that's just like kind of the top line of the CV. Yeah. His name's Chris Shaw. You should check him out. Of course.
00:26:25
Speaker
Okay. For my first pick from this yeah era, I'm going with The Walk from The Cure's phenomenally underrated 91 Unplugged.
00:26:46
Speaker
I went with this one because I think it showcases how even very early on, there were some bands who really keyed in to how unique of a show Unplugged was shaping up to be and how it afforded them the creative sandbox to really play around with their songs in ways that they didn't really do a lot in other places, especially The Cure, who, you know, often gets pegged as this dour, moody goth band, which, you know, fair play for the most part.
00:27:11
Speaker
But for their Unplugged, they really leaned into their sometimes quite hidden, playful and whimsical side there. Instead of stools, they're all sitting on the floor. They had like a xylophone and a little like 20 key toy piano.
00:27:23
Speaker
Robert Smith like goofs around on a violin during the Caterpillar. But for this non-album standalone single, Rarity, The Walk, they also played the main synthesizer riff on kazoos and even handed out extra kazoos to the entire audience.
00:27:38
Speaker
And so it's just a really phenomenal moment. Yeah, during this first year or two, I think the Cure episode and really the also kind of the Aerosmith one from the year prior, where instead of like doing their most recent 80s MTV hits, they actually did a bunch of blues covers from like the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s.
00:27:55
Speaker
That creative decision to intentionally craft these unique unplugged moments. Most people started talking about them with Clapton and Nirvana, but I think we see them. Right, right. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, that's there's only a few that really pierced the bubble, you know, in the 90s. But it's it's it's underselling how much cool stuff is happening. like I'm looking at this cure set list. It's incredible. Yeah. I mean, they even debuted a letter to Elise before came out. just saw that. Yeah. It's like, that's fantastic. Like, that's that's ah a crucial moment in rock history as far as I'm concerned. So, yeah, this is this is a good example of, like, the wild stuff that's happening before this thing really hits any kind of critical mass.
00:28:34
Speaker
Yeah. Fun. Also fun little side note. They weren't the only act to actually play kazoos on unplugged because the next year, Clapton pulled out a kazoo. I've always been very curious. I'm like, was that an intentional choice or did you get that? You know, you know you don't hear Clapton talking about the cure very much. So I don't know if it was
Mainstream Breakthrough Performances
00:28:51
Speaker
direct or not.
00:28:53
Speaker
All right, well, category two. So now we're moving into what I'm calling the arrival of 1992. By its third season, Unplugged had a fully realized concept of what kind of show it was going to be. And the crew set about trying to stylistically carve out its own lane of aesthetically identifiable and intimately captured acoustic performance.
00:29:13
Speaker
But I'm sure little did they know that before the season was through, the show would be celebrated itself, but they'd also be scoring like a Billboard Hot 100 number one and a pair of multi platinum album releases as well.
00:29:24
Speaker
So Rob, tell us about your pick from the 92 season. Feels a little normy. Perhaps I had to go Mariah Carey.
00:29:43
Speaker
If I had to guess, ah maybe I heard LL at some point ambiently, but this is where I became aware that unplugged exists. Right. You know, is is the Mariah Carey and I like I'll be there was the one I remember playing on the radio most often, you know, or a Jackson five cover, you know, look at it's, it's, it's emotions, man. It's gotta be emotions. The first track. It's just, there's just so much life, so much buoyancy.
00:30:11
Speaker
Right. And just to hear her voice so clearly, like right in front of you, like there's plenty happening behind her, the backing vocals, you know, a full band behind her, but just relatively unadorned and just the firepower, like the singular, you know, inimitable, you know, just those whistle notes, right? Like in the middle of emotions, all of her emotions at the end of someday, like it's just, it's just such an incredible voice, you know? And I, I, I sort of hadn't made the connection that it's so early for her. I think it's her second album. Yeah.
00:30:42
Speaker
Right. You know, I emotions, I think, is their second album. You know, she's only been around for two years. She's already like a superstar, but she's not quite yet like Mariah Carey, all caps as we know her now. But this this seems to me, in retrospect, to be like a crucial step on her path to becoming.
00:30:57
Speaker
you know, this supernova. It's just because this is just an amazing vocal performance and an amazing just performance of just pure charisma. Yeah. Yeah. I love this pic. That's so, so good. You know, I think it's great where you're talking about about how important it was to her career development, because at this point in her career, there was all that studio creation stuff where people were just like, her albums are great, but she hasn't gone on tour. So like every interview she did, people were just like, when going to tour? are you going to tour?
00:31:26
Speaker
So I think this was one of those great proving grounds where she was like, exactly listen, guys, I can sing live. I can do it. But I think it's also really cool because there's there's always this 92.
00:31:37
Speaker
Again, yeah it's impossible to kind of have cultural conversations about unplugged without bringing up Clapton. But I think most people kind of point to Clapton as like, oh, this is the thing that made Unplugged. But I think it's really important to note the timing that even though his episode came out first, like her album made it to the market quicker than his did. And it like hit number one and went double platinum before he even released his album. So I think that.
00:32:02
Speaker
Her kind of like establishing Unplugged as like a cool MTV thing before he made it, you know, for lack of a better word, like legit or whatever, i think is ah an important piece of the Unplugged story as well, because I don't think Clapton establishes Unplugged without Mariah kind of bringing the cool factor and being like, OK, we'll take this as an MTV.
00:32:22
Speaker
So love that pick. I was going to ask you if that was these were the first albums, but they're not Paul McCartney. I have no memory of a Paul McCartney Unplugged album for sale. That one's interesting. I interviewed Joel Gallen, who was executive producer on Plugged. I interviewed him a few years ago when Pearl Jam released their Unplugged for Record Store Day.
00:32:42
Speaker
And he told me that the McCartney album was more, McCartney really liked his performance and knew it was going to be kind of like a big bootleg. So he was like, I'm just going to put out this sort of like limited edition album myself. Okay. And so I think it did hit stores, but it wasn't like a big Paul McCartney has a new album push. It was kind of just like, okay, if y'all are going to trading this on bootlegs, you know, like I'm still going to get my bag for it.
00:33:07
Speaker
So for my 92 arrival pick, I'm going with a song that was recorded on the exact same night as Mariah's unplugged. And that's the amped up live band version of Motown Philly from Boyz II Men.
00:33:21
Speaker
Motown Philly back again.
00:33:29
Speaker
So one of my fun things with Unplugged always like to to talk about is how they kind of recorded multiple episodes in single filming sessions. And so the night of Mariah, they also recorded the R&B Unplugged, which was Boyz II Men, Sean East and Joe Public. And also the Pearl Jam Unplugged was recorded the same night.
00:33:47
Speaker
That's right. Like, can you imagine going to work that day if you're on the unplugged crew and you get Mariah Carey, Boys to Men and Pearl Jam? and It's insane. But I picked this unplugged version of Motown Philly by Boys to Men and and by default, Joe Public, because even though they were a band themselves, they had that big hit with Live and Learn.
00:34:07
Speaker
Once again, Boyz II Men didn't have a band. Shawn East didn't have a band. So Joe Public pulled Double Duty backing them. And during this early 90s window, if you were to catch any TV performance of a pop R&B vocal group that didn't play their own instruments, 95% of the time, they would just be performing to backing tracks, even more so if they had a choreography element, which, you know, Boyz II Men right out of the gate, they kind of started with that before being super ballady.
00:34:32
Speaker
You know, so you might've seen them perform Motown Philly on like Showtime at the Apollo or the NBA All-Star Stay in School Jam, but just as a foursome with no band and, you know, backing track. Right, right. But for their Unplugged, it was super cool to see them out in front of a band, you know, feeding off the energy of the crowd. They ramped up the tempo to this like real driving, super energetic clip.
00:34:53
Speaker
And then of course they slowed it down a little bit for their cover of It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday. Yeah. But yeah, I think, I think Unplugged at this point, you know, provided the space to see a lot of non-instrumental acts who didn't always get to perform with a live band, just like, you know, Yo Unplugged the year before, get to really unpack and tweak their songs with this creative freedom of a full band.
00:35:14
Speaker
And yeah, I think it's just, it's always such a cool sonic and visual variant of what you would normally see on like award shows and late night television to kind of catch them in this alternate universe full band version. Right.
00:35:27
Speaker
Well, let's let's keep it moving on to category three. So this one I'm calling the establishing experimenting years of 93, 94. After the Clapton Carey explosion of the 92 season, which did carry over into the 93 Grammys when, you know, Clapton took home six awards, including album of the year for his unplugged record. Six awards. That's wild.
00:35:49
Speaker
Kudos. Yeah. What an insane Grammys. Yeah. Most people try to say all the time they're like, oh, all six of them were unplugged, but they kind of forget that the original version of Tears in Heaven that came out on the Rush soundtrack, that was already acoustic. So when people hear they're like, oh, this is the unplugged version of that. And it's like, no, it's just the original album version. It just there was some synergy there.
00:36:11
Speaker
Sure.
Genre Expansion and Cultural Experimentation
00:36:12
Speaker
But yeah, I think this is when, you know, the next couple of years they found the show deepening its pop cultural entrenchment by generating these sort of episode turned albums from 10,000 Maniacs, Nirvana, Arrested Development, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, all the great ones that that ended up getting album releases.
00:36:29
Speaker
um But then they also were experimenting. They had the comedian Dennis Leary got in Unplugged. Precept to a generian crooner, Tony Bennett got an Unplugged. There was that mostly shot outdoors, globetrotting romp with former Led Zeppelin foils, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and a trio of spoken word poetry episodes. So Rob, what's your pick for this 93, 94 establishing experimenting era?
00:36:54
Speaker
Man, I went with Uptown Unplugged. Yeah. Oh, you want to take me.
00:37:05
Speaker
Very slowly taking me apart
00:37:16
Speaker
Uptown Records. ah This is guy who we got here. We got Jodeci, Mary J. Blige, Heavy D, Father MC. um this This was an album as well. It's a long album. It's over an hour long. like A lot of these are just a half hour or so long, but this is an immersive experience. ah Again, I was going to try and do something counterintuitive, but then I listened to it. Jodeci doing Lately.
00:37:42
Speaker
is very obviously the pain. There's a cover of Stevie Wonders ah lately. I believe it's just Casey and Jojo. And it's an incredible, like Mariah in a different sort of register or whatever. like This is just an incredible sort of startling two person vocal performance. My friend John Caramonica, the pop critic of the New York Times wrote a piece Once I think when Andre Harrell, who ran Uptown Records, died in 2020, he wrote a piece about how this might be his favorite piece of music of all time. Full stop. Jodeci doing lately on Unplugged. And he just wrote this whole beautiful thing.
00:38:20
Speaker
You know, just about the intensity, the way Casey and Jojo are together, but sort of in opposition to each other and just to out sing Stevie Wonder to like even come close, arguably to stealing a song from Stevie Wonder, the way like Aretha stole, you know, respect. Yeah.
00:38:36
Speaker
ah Like I it's it's it's ah it's incredible, you know, and it kind of comes to your point again of like, you know, I don't know if Jodeci was touring, playing live. You know, this is very early in Mary u J. Blige's career. I think only What's the 411 is out for her. These are.
00:38:52
Speaker
You know, young performers who are superstars, but I don't know if they've really toured yet, really, you know, and I don't think are really known for that. so I just imagine somebody who has the Jodeci record and loves the Jodeci record, you know, but that's like, you know, a very early 90s R&B record, you know, and and there's a lot of production and there's a lot of, you know, studio sort of architecture there to experience them, you know, relatively, you know, pretty much completely unadorned and just the power and their voices, you know, the interplay with the crowd too. Like this is, you know, you start seeing what's going to become really important now probably already is really important unplugged is just the crowd whooping and just the, the connection that you can tell has been made between artists and crowd. Like this is another one for those, you know, it's a very horny vibe.
00:39:41
Speaker
given that it's Jodeci, but like this is this is a really amazing triumph of atmosphere. triumph of of atmosphere I love that ah that. That is such a great pick, like especially growing up in Atlanta. um Lately would be on like multiple radio stations, actually. We had it our top 40 radio station played the Lately cover, um but also we had B103, and I think i it even made it to B98.5. B103 was hip-hop station.
00:40:09
Speaker
B98.5 was like adult contemporary. You would just like catch it in all these little places. Crossover. But yeah, that going back to the visual component we were talking about earlier, very important for this one because Jodeci comes out there in all matching, you know, green leather vest and black undershirts.
00:40:26
Speaker
By the second song, KC's like, all right, vest is coming off and I'm going to start lifting my shirt a little bit. By the time they get to lately, he's completely shirtless. He performs the whole song with no shirt on and you're just like, this is R&B. This is the team to unplug this shirtlessness. That's right. This is how you do it.
00:40:42
Speaker
So that's the key, you know, bands when you're playing unplugged, we got LL doing it. We got Casey and Jojo doing it. Exactly. But yeah, that that's such a yeah ah great pick. and And the backing band for that one actually was Jodeci's band because Devante Swing, who was in Jodeci, he kind of had his swing mob collective of artists and producers and and instrumentalists and all that. So yeah.
00:41:07
Speaker
Great drummer, very heavy drums. Yes, yes. So that that makes sense to me that they had an actual band and they were previously attached to them. Yeah. And just another fun like filming session thing, the Uptown Unplugged episode was filmed in the same filming session. The day before was Rod Stewart, and the day after was the Neil Young reshoot. So again, another super fun day to go to work when you're like...
00:41:32
Speaker
Rod Stewart. Okay. Uptown Unplugged. Awesome. And then Neil Young coming back for take two. It's a good day at the office. So my pick for this establishing experimenting category um is The Stupid Jerk I'm Obsessed With by the late poet and spoken word ambassador Maggie Estelle. But he just keeps on grinning and winking.
00:41:54
Speaker
He's a stupid jerk I'm obsessed with and he's mine in my plaster. And frankly, couldn't.
00:42:03
Speaker
My absolute favorite Unplugged experiment of the show's whole run, which I think really underscores Unplugged's creative fearlessness and its overall sort of nimbleness in responding to the current moment of what's going on in the cultural zeitgeist, is that trio of spoken word episodes that aired in 93 94.
00:42:22
Speaker
And for these, they they brought on a lot of legit underground spoken word poets, but they also had some familiar faces like legendary proto-rap jazz poet Gil Scott Heron, MC Light making her second unplugged appearance. Yeah, yeah. She did a poem called Ode to My Biological Father. Yeah, absolutely insane.
00:42:41
Speaker
Henry Rollins was on there. Yes. Yeah. Okay. You remember he did Ode to MTV Unplugged. ah Playwright Eric Boghossian was on there and actor Toby Huss, who did all those Sinatra-esque in TV commercials.
00:42:56
Speaker
And most importantly to me, was also already the strongest man in the world on the adventures of Pete and Pete. Totally. But yeah, my three main standouts from the spoken word episodes, as I said, the phenomenally great Maggie Estep, her musical poetry albums, No More Mr. Nice Girl and Love is a Dog from Hell.
00:43:15
Speaker
recommend everybody pick those up. Jim Carroll of Basketball Diaries and People Who Died fame. He delivered that arresting poem, eight fragments for Kurt Cobain. It was filmed, even though it wasn't aired, it was filmed less than a week after the Nirvana front man's body was first discovered. Holy crap.
00:43:34
Speaker
Yeah. And then Reggie Gaines, which he did, you know, he's mostly known for writing the lyrics for that mid 90s Savion Glover led Broadway smash, Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Fong.
00:43:45
Speaker
But he did this social commentary piece called Please Don't Take My Air Jordans, which was just. Absolutely beautiful. Absolutely great. So, and for most of the poems, some of them were delivered, you know, just spoken word acapella.
00:43:57
Speaker
But a lot of the poets also chose to be improvisationally backed by a band called Huge Voodoo, which added this additional layer of, man, I really love this and I will absolutely never be this cool in my whole life. So...
00:44:10
Speaker
To my 13 to 14 year old mind, these were like incredibly the coolest thing that unplugged or maybe even MTV as whole had ever aired. you Do you remember seeing any of those spoken word poetry ones?
00:44:21
Speaker
I was going to say, like i have no I had no idea existed. And this is wild. you know You're talking about Kirkwood, this is alternative nation. like This is MTV, not at its height, but at one of its heights in terms of 90s alternative rock, et ceterat cetera, et cetera. There's a lot of eyes on Unplugged now. like This would have made a lot more sense to me as an early thing, an early experiment. This feels like really we're in New York and we're on television and we can do what we want.
00:44:48
Speaker
Because we don't have as many eyes on us. But like this is this is right in the thick of it. And to do three of them, to have all those cool people. you know like that this This is incredible that this exists. Is this available to watch now?
00:45:02
Speaker
No. Oh, crap. Are you serious? That's one of the things that's just heartbreaking is I'm like, how come this never got an album? Or at least just for like, put it in Barnes & Noble. Put like a triple disc set of all three episodes. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, totally. And I guarantee you they could, they could easily sell out. That's too bad, man. Cause this sounds incredible. Yeah, it was great. I would, I would love if that one ever made it, but I don't know how the clearances and everything worked. Unfortunately, Maggie Estep and Jim Carroll no longer with us, Gil Scott Heron no longer with us. So they'd have to go through estates and all that. But I'm like, man, I think everybody would be cool with it. Just
Balancing Innovation with Tradition
00:45:38
Speaker
give it a shot.
00:45:40
Speaker
We'll move into category four. So this is sort of the balancing act of 95 and 96. By this era of Unplugged, the show found itself locked into that same precarious dance that any successful pop cultural entity eventually lands in with its audience, where you have to kind of continue to create engaging, consumable art and remain relevant into the current moment, but also making sure not to overstay your welcome or oversaturate the market.
00:46:04
Speaker
And so for these two seasons, we saw them striking that balance by focusing on smaller but still mighty seasons and by scaling back the album releases. Over these next two years, there was only one from the 95 season, one from the 96 season. So let's start with your pick. what do What do you got for us on this one, Rob?
00:46:21
Speaker
this is This was a very obvious one. This one, i just it's a sop to my teenage self because I picked the album. It's Alice in Chains.
00:46:55
Speaker
know, Allison, I don't want to compare them one a or 1B or whatever, but this is... up there with Nirvana for me in terms, in terms of how important it was to me immediately at the time, you know, i just, I loved this band so much.
00:47:10
Speaker
And this is another, you know, in retrospect, it's a very, there's a funereal cast to it, right? Because this is 96. Alice in Chains has put out the last studio album they're going to make with Lane Staley.
00:47:23
Speaker
you know it's pretty well known that they're struggling enormously. like They're not really touring at this point. like There's a joke at some point, like, this is the best show we've played, and it's like, this is the only show we've played. You can tell they're on a bad footing already, you know and it's not going to get any better. And so I think even at the time, maybe you had a sense or a fear you know that this may be one of your last times to see this band's you know, on stage together and that turned out to be correct. But I just as as an Alice in Chains super fan in high school, you know, just and I love their acoustic stuff, like ah especially like the Jar of Flies EP, like the other things, the sap, et cetera. Like this is the side of Alice in Chains I was already drawn to.
00:48:06
Speaker
but like this just wall to wall, like the songs are a little slower. you know, and just a little denser, you know, and and it just it's just it's just a swamp that you sort of sink into. And it's just it was very sad at the time. It's terribly sad now, but there still is something so beautiful and so celebratory.
00:48:26
Speaker
about it for the song I picked nutshell, which is the first song, you know, and I just it's the corniest things, right? But just the way it comes in, like the acoustic guitar comes in and the bass comes in and the drums comes in, then Lane's voice comes in and Lane Staley like, ah, and like the crowd, you know, reacts like it's just the beautiful sequence of events.
00:48:47
Speaker
Just the beginning of this song, which again is very slow, very deliberate. It's over the course of a couple minutes. you know i just i try to imagine myself is whatever i am you know 16 17 18 and just how religious of an experience this felt like to me you know and still does yeah oh that's so true and i think that's such a a beautiful pick because uh going back to the you know again the difference between the album versus a visual component it's like when lane comes out and you're like okay we see the sunglasses and the baggy clothes and even the fingerless gloves it's like you can try to create this layer of what's going on but it's still immediately like it's inescapable but then he starts singing and like this just sense memory comes over him and you're like oh my god the voice like lane inside of himself the exterior is kind of showing some different things but inside of himself like
00:49:44
Speaker
Lane is absolutely always there to, you know, to the last note. And, uh, yeah, nutshell is just, oh my God. Like the, yeah, the bass tone is great. Like it did last season I got to interview Mike Inez. Yeah. Oh, rad, rad, rad. That's so cool. Yeah. He told some great stories about, he's like, everybody asked me about that bass tone. He was like, it was like a $20 chorus pedal. And like, uh, he said, I think I bought that bass for like a little over a hundred bucks. He said, I had less than 200 bucks in my rig that night, you know?
00:50:12
Speaker
Um, but everybody asked me about that. that tone. And then there's also just these fun little moments where you're kind of reminded like, yes, there was a lot going on with in lane's personal life and his struggles.
00:50:23
Speaker
Um, the band itself, you know, always kind of had certain things because of their lyrics and all that kind of put on them as being this sort of dour band. But then you see like, ah right after lane kind of fumbles a lyric one time,
00:50:37
Speaker
Jerry quickly plays that old hee haw song gloom despair and agony on me. And you're just like, that's right, that's right. eha Right from hee haw and you just identify that as hee haw and then I found out it was hee haw. That's amazing. It's so funny. And and you can tell he kind of played it as a joke.
00:50:53
Speaker
But then also like the way Lane, the camera kind of catches Lane, look, look at him and give him this like big smile. And you're just like that relationship between those two. I don't think ever, you know, anybody will really, really know.
00:51:05
Speaker
how important it was. of course. That's such a beautiful thing. I got to watch this again. yeah Again, the vast majority of my experience with this is as an album. But like, I got to just watch that because I want that. I like I want to see the nuances. Yeah, that sounds.
00:51:19
Speaker
And also keep your eye out. It's the only unplugged where there's a trash can on stage because ah Jerry had had some bad street food that day. And Mike was telling me they were worried yeah about him having to. Oh, yeah.
00:51:32
Speaker
Did he have to? Did he? No, he didn't. He made it through the whole show. I guess, you know, adrenaline kicked in. But apparently it was almost a game time decision. I think Mike popcorn bucket before he goes to bed. You know, it's like, I hope you don't need this, but you better have it near I don't know if he'll ever eat hot dogs on the streets of New York again, but, you know, we'll see.
00:51:49
Speaker
Oh my goodness gracious. Now I won't either. Right? Well, my pick for this 95-96 season um is Strong Enough by Sheryl Crow, mainly because she played it on accordion.
00:52:25
Speaker
Accordion wasn't on the original recording. you know Hearing this song that was already a hit at the time and then her strapping on an accordion, you're like, okay, I've seen Weird Al play an accordion and that's where my accordion knowledge yeah stops. And so now you can add Sheryl Crow to the list. but These sort of instrumental wildcard moments were something that I think a lot of artists use their unplugged moment to have some fun with and many of them for the first time. So like some other big ones were, of course, Chris Novoselic playing accordion during
Late 90s Evolution of Unplugged
00:52:55
Speaker
Nirvana's Unplugged.
00:52:56
Speaker
Atlantis playing the flute during her unplugged midnight oil, like brought out one of those big didgeridoos and didgeridoos, man. yeah So i love it. Love midnight oil. Bjork had a guy playing both a collection of wine glasses and one of those water phone things.
00:53:12
Speaker
And then, um and then, yeah, Neil Young had a guy playing a broom. so Yeah, not only did it kind of take these specific songs and sometimes even the band themselves into these completely new sonic spaces, but again, also because Unplugged was a television show, the visual component of, say, like the bass player from loud, unruly Nirvana, who we saw at other times almost bludgeoned themselves into a coma with their bass tosses. One of my favorite moments of the 90s, the bass toss. Right? Yes.
00:53:41
Speaker
But then you could also just see him jamming out on an accordion next to a cello player on Unplugged. So ah Sheryl Crow also played accordion on Unplugged during her Led Zeppelin cover.
00:53:52
Speaker
And, you know, Sheryl Crow Led Zeppelin accordion cover is not a phrase you get to say very much in life. So... Thank you unplugged for that. there you go And another fun side note about Sheryl Crow's Unplugged, the guy playing guitar for her was also the producer of her first album, Bill Betrell, that's on stage with her.
00:54:09
Speaker
He also worked a lot with Michael Jackson, and he's the guy who did the uncredited rap part in black or white. That's right on black or white. When I did the episode, i did an episode on that song. That's right. That was a terrifying episode. And I i did not know that until I did that episode, that the Sheryl Crow guy was the black or white.
00:54:29
Speaker
It's a turf war on a global band. hey How long have you been doing this show? Can I ask? I've only done maybe 16 episodes. No, I think my season one closer with Trey Lorenz from the Mariah Carey episode was episode 17.
00:54:44
Speaker
yeah so oh my goodness crazy you just know so much about this it's incredible like all these facts and details like this is this is this is an amazing experience just to hear all this stuff that i had no idea of it's very very cool yeah i have an overactive obsessive mind i guess and this is one of the ones that just from the entire time of yeah being a music fan i have a lot of things i like but i'm like Man, Unplugged was just like this treasure trove of awesomeness. And so, yeah, every time it pops back up nowadays when I read things and everything's been like, remember that show? I'm like, there's so much more. i promise.
00:55:16
Speaker
Right. Yeah. You got dig a little deeper. Well, ah if we keep it moving, category five, the refresh and dismount of 97 and 99. At the time, I remember the 97 Unplugged season feeling very fresh and rejuvenated.
00:55:32
Speaker
I often joke about that being the year that Unplugged remembered that R&B was a genre because there was Maxwell and Erykah Badu and Blackstreet and Babyface and they practically doubled their overall R&B footprint you know in just one season and then of course in 99 it didn't really come back as a full show but there were you know a trio of episodes like sort of one-offs but um closing out this 90s unplugged run uh what's your pick for this category five Rob?
00:56:00
Speaker
I got to go back and watch Erykah Badu. I'm very excited to catch up with that. I picked Maxwell. I should be crying, but I just can't let it show.
00:56:11
Speaker
should be hoping, but I can't stop again. All the things we should have said that I never said. All the things we should have done that we never did.
00:56:24
Speaker
As you say, this is an incredible, you know this is sort of in line with Jodeci, right? like just And LL Cool J. I don't think he takes off his shirt, but just like the sheer sex appeal, yeah you know the sensuality of this one, and the and the connection that Maxwell makes with the crowd, like he covers closer by nine inch nails like he does it, man. He sings all the words, you know, and he sort of makes it into a gospel song almost by the end. Like that's a truly incredible moment. But but it's got to be this woman's right. It's got to be his cover.
00:56:57
Speaker
of Kate Bush's This Woman's Work, just one of the great moments in falsetto history, you know, just the the the swagger that you can have while also being totally vulnerable.
00:57:08
Speaker
You know, i just this is just a master class, you know, in in both just vocal performance, but just in and connecting with a crowd, you know, and just conveying yourself simultaneously as this incredibly sensual person, but also this incredibly vulnerable, you know, person Ah, that's an incredible pick. I think that his his Kate Bush cover is one of those where you're like, man, Maxwell can do a whole lot. He can jump up and down while covering nine inch nails, but also like completely make a believable Kate Bush cover, which I think is, you know, harder to pull off than than people probably think. Terrifying. Yeah, of course. And if you have a stage, if you have a couch as part of your stage design, like you said, you know it's going to be a sexy show. Like it's, you're putting it there from the v beginning. Yeah. The couch checkoffs couch.
00:57:58
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. There you go. Um, yeah. Okay. I love that. Take that. That's so cool. Actually, I'm hoping one day that they do repress on vinyl for the U S because the prices, I can't find like a good pressing from the original run, but I do have a 10 inch vinyl single. of the whenever, wherever, whatever European import of the unplugged single of that song. Okay. So I'm at least halfway there. You're better than most of us. But yes. Yeah, they'll get around to it. Exactly. Fingers crossed.
00:58:28
Speaker
Well, my pick for this refresh and dismount category is Uninvited by Alanis. I don't think you are worthy, but I need
00:58:44
Speaker
To deliver me
00:58:57
Speaker
know, like I said, 97 was the last season that was the sort of proper year over year Unplugged. But when they came back in 99, they had Shakira and The Coors, which very much sort of felt leaning into the 2000s.
00:59:11
Speaker
But I think Atlantis was like a perfect, hey, remember the footprint that Unplugged made in the 90s? Let's close it out with... Somebody that had one of the most revolutionary, influential, and best-selling albums of the entire decade with Jagged Little Pill.
00:59:25
Speaker
And she really took advantage of the moment by like musically, she brilliantly reconceptualized many of her big hits, including You Ought to Know. Instrumentally, she had her band and a string ensemble quintet, and she herself played guitar, harmonica, and flute.
00:59:41
Speaker
She threw in a bunch of rarities like non album gems. She did a fantastic unplugged cover of the police's King of Pain. And to underscore the of the moment freshness of it all, she even seriously nailed what was then her current top five hit and soon to be double Grammy'd uninvited from the City of Angels soundtrack. So I think MTV could not have picked a better artist to sort of close out that 90s run of the show with.
01:00:07
Speaker
I've never heard the King of Pain cover and I got to hear that because I love that song. Yeah. I can picture that. Or I'd like to think I can picture that. And I see, I got so much listening to after we're done talking.
01:00:18
Speaker
This is very, very exciting. And that one is at least one that thankfully got an album, you know, they, they yeah did do that. So yeah, it's, it's easy to catch up on, but yeah, she, she absolutely nails her cover, nails her originals and uninvited with the live band and the live strings is just like, yeah.
01:00:34
Speaker
chills
Lauryn Hill's Raw and Emotional Unplugged Session
01:00:35
Speaker
All right, well, to close things out, category six, I'm calling this in honor of your show, colon the 2000s. I appreciate that. This is about the Unplugged 2.0 reboot of 2001, 2002, and also later. So um after, you know, safely surviving Y2K and taking the year 2000, you know, off completely, Unplugged resurfaced in 2001 with one of its many short-lived reboots. There were, you know, less than a half dozen episodes.
01:01:01
Speaker
But that initial reboot of 2001, 2002, you know, it had some, some really great gems in it. And then over the next 20 years, they kept, you know, popping things here and there. Alicia Keys in 05, Korn in 07 was surprisingly amazing. And I'm not even remotely a Korn fan.
01:01:18
Speaker
um Courtney Barnett in 2018, Liam Gallagher in 2019. I mean, like really, really great stuff, but that's like a 25 year window. So Rob final category, what's your unplugged in the 21st century pick?
01:01:31
Speaker
Again, this feels like the obvious pick, but Lauryn Hill. Oh, oh, oh, oh,
01:01:46
Speaker
the truth in a courtroom purges the jurorss witnesses spies man this is this is a lot to absorb right here this is lauren hell i The album came out in 2002, I believe. I'm going to guess that she recorded it in 2001.
01:02:02
Speaker
ah This is a pretty famous record. like This is a lot to absorb, right? It is an hour and 45 minutes. It is a double CD. It is just her singing and playing acoustic guitar.
01:02:14
Speaker
And i it's it's hard not to view this as her two-hour letter of resignation. Right. You know, it's like just absolutely nothing, of course, from miseducation. you know, absolutely none of that vibe. Like she starts off saying, like, I don't consider myself a performer anymore. I don't get dressed up anymore. You know, like I I was trapped in my public persona and I'm free now. Like I just.
01:02:38
Speaker
It's it's a lot. But what i I went back and listened to it again, expecting the crowd to be uncomfortable or dissatisfied, like the sense that they really wanted, you know, that thing, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
01:02:51
Speaker
But like the crowd is with her and she's with the crowd. Like there's i I had remembered it as more antagonistic and uncomfortable at the time. And it is uncomfortable at times. Like she cries at one point during a song, like she starts songs over.
01:03:05
Speaker
Her voice is cracking by the end of it. You know, and she talks about like, it know it's like we do it raw now, you know, like I don't get eight hours of sleep necessarily anymore, you know, and you get what you get. But the crowd is with her, you know, and and she is like she's the banter. There's like twenty five, thirty minutes of banter on this, you know, and like banter is not the word like she's just talking about.
01:03:27
Speaker
Basically about how terrible it was to be famous and beloved and how many people you know you're you're sort of enthralled to and how imprisoned you feel. like it's This is a wild thing. And so like to sit down and listen to it as an album or to watch it.
01:03:44
Speaker
You know, i don't know. it's It's not really that kind of experience, but I do think it's it's a remarkable document, you know, of what pop stardom can do to you and what you can do in response. Yeah.
01:03:59
Speaker
Right. And so I like picking one song out of here is is sort of a weird exercise, given all that. Like, it's not really about the songs as individual songs necessarily.
01:04:10
Speaker
There's a sort of mystery of iniquity, you know, is like you get a little bit of her rapping as well as singing. It's way more singing than rapping, of course. And i this is also, you know, the the hook, the all falls down hook.
01:04:23
Speaker
Kanye West will be seizing upon that. very quickly. And so like, there's just, there's a little flash on this song, mystery of iniquity of like the Lauren Hill, we know and love and like the quadruple threat or whatever, but it's still couched in just, just this completely raw, you know, naked feeling solo guitar and voice.
01:04:43
Speaker
you know, stopping and starting, you know, just no artifice, you know, no apologies. You know, I just, that there's just nothing quite like it. And Lauren Hill unplugged like an artist of this caliber on this bigger platform, you know, just saying goodbye, you know, to all of it. And like that holding, you know, like this, this is, this is it pretty much as far as Lauren Hill recordings, like she meant it.
01:05:10
Speaker
You know, and and and she she didn't come back and more power to her. ah This is a really, really cool pick because I think you nailed exactly what it is. And I think that MTV was so smart for not trying to say, OK, how do we take this and edit it down and repackage it into what folks may expect from an unplug?
01:05:28
Speaker
They're just like, no edits. You get everything. Yes. One one of the talking tracks is 12 minutes long with no music. Enjoy it. you know right Take it from beginning to end. But you know yeah, as you said, there are some beautiful moments of brilliance in there. Her Bob Marley cover is really great, which that one, you know appropriately, so much things to say is what she covered. And you're like, yep, she did have a lot to say.
01:05:52
Speaker
But yeah, and like you said, her crying during I Gotta Find Peace of Mind is just like, It is so, it's somehow uncomfortable, but also invitational in the sense of as raw and emotional as one human being can get in front of a public audience sort of thing.
01:06:09
Speaker
So yeah, I agree with you. Sometimes it's kind of remembered for the unconventionality or the complexities of it but really when you just kind of take it for what it is and especially in the moment that it happened um yeah beautiful beautiful pick it's not antagonism i thought it was going to be antagonistic and it's not it's very uncomfortable but like you say there's like a welcoming You know, like she's like, here it is, you know, like take it or leave it. And they
Unplugged's Reboot and Enduring Appeal
01:06:34
Speaker
take it. The crowd takes it. You know, I'm sure there was, you know, discomfort in the room. I'm sure there was disappointment in the room, you know, but that there is there is still a connection. Yeah, absolutely.
01:06:44
Speaker
Well, ah to close things out, my pick for this colon, the 2000s category is country feedback from my beloved REM.
01:07:07
Speaker
To the surprise of no one who listens to this show, i picked R.E.M. because, well, first off, they are hands down the greatest band of all time since the advent of recorded music. um But also their 2001 episode, their second time on the show after their equally awesome 91 episode.
01:07:23
Speaker
It really felt like this really cool double layered nostalgic and now performance, which, you know, sort of takes a deft hand to navigate. It felt very present being shot in the ah TRL studios with those floor to ceiling windows and the flashing billboards. You know, that immediately timestamps it to early 2000s era in TV.
01:07:41
Speaker
But they also had video of their 91 unplugged playing on a screen in the background. Really? Which kind of created this, yeah really cool, clever, unplugged meta moment. Sure. Stipe even responds to it a couple times where he's just like, oh, what a fox, you know, life's been tough, you know, all that sort of stuff. Life's been tough. All right.
01:08:00
Speaker
But ah yeah, I picked Country Feedback because, you know, they they mostly played songs from the current album at that time, which was Reveal. and also its predecessor, Up, from a few years before.
01:08:11
Speaker
But country feedback from 91's Out of Time, it's not only easily one of the most gorgeous songs in their catalog, but this unplugged version of it, Stipe even throws in some lines from Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone that really just sort of sends it into the stratosphere.
01:08:27
Speaker
Once upon a time, you looked so fine Throw the bum a dime in prime Didn't you?
01:08:38
Speaker
I thought REM served as a really smart kickoff to that 2.0 reboot. Yeah. And I'm almost, you know, kind of shocked that after REM, Lauryn Hill, Jay-Z and the Roots, and even, you know, the Dashboard Confessional stand out.
01:08:50
Speaker
I'm kind of surprised that 2.0 didn't like gain more traction, but that's how it is. It's different universe. Yeah. Everyone's on Napster. Exactly. Yeah. We want it for free. We want it now. it may be incorrectly labeled, but we're okay with that.
01:09:07
Speaker
So yeah, there we go. That, that, that gets us all the way through the categories. You know, I did mention a couple from like the later years, one that I neglected to mention, but that I do just kind of want to give honorable mention, and tell folks to go check out is oddly enough, AHA did an unplugged in 2017. That really feels like a classic 90s unplugged.
01:09:26
Speaker
Take off.
01:09:46
Speaker
In a day or two
01:09:53
Speaker
They completely reworked Take On Me into this piano ballad. They covered The Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnymen with Echo frontman Ian McCullough joining them. my goodness gracious.
01:10:04
Speaker
What? Oh my God. It's insanely great. They even brought on like Alison Moyet and Lissy who was, you know, popular at the time. Yeah. And they shot the whole thing over two nights with this like scenic Norwegian golden hour happening behind them in this wall of windows.
01:10:20
Speaker
Holy moly. I that's one that made me kind of shocked that i always recommend when folks are like, oh, unplugged. That was the thing from the 90s. It's like yeah every couple of years they drop this, you know, one off where you're just like, exactly. Holy God, how is this not a week over week show? Like make it happen.
01:10:37
Speaker
But, you know so well, Rob, again, thank you so incredibly much for talking on Plugged with me today and for being such a good sport about this whole course six unplugged songs that explain the 90s exercise. Oh, this has been awesome.
01:10:49
Speaker
I think we ended up crafting a seriously cool unplugged mixtape. So ah thank you again for being here. I agree completely. We nailed it. mean, you just know your shit, man. This is fascinating. So I got to go watch the aha now, too. I got so much to do today now.
01:11:04
Speaker
All right. Sorry I gave you some homework, but hopefully it'll be enjoyable. That's fine. Awesome. Man, what a blast. My thanks again to Rob Harvilla for joining the show today.
01:11:15
Speaker
And seriously, folks, if you're not already listening to it, go check out his podcast, 60 Songs That Explain the 90s and 60 Songs That Explain the 90s colon the 2000s. And pick up the book too. It's totally worth your time.
01:11:29
Speaker
And that'll do it for this episode. If you'd like to share your own unplugged memories, offer up a correction or your thoughts, or connect with the show for any other reason, you can send me an email, unpluggedrevisited at gmail.com, leave a voicemail that'll probably get played on the show by calling 234-REVISIT, which is 234-738-4748, or reach out on social media, which at this point is pretty much just blue sky and maybe a little smidge of Instagram.
01:11:59
Speaker
As always, 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 next month. Until then, my friends, be kind to yourself and look out for each other.
01:12:12
Speaker
Unplugged Revisited is a son of a butch production. The show is written and hosted by me, Will Hodge. The show is edited by Amanda Hodge and myself. Podcast artwork is by Jordan Ullam, and you can find more of their incredible work at jordanullam.design.
01:12:26
Speaker
That's J-O-R-D-A-N-U-L-L-O-M.design. That is the beauty of Unplugged.