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UR001: Unplugged 101, Part 1 (1989-1993)
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UR001 - Unplugged 101, Part 1 (1989-1993) is the first of three explainer episodes outlining the entire 35-year-plus spectrum of MTV Unplugged. This episode covers MTV Unplugged's earliest days in 1989, all the way through its hard-earned, momentum-building early-‘90s pop cultural ubiquity, and right up to the transcendently magical apex of the ’93 season closer with Nirvana.
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 & Podcast Purpose
00:00:00
Speaker
welcome to unplug
00:00:10
Speaker
Unplugged. Unplugged. Revisited. Greetings and salutations. Thanks for tuning in to the very first episode of Unplugged Revisited, the brand new podcast that celebrates, critiques, and dives deep into the last three and a half decades of the pop cultural game changer, MTV Unplugged. I'm your host, Will Hodge, a music journalist, pop culture anthropologist, and Unplugged Obsessive.
00:00:34
Speaker
You might know me from reading my writing in places like Rolling Stone, the Grammy Awards, Spin, No Depression, and various other outlets over the years. Or, you may not know me from Adam and this is the first time we're having the pleasure to cross paths. Either way, hey there, how you doing? So glad you were here.
00:00:50
Speaker
This being my inaugural episode, I thought it'd be a smart idea to set the proper foundation for the entire scope of the podcast. Novel idea, right? Well, here goes. My hope is to make Unplugged Revisited part academic, part anecdotal, and wholly enjoyable, no matter what your own relationship to MTV Unplugged may or may not be. For my part, I was a music-obsessed teenager during the old 1990s, and I died in the wool, card-carrying member of the MTV generation.
00:01:16
Speaker
But I want to be clear that doing a podcast about MTV Unplugged is hardly about navel-gazing nostalgia for me. Yes, there will be plenty of personal stories of my own experiences with the show and the artists that appeared on it. However, the podcast's North Star and Anchor will be my genuine belief that MTV Unplugged's impact and legacy is worth an in-depth revisiting and, if I may be so bold, deserving of a full-on cultural reassessment.
00:01:41
Speaker
Once we get rolling, most unplugged revisited shows will be devoted to single episodes of MTV Unplugged and will feature discussions with artists who played the show, individuals who worked on the show, or some of my fellow music journalist friends talking about various aspects of the show's legacy. To help set the stage for those thematic discussions and episode analyses, which full disclosure will not be in chronological rewatch style succession, I will be hopping around all over the whole three decades and counting Unplugged playing field.
00:02:09
Speaker
But I do want to set the whole thing off with sort of an unplugged 101 style crash course covering the entire 35 year spectrum of MTV Unplugged. Hopefully this can also serve as a good introduction for new listeners down the
MTV Unplugged History Overview
00:02:21
Speaker
line. I'll be breaking up this initial 35 year overview across three digestible episodes.
00:02:26
Speaker
Unplugged 101 Part 1, which you are listening to right now, will cover the years 1989 to 1993. Unplugged 101 Part 2, which will be out in two weeks, will cover the years 1994 to 1999. And Unplugged 101 Part 3, available two weeks after that, will handle the remaining years, 2000 to the present day. So without further ado, let's get into it. Unplugged 101 Part 1, 1989 to 1993.
00:02:54
Speaker
No matter your connection to MTV Unplugged, it may be surprising to hear that the show is not only turning 35 years old this coming November, but that it is also, sporadically at least, still somewhat around. The show's pilot episode aired on November 26, 1989, and its most recent episode, at least as of the time of this recording, aired in December of 2023.
MTV Unplugged's Enduring Legacy
00:03:17
Speaker
Whether you were a fan during the juggernaut of its 90s heyday, were introduced to it during its rebranded 2.0 run in the early 2000s, are only familiar with its multiple online anchored reboots across the late 2000s and early 2010s, or have just seen it mentioned for the first time in the last few years via some of its more recent one-off specials with artists like Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, 21 Pilots, BTS, or the jersey's finest hip-hop 50th celebration with Queen Latifah, Sugarhill Gang, Redman, Trech, and others, MTV Unplugged has managed to endure as an ever-evolving musical institution that transparently highlights artists and their songs through the timeless proving ground of a no-frills, intimately authentic, live acoustic performance. Plus, on what other show can you find multi-platinum megastars engaging in this type of song introduction
Origins and Early Concept
00:04:07
Speaker
interruption? i'd like to play another song now this is a
00:04:10
Speaker
a second i got a join yeah The show first originated in the late 80s as the hybridized brainchild of three key individuals, singer-songwriter Jewel Shear and television producers Jim Burns and Bob Small. Now, I should say that even with copious amounts of research, it's kind of hard to know just how much credit goes to which individuals.
00:04:29
Speaker
Some retellings are very, shall we say, Jules-heavy on who exactly conceptualized an acoustic-anchored show and was shopping it around to various networks, while other accounts are very much centered around Jim and Bob's efforts, with Jules' part being mostly relegated to just being brought in as the first choice for hosting duties. I hope to eventually get more of a detailed backstory from both Jules and Bob's individual perspectives,
00:04:57
Speaker
Unfortunately, Jim Burns tragically passed away in 2017. But until then, we'll just have to go with the fact that however it all played out, it's Jim and Bob who get the created by credit at the end of every episode. So that's what we're going with at this point. As their side of the story goes,
00:05:12
Speaker
Burns and Small were two television producers who were interested in carving out a new lane of televised acoustic performances that would serve a distinctly different creative purpose than the era's notorious oversaturation of in-your-face, slickly edited, cinematically produced music videos. Initially, Burns and Small didn't envision Unplugged as being the iconic single artist showcase that it would eventually become known for.
00:05:38
Speaker
They first conceptualized it as more of a laid-back Sunday morning cup of coffee type show, where a couple different artists would breezily swap songs with each other in a chill acoustic setting while a snappy host helped hold everything together. In fact, they already had their choice for that host picked out, prolific singer-songwriter Jewel Shear, who is probably most known for having a few of his songs become hits in the hands of other artists,
00:06:03
Speaker
like the Bangles, Allison Moyet, and Cyndi Lauper, who took his song All Through the Night all the way to number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984. They brought the idea to MTV in early 1989, and the show was quickly greenlit to start recording later that fall.
Influence of Late '80s Music Scene
00:06:20
Speaker
Now, some quick context for those who either weren't around in the late 80s or were having too much of a good time to accurately remember it.
00:06:28
Speaker
Across the late 80s pop cultural playing field, there were quite a few things going on that helped pave the way for MTV Unplugged and set it apart as a truly unique concept. At the time, MTV was at its most bombastically performative zenith and its heavy rotation music videos were completely awash in artifice and aesthetics. We had hair metal,
00:06:54
Speaker
hip hop,
00:06:59
Speaker
R&B. Rock. New Jack Swing.
00:07:16
Speaker
Neo Soul. And of course, good ol' Top 40 Pop.
Debunking Bon Jovi Myth
00:07:31
Speaker
All of these were simultaneously dominating the MTV airwaves with painstakingly manufactured looks, slick choreography, big-budget special effects, and all manner of hyperkinetic, in-your-face, neon-slathered sensory overload. Media critics of the day bemoaned that musical success was becoming less about the talents of your songwriting and more about the visuals in your music video. At the same time, the equivalent more-is-more concept was equally overcrowding the live concert atmosphere.
00:08:01
Speaker
But even taking into account the increasingly elaborate stage designs, lip-synced backing tracks, gigantic video screens, and eyebrow-singing pyro, live performances were still seen as the litmus test for proving gravitas over gimmick, a concept that dominated the cultural conversation even more when those gimmicks failed.
00:08:26
Speaker
Additionally, after a resetting pause from the glut of 70s singer-songwriters, the acoustic guitar was having a bit of a renewed shine in the late 80s sun thanks to folk inspired acts like Tracy Chapman, Indigo Girls, The Pogues, and Bonafide Supergroup, The Traveling Wilburys.
00:08:41
Speaker
Of course, many of the rock and glam metal bands of the day were also incorporating acoustic instrumentation into some of their biggest hits as late 80s radio, MTV, and skating rinks everywhere were briefly swarmed with a plethora of popular power ballads from otherwise electrified rock acts like Guns N' Roses,
00:09:03
Speaker
Bon Jovi,
00:09:11
Speaker
Cinderella and of course the song sitting at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 when 88 crossed over into 89 poisons big flicking arena packing anthemic ode to heartbreak you know the one
00:09:42
Speaker
In fact, it was one of those exact, occasionally acoustic hard rock bands that spawned one of MTV Unplug's earliest myths before the show had even aired. Travel back with me to September 6, 1989, won't you?
00:09:55
Speaker
live from los angeles the ninety eighty nine mtv video music award Ah yes, the unforgettable 89 MTV VMAs. Arsenio Hall was hosting his second of four consecutive VMAs. The night's biggest winners were Madonna, Paula Abdul, and Living Color. And Bobby Brown allegedly danced to Viola Cocaine right out of his oversized pants pocket during a high energy performance of On Our Own from the Ghostbusters 2 soundtrack.
00:10:23
Speaker
However, there was also a quieter, more subdued musical moment courtesy of John Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, who shocked the amped up audience by
Early Recording Sessions
00:10:31
Speaker
taking the stage as just a duo to offer up a stripped-down acoustic version of their signature chart topper, Living on a Prayer, that segued beautifully into their multi-platinum top 10 hit, Wanted Dead or Alive.
00:10:56
Speaker
While their close harmony singing and tasty 12-string acoustic guitar work created a truly memorable moment on its own merit, someone at MTV also thought it was the perfect opportunity to help generate some initial buzz for the forthcoming Unplugged project that just so happened to be filming its pilot episode the very next month. They told the press something to the effect of, wasn't that acoustic performance great? We should build a whole show around that.
00:11:20
Speaker
Thus, the surprisingly enduring pop-cultural myth was born that Bon Jovi inspired the creation of MTV Unplugged. And unfortunately, that origin story still gets recycled and unplugged adjacent articles to this very day. Over the decades, many people have tried, apparently in vain, to correct the persistent untruth, with my personal favorite appearing in the phenomenal Craig Marks, Rob Tannenbaum book, I Want My MTV.
00:11:43
Speaker
where Unplugged co-creator Bob Small goes so far as to explicitly request, please do not credit Bon Jovi for creating Unplugged. The actual truth of it all is that MTV Unplugged had already been in pre-production for many months by the time of the 89 VMAs. The intimately acoustic concept had already been mapped out that spring, Jules was already attached as host, the core production team was already in motion, and New York City's National Video Center had already been booked to film the pilot episode in late October.
00:12:12
Speaker
Let this be the dawn of a new era of niche trivia corrections in which you, dear listener, have been fully deputized to correct the record whenever and wherever you encounter its slanderous false existence. Okay, onto the filming of MTV Unplugged's pilot episode. Cue the theme song.
00:12:37
Speaker
That's right, Unplugged originally had its very own theme song, but it's totally understandable if you forgot about it, or maybe didn't even know it existed, because it barely lasted through the first season. The filming session for MTV Unplugged's pilot episode took place on October 31, 1989, with less than 100 people in attendance and an artist lineup that was a bit of a musical melting pot.
00:12:58
Speaker
The featured performers for the inaugural show were Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Differt of Squeeze, along with former Golden Palomino-turned-solo artist, Sid Straw, which, personal side note, as an extremely uncool nine-year-old, I wasn't exactly familiar with Straw at the time. But, just a couple years later, I would become a very big fan of her work, as Miss Fingerwood on the wickedly awesome Nickelodeon show, The Adventures of Pete and Pete.
00:13:21
Speaker
The Unplugged Pilot also featured a couple other familiar musical faces as guest musicians, namely guitarist Elliot Easton, formerly of the Cars who had just broken up a year prior, and drummer DJ Bone Break of punk legends X, who both joined Jules Shear to round out the Loosenick Collective.
00:13:38
Speaker
The casual vibe was nicely augmented by all the shifting musical pairings. For example, Tilbrook and Difford played a few squeeze hits, Straw sang lead on a song backed by Bone Break, Sheer, and Tilbrook, Easton played guitar on a shear-pinned song with straw-handling background harmonies, and then everybody came back out to play a fun closing number together. At the time, the concept of being quote-unquote unplugged was so new and novel that I've heard from more than one source that Tilbrook and Difford showed up to the taping with only their electric guitars. A little scrambling ensued, a couple acoustics were quickly procured, and Crisis Now averted, the pilot episode of the show We've Come to Know and Love was off to the races.
00:14:17
Speaker
Since Unplugged was initially designed to just be a 30-minute show, which really ends up only being about 22 minutes of material to leave room for commercials, only four of the night's six songs made the broadcast cut, leaving Shears, If We Never Meet Again, and the Tilbrook differ duo take on Messed Around as live show-only specialties experienced solely by those in the intimate double-digit audience. But since I'm a kind and generous human being, here's a little snippet of the former for you.
00:14:54
Speaker
It should be noted that right from the jump, one of Unplug's most quintessentially defining characteristics, those charmingly inspired and possibly only time the artist ever plays at cover songs, started all the way back here in the pilot episode. Looking for a fun, memorable way to close out the show, Jules and the gang decided to all play a cover song together.
00:15:14
Speaker
After a couple options were tossed around backstage during rehearsals, including an ACDC tune as a close runner-up, the collective decided on the Neil Diamond-penned, monkeys-popularized hit, I'm a Believer. After a few minutes of figuring out the guitar chords and divvying out who was going to sing which lines, their loose rendition was ready to go and a soon-to-be chart-topping tradition was birthed. Less than a month after its taping, MTV Unplugged aired for the first time over Thanksgiving weekend of 1989. Isn't it about time MTV pull the plug? MTV unplug an all-new half-hour special for music lovers. This Sunday, Glotch different until Brook of Squeeze, singer Sid Straw and host Jules Gere throw away their amps and get down to some great music. Up close and ugly. Before moving into the new decade that would find Unplugged achieving the celebrated heights of pop culture ubiquity, the show had a little more business to attend to before completely bidding adieu to the 1980s. Because of the program's ambitious vision of capturing dual-act episodes on a pretty tight production budget, It was decided early on that to get the most bang for their meager buck, they would need to film multiple episodes within a single day. This would prove to be a formula that would end up serving them quite well for many years, even after the show became an inescapable hit. In fact, it was still happening as late as 1997. This approach was field-tested for the first time on December 13th and 14th of 1989.
00:16:37
Speaker
when the unplugged crew again set up shop at National Video Center and recorded eight different acts for the first four episodes that would air in early 1990. The first day they filmed episodes with the Smithereens and Graham Parker and then 10,000 Maniacs and Michael Penn, which this was not the more popular 10,000 Maniacs Unplugged that gave us their incredible cover of Because of the Night. That would come later during their standalone episode in 1993, but more on that in a little bit.
00:17:04
Speaker
The following day, the team reconvened to first shoot an episode with Welsh alt-rock New Wave band The Alarm and Latin rockers Nuclear Valdez, followed by what was supposed to be an episode called Joe Walsh and Friends. While MTV execs thought the Anne Friends part implied that the former Eagles guitarist would invite along some of his top-tier rockstar pals, it turns out he only showed up with one friend, his touring bass player. This sent the Unplugged team scrambling for something that would allow them to continue the dual artist theme they had been sticking to. And luckily enough, famed New Orleans Blues legend Dr. John just so happened to be performing at another studio in the same building. After serendipitously running into him in the bathroom, they asked if he would be a part of their currently filming that day's show, and the good doctor was gracious enough to swing by and sit in with Walsh for a few
Official Launch Preparations
00:17:54
Speaker
songs. They played Walsh's own Life's Been Good and covers of Neil Young's Cinnamon Girl and Earl King's Come On, more commonly known as Let the Good Times Roll. With the raw material for the first four shows in the can, the Unplugged team got to work finalizing everything for its official launch scheduled for late January 1990. Farewell to the 80s, to yuppies, and toxic waste. Here's to the 1990s.
00:18:18
Speaker
Alrighty, the story of Unplugged, Season 1.
Season 1 Format & Highlights
00:18:21
Speaker
For the first six months of 1990, Unplugged was pretty much airing new episodes on a weekly basis. Those first four shows they recorded in December of 89 aired throughout January and February, and they perfectly laid out what viewers could expect from the format. For example, in Episode 1 with the Smitherines and Graham Parker, the Smitherines played an acoustic rendition of their big Top 40 hit, A Girl Like You, then Parker played one of his own originals, Then viewers who may have been unfamiliar with Parker's material were treated to him joining the smithereens on another of their familiar numbers behind the wall asleep. And then everybody played together with host Jules Shear joining in on a cleverly mashed up pairing of Sam Cooke's Cupid and Chain Gang. The very next day after that first episode was broadcast in late January, the Unplugged team piled back into National Video Center to record six more artists for the next three episodes. Guitar Gods Stevie Ray Vaughan and Joe Satriani shared an episode, but didn't play any songs together. Folksy singer-songwriters Michelle Schacht and Indigo Girls were paired off, and a just shy of chart-topping success Sinead O'Connor did an episode with Australian alt-rock new waivers The Church. I'll just pause here to say that if you want to experience the immediate lightning in a bottle musical magic that Unplugged was offering right out of the gate, just check out Sinead's full-body goosebumps-inducing solo acoustic version of Black Boys on Mopeds. Here's a little bit of that chilling acoustic majesty courtesy of just Sinead and her guitar.
00:20:03
Speaker
Now, in the midst of this first batch of new shows hitting the MTV airwaves in early 1990, there was one episode that proved not only to be a bit of an anomaly, but also has become somewhat lost to the sands of time, and surprisingly absent from the last 30 plus years of unplugged retrospectives.
00:20:19
Speaker
However, because I am a historian by training, I have double sourced this info in at least two separate primary documents, so I can report this one with confidence. During the last week of February 1990, there was an unplugged episode featuring Neil Young.
Neil Young's Unconventional Episode
00:20:33
Speaker
Now, most folks know there was a whole Neil Young unplugged double episode debacle that occurred in 1992, and I'll fully get into that a little bit later in this episode. But what I'm about to briefly explain is actually the first of three Neil Young unplugged episodes. Though, much like the other two, this one has its own charming, ah shall we say, irregularities. As far as its quote-unquote unplug-ness, the 30-minute episode did feature Neil playing a half-dozen songs, mostly solo, on acoustic guitar, harmonica, and piano. And there was even a recorded intro from Jules, unplug branding, and the theme song, The Whole Nine. In fact, here's a little of Jules' opening wind-up from an old VHS rip I was able to locate. Hi, welcome to MTV Unplugged. I'm Jules Scheer. Tonight we have a very special performance by Neil Young, taped exclusively for our show. I hope you enjoy it. Here's Neil Young. Now, that being said, this was certainly not a conventional Unplugged by any stretch. Instead of the typical artist recorded in a small television studio in front of an intimate audience style Unplugged, this looked more like a concert video because Well, it was. It's Neil playing on a big stage in front of a huge audience, which was mostly filmed over two nights at the Palladium Concert Hall in New York City back in September of 89, with two of the songs actually being filmed at Jones Beach Theater in mid-June of 89.
00:21:57
Speaker
As far as an acoustic Neil Young performance, it's glorious. Half of the tracks were from his most recent album, Freedom, including Rockin' in the Free World, the first of three times it would be played for Unplugged, all by different acts, but I'll get to the other two a little later. He also played a beautiful rendition of fan favorite After the Gold Rush, on piano, of course, and dedicated an unfortunately evergreen version of his protest song, Ohio, to the students killed during the recent Tiananmen Square Massacre in Beijing that had just occurred less than two weeks prior to that particular performance. Although Jules' intro mentioned that the performance had been quote, taped exclusively for our show, the overall vibe certainly didn't match the other unplugged episodes that had already aired. The newspaper listing I was able to source, shout out to the February 23rd, 1990 edition of my hometown Atlanta Journal-Constitute, they framed it with a little more rhetorical wiggle room. Quote, on Sunday at 10.30 a.m. and 11 p.m. on the acoustic show MTV Unplugged, Neil Young will perform a concert taped live. To that point, Young did release the short acoustic set with one extra song not in the original broadcast and with zero unplugged branding on the box or the actual film print as a VHS and laser disc titled Freedom, a live acoustic concert.
00:23:14
Speaker
So was it an official unplugged broadcast? Yes, no doubt. Do I consider it a part of the official unplugged canon? Um, sure. Even if as nothing more than an interesting footnote, does it feel like unplugged? No, not really
Single Artist Format Introduction
00:23:29
Speaker
at all. If you track down a copy of that Freedom VHS Laserdisc, there's literally nothing about it that would lead you to believe it was attached to unplugged in any way.
00:23:38
Speaker
But will I still bring it up at various times throughout the podcast? I mean, how could I not, right? Okay, continuing on with the 90s season. The three episodes that came out of that late January single-day filming session took the show through a mid-March broadcast schedule. But huge next-level success-altering changes were just around the corner thanks to that seemingly innocuous Joe Walsh Dr. John episode.
00:24:00
Speaker
While the episode itself is not necessarily one of the most memorable entries in the Unplugged Archives, it turned out to be especially noteworthy for how it accidentally helped grow the show in incredibly important yet wildly unforeseen ways. You see, Walsh opened his Unplugged performance with the song Desperado as a nod to his time playing guitar in the 70s rock radio heavyweights, The Eagles. However, the song's co-writer, Eagles co-leader turned powerfully successful solo artist Don Henley, will he Hmm, shall we say strongly requested slash demanded that MTV not air Walsh's performance of the song by faxing MTV a stern multi-page letter that basically boiled down to some version of... if you want to performance at desperado on ntb un plus i'll be
00:24:45
Speaker
But what Henley meant as bit of a strong-handed power play, the Unplugged team saw as a truly unbelievable gift. At that moment in early 1990, Henley was in the middle of promoting his Grammy-winning six-times platinum solo album, The End of the Innocents, and was a hugely popular solo artist with a couple current singles hanging out at the top of the charts. Arrangements were quickly made, and suddenly there was a stellar Don Henley Unplugged episode seemingly dropped in their laps.
00:25:12
Speaker
This week, a very special unplugged Don Henley. Playing hits from his solo career, his years with the Eagles and one or two surprises, all acoustic. From Los Angeles, a very special edition of Unplugged. The serendipitous filming with Henley also provided the show a few of its first. It was the first episode featuring only one artist. The first episode filmed outside of the tiny National Video Center studio in New York. They actually trekked all the way to Los Angeles for the Henley taping.
00:25:42
Speaker
It was the first Unplugged to feature an expanded instrumental palette, as Henley had two guitarists, a bassist, piano, a trio of background singers, and a string ensemble. Plus, while Jules Shear was still present at the taping, his hosting duties were substantially minimized, and for the first time, he didn't participate in any of the songs. In fact, when I interviewed Unplugged producer Alex Coletti for an article a few years back, he described the leveling up nature of the situation by saying,
00:26:08
Speaker
Once you get an artist the caliber of Don Henley, the show no longer needed a host holding everything together. Jules would still remain on as host of MTV Unplugged for a few more episodes, though. He still did his regular hosting routine for the other two episodes that were recorded the same day as the Henley taping.
00:26:24
Speaker
one pairing Great White with Hard Rock Supergroup Damn Yankees, and another featuring Crowded House and Tim Finn, which was filmed while the band was in the middle of recording Wood Face, the only Crowded House album to feature Tim as a quote-unquote official member of the band. However, with the Henley-infused upgrade, the writing was on the wall and cheer would be gone before the second half of the 1990 Unplugged season got started.
00:26:47
Speaker
As a quick aside, Coletti also told me about how there was supposed to be another Unplugged filming during that LA trip. One with Jane's Addiction that fell through at the last minute. Can you imagine how incredible a ritual era Jane's Addiction Unplugged would have looked and sounded? Ah, what might have been. With Henley's Unplugged, the show had managed to make a significant leap forward before their episode count had even hit double digits. While there ended up still being a couple more double artist shared episodes on the back half of the first season, namely Rat and Vixen and the one with the Black Crows and Tesla. The early shift to the single artist format greatly informed the latter half of Season 1, which featured episodes with such stand-alone worthy superstars as Hall & Oates, Elton John, Aerosmith, Crosby, Stills & Nash, the Allman Brothers, and Poison, who closed things out with their acoustically raucous Season 1 finale airing on December 13th, 1990.
00:27:52
Speaker
Before I launch into Season 2, a couple quick notes about some other important things that occurred during Unplugged's first season. 1. Out of all those Season 1 artists I just mentioned, more than 30 of them, you'll probably notice that not a one of them released a proper standalone Unplugged EP or album at the time.
00:28:09
Speaker
Through the entirety of its first season, Unplugged was truly just operating as a cool little acoustic performance television show, with absolutely zero grand plans for the chart-topping radio smashes and Grammy-winning, platinum-selling albums it would soon be generating in just a couple short years.
Allman Brothers' Influence
00:28:26
Speaker
From the perspective of the Unplugged crew, these charmingly great performances were just being visually captured for television broadcasts and were not being multi-tracked recorded for any audio medium perpetuity. We actually have one very specific season 1 band to thank for changing that. And if I asked you to guess which one, I bet it would take you more than a few guesses. But they had the vision to bring their own audio recording equipment to their unplugged taping. The moves sparked the show's producers to be like, wait, should we be recording these things for possible record releases?
00:28:55
Speaker
Did I give you enough time to make a guess? It was actually the Allman Brothers. Yes, that's right. We have 70s Southern Rock Jam Band heavyweights the Allman Brothers to thank for bringing in their own recording equipment as they hope to maybe just catch a cool song or two for potential use as a fun b-side on a future single.
00:29:13
Speaker
So the next time you're jamming out to Nirvana's Unplugged in New York album, or, like me, singing along possibly too loud to Mariah Carey's cover of I'll Be There in the frozen food aisle at the grocery store, in some small but very meaningful way, we've got the Allman Brothers to thank for that. Second note, I'll eventually be doing standalone episodes on many of the season 1 acts,
00:29:33
Speaker
But I wanted to briefly call out two specific ones here for how they informed future shows and helped shape Unplugged's overall je ne sais quoi from its earliest days. The first is Elton John's episode. Coming up we have MTV Unplugged where we see Elton not animated, not no harmonizers on his voice, no synthesizers. MTV Unplugged, simply Elton and a baby grand piano.
00:29:57
Speaker
To me, Elton really exhibited how the unplugged stage could be used to showcase an artist's casual, yet undeniable genius in a disarmingly invitational manner. Breezily dressed in an early 90s neon pink tracksuit with matching baseball cap, Elton looked like he had just accidentally wandered into Chelsea Studios in the middle of running a few Saturday errands. Let's see, today I need to swing by the post office for some stamps, drop off the water bill, blow some minds at my unplugged taping, return these library books,
00:30:26
Speaker
However, as soon as he sat down at the piano for a solo tour de force of some of his career-spanning masterpieces, he perfectly encapsulated Unplug's art over Artifice creative premise. He also seemed to have a blast doing it, as his desire to expand each song and even play a few extras generated the show's first hour-long episode.
00:30:46
Speaker
I genuinely wish Elton would release this really special show as an album one day, and I can only hope there will be a vinyl variant pressed on the exact same shade of early 90s neon pink as his Unplugged Ensemble. The other really notable season 1 ep I want to briefly hit on is Aerosmith. They were the first band to really take a thoughtfully adventurous approach to their one-off Unplugged setlist.
00:31:07
Speaker
That whole crafting a unique unplugged moment discussion that often comes up around the understandably rhapsodized Eric Clapton and Nirvana episodes of later seasons could really be seen back in Aerosmith's season 1 episode. At the time, Aerosmith was riding high on their mid-80s return to rock stardom courtesy of their wildly popular Walk This Way comeback collab with Run DMC and the massive back-to-back multi-platinum successes of their permanent vacation and pump albums.
00:31:34
Speaker
But instead of just relying on a roster of their most recent smash hits, like Dude Looks Like a Lady, Ragdoll, Angel, Love in an Elevator, Janie's Got a Gun, songs whose music videos were heavy rotation staples on MTV, mind you, they instead built a set list that transported viewers on a trip through their sonic backstory by revisiting some of their own 70s hits and reworking a variety of their favorite mid-century blues covers dating back to the 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s.
00:32:02
Speaker
It was a thoughtfully inspired approach that both showcased their influences and hipped their newer, younger audience members who may have only been familiar with their more recent, courtesy of MTV, catalog. From the show, here's their acoustic-flavored variation of the tiny Bradshaw by Way of the Yardbirds classic Train Kept a Roll.
00:32:41
Speaker
And just in case you forgot that this was filmed in the summer of 1990, just a few short months after their celebrated Saturday Night Live appearance where they were musical guests and appeared in a Wayne's World sketch, here's Steven Tyler goofing with the crowd while the Unplugged crew were resetting cameras.
00:33:09
Speaker
I honestly think that the only reason Aerosmith's Unplugged doesn't get more shine or appear on more best of list is simply because it got lost in the ether due to it never getting an official album release. In fact, going back to my chat with Alex Coletti for a second, he mentioned Aerosmith as being the band he gets the most questions about not getting an Unplugged album. Over the years, I've read in a few different places that it essentially all boils down to the financials. Basically, the band not liking the royalty split with MTV.
00:33:38
Speaker
But who knows, maybe one day we'll luck out. All in all, The Aerosmith Unplugged is a really impressive performance of a genuinely talented rock band firing on all cylinders within a uniquely framed musical experience. Go grab yourself a bootleg until they hopefully one day wise up and officially release this bad boy. Okay, on to season two.
Season 2 Artistic Evolution
00:33:58
Speaker
After using the 89 pilot in the full 90 season to test the waters, tweak the format, and establish its footing for what it wanted to be as a show, the 91 season of Unplug turned out to be a bit of a smaller, circle the wagons moment to regroup and rebuild.
00:34:14
Speaker
While this resulted in the season having substantially fewer episodes, turning out just over a half dozen shows compared to season 1's 30 plus artists across almost 20 episodes, I think it resulted in a significantly elevated creative ethos and higher quality performances.
00:34:30
Speaker
Plus, this is the season where Unplugged really started feeling like a 90's impacting property. Part of it had to do with the unique caliber of the season 2 artists themselves, and part of it had to do with the Unplugged team starting to have a clearer idea of what the show could be. There was no more host, no more opening theme song, and they even spiced up the Unplugged logo for season 2. Forget the relaxing Sunday cup of coffee atmospherics of the year prior,
00:34:55
Speaker
Throughout 91, Unplugged rapidly transformed into a dynamically vibrant program that routinely pushed against the walls of the audiences and its own expectations. While the 91 season still featured one dual artist episode that harkened back to its original concept, this time pairing fellow hard rock power balladeers, winger, and slaughter, the show almost exclusively pivoted into the single artist format that it would shortly be taking to impressive artistic heights.
00:35:22
Speaker
The show also widened its genre palette as well, where Season 1 was heavily steeped in rock and metal acts known for proficient electric guitar theatrics. Season 2 featured the punk-influenced new wave jazz hybridizations of Elvis Costello and Sting, alt-leaning college rock radio favorites The Cure and my beloved REM, who had shocked audiences by deciding not to tour behind their chart-topping, multi-platinum out-of-time record, making their unplugged appearance one of the very few places to catch them live for a couple years.
00:35:52
Speaker
Plus, the show's first multi-artist ensemble-style show with its game-changing, mind-blowingly great Yo!
Hip-Hop's Missed Opportunities
00:35:59
Speaker
MTV Raps meets Unplugged collaborative episode featuring a Tribe Called Quest, MC Light, De La Soul, and the peerless euphoric charisma of LL Cool J. You remember it. LL's unmistakable voice and stage-prowling energy, his double-fisted dual microphone bombast, the stark white deodorant chunks dancing around, and his shirtless underarm hair.
00:36:30
Speaker
I know most folks point to the Eric Clapton episode of the next season as the most concentrated arrival moment for Unplugged, but to me, without question, the unique alchemy of musical magic, spine-tingling performance, and otherworldly cool at the heart of the Unplugged formula resoundingly planted its flag on the Yo Unplugged show.
00:36:49
Speaker
All four acts masterfully exemplified the inherent musicality of hip-hop that many of the genre's detractors continually tried to deny it throughout the 80s and 90s, while also simultaneously showcasing the charismatic draw both in lyrics and delivery of a live hip-hop performance.
00:37:06
Speaker
When the source put out their 91 hip hop urine review edition, they shouted out this episode of MTV Unplugged in three separate pieces, most notably praising Light for being, quote, the dopest female who could always hang with the fellas and crediting the show for getting everyone talking about live instruments and hip hop. and noting that by year's end, LL was performing with a 30-piece orchestra. I genuinely can't wait to dive into this undeniably classic episode and unpack the genius of live acoustic sampling. That being said, let me just also get out of the way upfront what will be my biggest and most off-recurring criticism of Unplugged, the way it completely missed out on having more hip-hop shows during such an insanely great era of the genre.
00:37:48
Speaker
I actually have the same complaint for their complete omission of punk bands, but the lack of hip-hop acts feels even more egregious because their first attempt perfectly evidenced the absolutely electrifying mixture of genre and format. That first Yo Unplugged show was a resounding proof of concept success, and during those early 90 years, I remember countless lunchroom conversations between me and my middle school friends about which new rap albums we hoped would spark the next Unplugged, especially with the sample-rich musical beds of acts like Eric B. and Rakim, Queen Latifah in Digital Underground, or the early 90s G-Funk stuff like Dre's Chronic, Cube's Predator, Snoop's Doggy Style, Coolio's It Takes a Thief, Warren G's Regulate. I mean, just those few classic albums alone were all released in less than a two-year span.
00:38:34
Speaker
I mean, they could have done an Unplugged episode featuring George Clinton and brought out more than half of the greatest rappers of the era as special guests, showcasing just the songs of his they sampled. And do not get me started on what kind of mesmerizing Unplugged shows could have been cooked up by artists like Tupac, OutKast, or Missy Elliott. Instead, up to this day, we've still only gotten just a handful of hip-hop Unplugged EPs.
00:38:57
Speaker
There was Arrested Development in 93 and Jay-Z Backed by the Roots in 2001. You can also count the Father MC and Heavy D segments from the 93 Uptown Records Ensemble Show and also sprinkle in the early 2010 episodes from B.O.B. and Lil Wayne.
00:39:12
Speaker
I don't exactly count the 50th anniversary of hip hop show they just did in December of 2023, mainly because, while it was an incredibly cool hip hop show featuring a live backing band, it didn't exactly have much of an unplugged acoustic element at all. But still, my point is clear.
00:39:28
Speaker
For as much as I deeply love and celebrate all things MTV Unplugged, the program has not been without a fault or two over the last 30 plus years. And in my opinion, its biggest fumble, especially throughout the 90s, was and still is its lack of hip hop shows. Alrighty, Rabbit Trail concluded point made. I yield my time back to the 91 season.
00:39:48
Speaker
Okay, where was I? Oh right, the amazingly great hip hop show. It was recorded on the same night as REM, who, as much as I don't like the limited nature of favorite band conversations, they are admittedly my quote unquote favorite band. So that double taping, and one from the next season, which we'll get into in just a moment, would be my top picks for the if you could travel back in time and watch one double taping dream scenario.
00:40:13
Speaker
In fact, if we're talking dream scenarios, how cool would it have been to have KRS-1 there at Chelsea Studios in Manhattan that night? Just a short 45-minute train ride south from the Boogie Down Bronx. He could have done Love's Gonna Get Ya on the Yo Unplugged episode and then stuck around to join REM to perform his lines from Radio Song. Ah, the mind boggles. Another notable thing about the 91 season Even with only a single year under its belt, Unplugged managed to nab a beetle. In fact, that's how the Unplugged crew kicked off that year. To record their episode with Paul McCartney, they had to fly to the UK in January of 1991, which was not exactly an easy task since that was right in the thick of the Gulf War escalating from Desert Shield to Desert
Paul McCartney's Standout Episode
00:40:54
Speaker
Storm.
00:40:54
Speaker
Since they were still very much operating in the economical get more bang for your buck production mentality, they also filmed an episode with The Cure the day before their McCartney taping, which that one ended up being another very underrated, very killer entry in the show's early period. In the I Want My MTV book, Cure frontman Robert Smith said, The only time I've been nervous about performing was MTV Unplugged. It was so stripped down and bare, and the audience was so close. There was no escape. That will be another fun one to do an episode on, and I'll just preface it with four words. The Cure plays kazoos. Four more words. Robert Smith on violin. Kinda. Okay, so five words.
00:41:33
Speaker
Whatever. The McCartney episode is an incredible standout entry in the Unplugged Cannon for a few notable reasons. First, McCartney stripped the Unplugged Ethos down to its purest definitions by eschewing amplifiers and all direct inputs on his band's acoustic instrumentation in favor of only using closely placed external microphones. Not only did that provide a really cool spacious blending of the musical components, but it also firmly set the polemic bar on one end of the How Unplugged Can You Be spectrum.
00:42:02
Speaker
The opposing poll would be solidified just a few years later, but more on that in a minute. Second, just like Aerosmith had done the year prior, McCartney brought a really thought-out narrative gravitas to his Unplugged set list. Of the 20-plus songs he performed during the filming session, he covered some of his early influences, like Gene Vincent, Carl Perkins, and Elvis, played through some Beatles hits and tracks from his solo catalog, and even dipped all the way back to one of the very first songs he ever wrote as a teenager.
00:42:29
Speaker
Third, knowing that he had crafted a really special live performance that would undoubtedly start making its rounds on the bootleg circuit, he decided to release it as an official record, making it the inaugural Unplugged album release. He playfully titled it Unplugged the Official Bootleg and specifically released it as a limited edition, individually numbered record.
00:42:49
Speaker
When I interviewed Unplugged producer Joel Gallon a few years back for a Grammys piece I was writing on Pearl Jam's Unplugged episode, Joel humored me with some incredible stories about working on McCartney's Unplugged, including the fact that Paul didn't decide to do an Unplugged episode because he had a new album to promote or anything like that, but it was because he had watched the Holland Oats Unplugged from season one and was inspired to do one himself. Joel also told me that Paul didn't release his Unplugged record for commercial purposes or to try to get it played on radio.
00:43:17
Speaker
Instead, he was just really enamored by the whole experience and loved the way the live mix sounded on this unique collection of songs. Regardless of McCartney's expectations for its reception, the album ended up cracking the top 20 in the US and hitting number 7 in the UK. The only other 91 session to get any sort of official release at that specific point in time with Sting's phenomenally underrated and all too short episode of Soul Cages era hits and beautifully reworked police classics. So far he has never released it as a proper album, but at the time he did put out a cool VHS and laserdisc of the show with some interview interstitials. He also did a cool thing with it a couple of years later when he released If I Ever Lose My Faith In You as the lead single to his 10 summoners tales record in early 93,
00:44:03
Speaker
He put out two separate versions of the CD single, with three unplugged tracks as the B-sides on each version. So, six of the eight total unplugged songs. It was an extremely cool idea for an extremely cool unplugged from that early pre-album release era. I'm hoping we someday get a proper album release of this one, because Sting's episode was unquestionably one of the true stunners from those early unplugged years. It's easily one of my most listened to unplugged bootlegs. And here's a little taste of why. Check out this smoky, lowlit cabaret version.
00:44:42
Speaker
One final note about the 91 season before moving on. I don't think it's hyperbole to say that even with only a single season under its belt, the impact of Unplug's acoustic-only ethos was already informing the larger pop music landscape in substantial ways.
Rise of Acoustic Ballads
00:44:57
Speaker
I'm specifically thinking about how the hair metal power ballads of the late 80s may have featured acoustic guitars, but they were still augmented by warbly synthesizers, muscular drums, and cranked to 11 electric guitar solos to maintain a perceived acceptable rock edge.
00:45:12
Speaker
By 91, however, some bands started tweaking their power ballad formula to be 100% exclusively acoustic, meaning zero synthesizers or electric guitars, with some of them even generating Billboard Hot 100 number one hits out of it. I'm specifically thinking of Xtreme's More Than Words, which hit number one in the summer of 91, and Mr. Big's To Be With You, which was released as a single in late fall of 91 and reached the top of the charts by the following February.
00:45:38
Speaker
Now, I'm not accusing bands like Extreme or Mr. Big of intentionally telegraphing an Unplugged-style song. I'm just saying that Unplugged's forward-facing influence can't be discounted from both the artist inspiration and audience reception standpoint. As a closing sub-bullet to this point, One of those acoustic-only top 10 hits of 1991, Tesla's live acoustic cover of the 1971 hit Signs, is another one of those pesky, misapplied unplugged myths from the show's early days that still pops up every once in a while. Which, by the way, I need a catchy name for these erroneous instances of stolen unplugged valor because there's been quite a few of them over the years. Maybe unplugged? I don't know. I'll keep workshopping it. Anyways, much like the Bon Jovi inspiration story, Tesla's acoustic version of Signs often gets framed as being a part of MTV Unplugged's early days, even though it most definitely was not. It was recorded at a concert stop in Philadelphia over the summer of 1990, released to radio as the lead single from the resulting platinum-selling live album called Five Man Acoustical Jam in November of 1990, and made it all the way to number eight on the Hot 100 in early 91, helped along the way, naturally, by a popular music video on MTV. In the defense of those who incorrectly ascribed the radio hit as being from MTV Unplugged, it is true that Tesla did appear on the show around that same time, sharing a late season one episode with the Black Crows in December of 1990, and they even played signs during that Unplugged set. However, the version that everybody knows as the big hit was not from there Unplugged.
00:47:11
Speaker
So Tesla, please go join Bon Jovi in the un unplugged penalty box until we get this straightened out with every classic rock radio DJ and music journalist who Mars their anniversary write-ups with such falsehoods. Moving on to 1992, a truly huge year for Unplugged, the glow up part one we'll call it.
00:47:30
Speaker
While the prior two seasons had a bit of a measured momentum that progressively built upon itself, the monumental 92 season kicked the doors off its hinges straight
Eric Clapton's Cultural Phenomenon
00:47:39
Speaker
out of the gate. Echoing the prior year's international sessions with McCartney and The Cure, the Unplugged crew once again started off the year by traveling to the yeah UK in mid-January to record what would become both their biggest cannonball splash into the deep end of the pop cultural pool and also their most commercially successful album release of the entire multi-decade Unplugged project. today.
00:48:12
Speaker
That's right. A bespeckled Eric Clapton and his trusty 1939 Martin simultaneously legitimized Unplugged the Show and Establish Unplugged the Concept for both audiences and every artist who would play the show after him. His 92 season opener was an immediate and all-encompassing smash hit that generated a genuine, decade-defining cultural frenzy in the moment and in many ways still casts an incredibly long shadow of interest and influence. I mean, more than a decade after his Unplugged aired, one of the main guitars he played on the show went up for auction and sold for almost $800,000. And while that is inarguably insane, it is not the most an Unplugged guitar has sold for at auction. But more on that in just a bit.
00:48:56
Speaker
I have to watch how much time I give over to the Clapton Unplugged in this introductory explainer episode. I mean, of course I'll eventually do a standalone episode on it, and there's no doubt mentions of it are sure to pop up in many other episodes. But here are just a few quick things to note about its impact and legacy. 1. The Power of Setlist While Clapton had a massive back catalogue of material that afforded him the opportunity to take his unplugged setlist in any number of directions, either knowingly or unknowingly, he continued in the vein of Aerosmith and McCartney and crafted a pretty inspired and unconventionally cohesive collection of songs.
00:49:32
Speaker
Clapton accomplished this through a set list that was heavy with old acoustic blues covers and just enough forward-leaning solo material to lift and freshen the whole set. Alongside his fleet-fingered run-throughs of blues masters like Robert Johnson, Sun House, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, and Leadbelly, Clapton also delivered an absolutely arresting pair of his own co-writes, Tears in Heaven, the song he wrote after the tragic death of his four-year-old son, Connor, and a slinky acoustic reworking of his early 70s classic rock radio staple, Layla.
00:50:02
Speaker
a song he originally wrote and recorded as part of the only studio album ever released by the quasi-supergroup Derek and the Dominos. 2. The Power of Synergy While Clapton's Unplugged is often erroneously framed as some sort of out-of-nowhere career revitalizer,
00:50:19
Speaker
Its critical, cultural, and commercial successes occurred alongside, and was no doubt impacted by, an interesting influx of Clapton material from a variety of different sources throughout that year. Just a week before his Unplugged episode was even filmed, the studio version of Tears in Heaven was released as the lead single from the soundtrack Clapton wrote for the Jennifer Jason Lee Jason Patrick movie Rush.
00:50:42
Speaker
It became a number one radio hit, was certified double platinum, and had a popular music video that played on MTV NVH1. Because it was an acoustic bass song already, many folks conflate the massive success of the studio version of Tears in Heaven from the Rush soundtrack as being from the Unplugged album. But it wasn't. You can always tell the difference by that prominent, I think it's a, harmonium or synthesizer that colors the studio version.
00:51:06
Speaker
So, Bon Jovi and Tesla, please scooch over a little closer and start making some room for old slowhand, please. The acoustic-anchored studio version of Tears in Heaven just ended up being a serendipitously successful precursor that folded seamlessly into the mounting buzz surrounding his unplugged performance between the show airing and its eventual album release. During the summer of 92, the prime moment of that post-show pre-album window, he could also be heard on two major singles from the Lethal Weapon 3 soundtrack.
00:51:35
Speaker
a top ten duet with Elton John called Runaway Train, and the Grammy-nominated song It's Probably Me, which was sung by Sting but which Clapton co-wrote and played acoustic and electric guitar on. Both tracks charted well on radio and both had music videos on MTV and VH1 that prominently featured shots of Clapton. When his unplugged album was finally released in late August, his acoustic reworking of Layla got its own high-profile single release, push to radio, and heavy-rotation music video.
00:52:04
Speaker
When you factor in that Clapton was already an evergreen presence on rock radio with an almost 30-year-back catalog of routinely spun hits, just believe me when I say that if you were a consumer of almost any kind of pop culture in 1992, radio, music, TV, movies, magazines, you almost couldn't go 10 minutes without experiencing Clapton's songs.
00:52:25
Speaker
hearing his name, or seeing his face in one way or another. So there was kind of this interesting thing going on where there was a lot of attention feeding into and coalescing around his unplugged performance without folks complaining too much about oversaturation because there was so much Clapton coming in from so many different sources. 3. The Power of Sales So as I said, Clapton's album came out in late August of 92. It went platinum in October, double platinum in November, and triple platinum in December. Took a brief pause in January, then went quadruple platinum in February, quintuple platinum in March. You get the picture. It eventually went on to be certified diamond in the US, which is 10 million units shipped, and reportedly has amassed 26 million in worldwide sales. For context, when placed alongside other juggernaut albums from the 1990s,
00:53:15
Speaker
Reported global sales place it above Britney Spears' Baby One More Time and just below Nirvana's Nevermind. Even as someone who experienced it all in real time, that fact just kind of seems implausibly insane to me. 4. The Power of Unplugged Clapton's Unplugged is still the best-selling live album of all time.
00:53:35
Speaker
Not just best-selling live album of the 90s or best-selling Unplugged album. Best-selling live album of all time. And remember, this was not recorded at a big blowout concert during a massive tour like most conventional live albums are. It was recorded for a television show. That was the manner of massive cultural footprints Unplugged was making in the 1990s.
00:53:57
Speaker
Okay, that may or may not have been too much on Clapton, but I think it's all important fodder for really understanding the story and legacy of Unplugged, especially for any of you listeners who may have forgotten the nuances and nature of 90s pop culture, or were maybe not even around to experience it in the first place. If that be the case, welcome welcome, you sweet summer children of light and air.
00:54:18
Speaker
Oh, one more quick side note before moving on from the Clapton taping. I've been told that two more potentially incredible Unplugged episodes almost came out of that UK trip. One was planned, and one was gonna happen just by happenstance luck. The planned one was going to be with Talking Heads frontman David Byrne. It was going to be a solo show with just him on acoustic guitar and a drum machine. But it had to be cancelled after I think it was he was like in a bicycling accident or something like that.
00:54:46
Speaker
The unplanned one was going to be with Lou Reed, who the unplugged crew accidentally ran into when he was doing some work in the studio next door to where Clapton's Unplugged was being filmed. Conversations were had, but it apparently didn't get too far off the ground, as Reed was keen to do an Unplugged, but just not with an acoustic guitar. Either way, even without the additions of a Burn and or Reed episode, it's safe to assume that all parties involved deemed the Clapton-only trip a beyond expectations success.
00:55:15
Speaker
While Clapton may have been the most easily quantifiable success story of the 92 season, speaking as someone who was in 6th grade and had just turned 12 the week before his Unplugged aired, I was infinitely far more excited about the three Unplugged episodes that immediately followed in
Notable Episodes Post-Clapton
00:55:31
Speaker
Clapton's wake. In fact, my other if-you-could-travel-back-in-time-and-watch-one-multitaping-dream scenario would be the post-Clapton March 16, 1992 Unplugged filming session that yielded dramatic pause for effect, the Mariah Carey episode, the Pearl Jam episode, and the show's second ensemble-style show that featured Cooley High Harmony-era Boyz II Men, Shawneece, and Joe Public. To me, each one of these three shows are not only extremely important to the larger Unplugged story, But they also are just really, really top-notch musical performances that provided some of the most quintessentially early 90s images you could ever hope to revisit. I'm talking Boys to Men, killing a live band version of Motown Philly and matching oversized mustard blazers. Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder standing on his stool and writing pro-choice down his arm in Sharpie during a furious version of Porch that defied the conventions of quote-unquote acoustic music.
00:56:25
Speaker
and a charmingly flawless Mariah Carey silencing every single studio creation hater with her otherworldly vocal masterclass of an unplugged set. It was also really cool that each one of the three shows recorded that day really had its own interesting story thread surrounding each of the artists as well. For the R and&B unplugged ensemble show? Boys to Men were certainly at a place where they could have led an episode all by themselves. Their debut LP Coolie High Harmony was already triple platinum, on its way to going nine times platinum,
00:56:55
Speaker
and they had a pair of top five hits with Motown Philly and their cover of It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday. But to play Unplugged, they needed a band behind them. Enter Joe Public, a new jack swing quartet that played their own instruments and coincidentally had their own hit single working its way up the Billboard Hot 100. The Parliament, Steely Dan, Digital Underground interpolating top five hit, Live and Learn. Here's a quick memory refresher.
00:57:28
Speaker
Add in Boyz II Men's Motown label mate, Shawneece, who bridged the end of 91 and the beginning of 92 at the top of the Billboard R and&B chart with I Love Your Smile, and you've got quite the killer multi-artist review style show of hitmaking R and&B singers. For their This Show Only cover, already an unplugged staple, all three acts closed out the show with a stirring take on Marvin Gaye's Mercy Mercy.
00:58:02
Speaker
The story going into the Pearl Jam show was the MTV was taking a bit of a risk to record an unplugged with this on-the-rise but still relatively new grunge act, which is probably why their filming session was cautiously slotted third that day after the surer bets of Boyz II Men and Mariah.
00:58:18
Speaker
They were coming right off a grueling European tour and didn't even have time to do a proper rehearsal. In fact, some of the acoustic instruments they played that night had to be borrowed for the show. However, as anyone who has seen even a millisecond of their powerfully electrifying performance knows, MTV needn't have worried. Much like the room-lifting explosiveness displayed by LL Cool J the year before, Pearl Jam masterfully redefined the bounds of intensity that could be harnessed with acoustic instruments.
00:58:44
Speaker
Plus, their episode closes with the coolest, and possibly only, acoustic bass toss in Unplugged History, if not of all time. For various reasons I'll get into in later episodes, it took forever to finally get an official release of this truly magical show. It was first a DVD-only release attached to the 2009 reissue of their debut album, 10, and then it came out as a proper standalone album a decade after that. First on limited edition vinyl for Record Store Day Black Friday in late 2019,
00:59:13
Speaker
with a full release following in 2020. I'll be revisiting this one a lot in future episodes, as it was such a unique snapshot of this legendary, still going strong band at a very specific time in their early career. But if you want to read a little bit more about it, you can check out a piece I did with Unplugged Director Joel Gallon a few years back on the Grammys website. Before moving on, let's hear just a smidge of that feral Pearl Jam perfection.
01:00:01
Speaker
Whew. Okay, on to Mariah Carey. For me, easily tied with Nirvana for my most listened to unplugged release. I could go on for days about the awesomeness and importance of Mariah's Unplugged for both her and the program itself, but I'll try to keep it tight for this first explainer episode.
01:00:18
Speaker
The story going into this one is that even after two multi-platinum albums and a grip of number one singles, Mariah still had some detractors in the music media trying to frame her as a studio creation, meaning someone whose voice could be finessed and manipulated to sound amazing in a controlled studio of setting, but couldn't routinely replicate it in a live setting.
01:00:37
Speaker
While she had already logged some spectacular live appearances under her belt, I mean, 1990 NBA Finals y'all, refresh yourselves, the fact that she didn't do any big tours behind her first two monster albums contributed to the naysayers. Since Unplugged was really starting to hit its stride as a musical proving ground, it provided the perfect venue, steeped in both musical authenticity and MTV cool, to put all the studio creation stuff to rest. And boy did she ever. Mariah put on the kind of unplugged performance that made you think, this is exactly what the show was created for. Raw musical proficiency? Check. Unguarded human connection in an intimate performance setting? Check. An artist uniquely delivering on their own songs with their own singular emotional fingerprints? Check. Undeniably classic unplugged cover song choice? Check, check, check.
01:01:41
Speaker
Mariah's Unplugged is also fun to watch for all the recognizable faces in her backing band. On piano was the late David Cole, who was an incredible producer and one half of early 90s superstar CNC Music Factory. On bass was former Journey Band member and future American Idol judge Randy Jackson. She had legendary session vets like Dan Shea on harpsichord and Greg Donaway on drums. And if you were a big Saturday Night Live fan, you'd probably recognize longtime SNL horn players Lenny Pickett, Earl Gardner, Steve Torre, George Young, and Lou Delgado. Not to mention the recognizable faces and voices of two of her background singers, Kelly Price and Trey Lorenz, who would both go on to have successful solo careers themselves.
01:02:24
Speaker
Another thing to note about timing here, because it really bothers me how retrospective assessments of Unplug's cultural legacy often concertina everything down into a flat, boring, one-dimensional framing that isolates Clapton into a silo of solo success. Clapton's episode aired a week before Mariah filmed hers in mid-March. Her episode aired in late April, and due to feverish audience demand, immediately surpassed the normal cadence of repeat airings.
01:02:51
Speaker
Wanting to quickly respond to the moment, Carrie and her label decided to release the show as a special live EP and VHS release in early June. In fact, demand was so high that her unplugged cover of the Jackson 5's I'll Be There was released as a standalone single in late May before the EP even hit music store shelves.
01:03:10
Speaker
I'll be there, hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100 by mid-June, and her Unplugged EP quickly went double platinum by late July. All of this occurred prior to Clapton releasing his Unplugged album in late August and his Layla single in mid-September. Why am I drawing this point out so much, you are no doubt screaming in your head?
01:03:29
Speaker
Because I think one of the key points that gets lost in accurately assessing the cultural entrenchment of Unplugged and the pop cultural zeitgeist is that Mariah Carey made it cool before Eric Clapton made it legit, which is an important distinction when you're discussing any sort of pop cultural entity made by a youth-oriented entertainment conglomerate like MTV.
01:03:48
Speaker
It's also a salient point because I think one of the most incorrect historical assessments of the show is that it was somehow just a platform where older rock acts could attempt to secure a little MTV Cool Cred bump with a new generation of teenagers, which, to be clear, is a grossly myopic mischaracterization of all that Unplugged was able to accomplish across a wide spectrum of artists and genres.
01:04:11
Speaker
In fact, dispelling that myth and hopefully recontextualizing MTV Unplugged's full pop cultural footprint is one of my major aspirational goals with this podcast. Getting back to my main point, I don't think the widespread reception of Clapton's Unplugged album or the larger cultural imprint of Unplugged the show happens as massively as it did without the catalyst of Carrie's episode and EP firmly planting its flag in popular, of the moment, youth culture first.
01:04:38
Speaker
Not to mention, during a decade chock full of big name vocal talents, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Tony Braxton, Sade, Madonna, the list goes on, Mariah was the only one to do an Unplugged. I know that those other artists all had amazing live performances in other places. I'm just saying, I don't think Mariah gets enough credit for being the only one of that big voice superstar bunch to attempt much less transcend an Unplugged performance. Okay, a couple more quick notes about the 92 season before
International Expansion
01:05:07
Speaker
moving on.
01:05:07
Speaker
One, its mid-season featured a couple conventional yet still quite enjoyable episodes with established artists like John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, and Queensrike, who, fun random side note, just like Pearl Jam, also played a cover of Neil Young's Rockin' in the Free World that, also like Pearl Jam, did not make it to broadcast. Two,
01:05:27
Speaker
They also rolled out another new Unplugged logo during this season, though like the previous logo it didn't stick around for very long. This one is the cool RNG purpley half guitar half piano version. Still not the full-on classic logo yet, but still a really fun early one to see pop up here and there. Like most recently, you can see a monochrome version of it on the cover art for the Pearl Jam Unplugged record that came out in 2019. 3.
01:05:53
Speaker
92 was also the year that Unplugged really started expanding the brand by filming shows for some of MTV's international markets. The year prior, they had traveled to Sao Paulo to film an episode with Brazilian rockers Barro Vermayo to air on MTV Brazil under the Acoustico MTV banner.
01:06:11
Speaker
They followed that up by filming a second Acoustico MTV exclusively for MTV Brazil in 1992, this one with Leggiao Urbana, who, performing as an acoustic trio for the show, included a few Killer English language covers in their Unplugged setlist, like this incredibly cool street corner busking take on the Jesus and Mary chain alt-rock classic head on.
01:06:45
Speaker
The Unplugged crew also traveled to Switzerland in the summer of 92 to film a trio of new episodes for their MTV Europe market at the renowned Montreux Jazz Festival. Sets by English blues rocker Joe Cocker and Was Not Was of Walk the Dinosaur fame were both broadcast on MTV Europe, while an amazing episode with Annie Lennox aired on both MTV Europe and Stateside, and it was also released in a really cool way that may have inspired what Sting did the next year.
01:07:12
Speaker
When Linux released her fourth single, Cold, from her monster debut solo album, Diva, she made three different versions, titled Cold, Colder, and Coldest, that each had three B-sides from her unplugged performance, broken out by theme. One single had three unplugged songs originally from Diva, the second single had three unplugged songs originally from her Eurythmics days, and the third single had three unplugged cover songs.
01:07:37
Speaker
I think all three are worth checking out because Annie Lennox is an absolute musical genius with an angelic voice and an effortlessly cool delivery. Alright, fourth note on 92. The 92 season closer with Bruce Springsteen proved to be the most un-unplugged of the show's entire run.
Bruce Springsteen's Electric Challenge
01:07:53
Speaker
While I think it's an incredibly fun Springsteen live show from his post-East Street other band era, it is most certainly not a typical unplugged performance by any stretch. Apart from his opening song, the solo acoustic back-of-the-bus novelty song, Red-Headed Woman, and two mid-set acoustic numbers backed by just keyboardist Roy Bitten, Springsteen and his band were very much plugged and cranked for pretty much the whole show. And it wasn't just that they played Electric Guitar's bass and keyboard, it was how they played their electric instruments. I mean, I won't belabor the point until I do a full episode on it, but here's just a snippet of the dueling electric guitar Marty McFly at the enchantment under the sea dance bombast of Live Dead.
01:09:14
Speaker
If McCartney set one end of the spectrum by not even plugging in his acoustic guitar at all, Springsteen set the other end a country mile away with his amps to 11 barn burner. Again, super fun Springsteen show, but they were smart to aesthetically put X's over the U and N when he released his quote unquote unplugged album.
01:09:32
Speaker
By the end of the 92 season, MTV also seemed to understand just how much unplugged both the show itself and the audience's understanding of its multivariate possibilities really benefited from repeat airings. While they had been doing week-long Best of events since the first season,
01:09:48
Speaker
They were now able to draw from a multi-year well to really showcase individual artist highlights and the show's ever-evolving creative arc. Just check out this Best of Unplugged Week commercial from late 92 that smartly blended prior season standout episodes from REM, Elton John, and Paul McCartney with some of the current season gems from Clapton, Carey, Springsteen, and Pearl Jam. Sometimes when you pull the plug, the power surges. MTV's Best of Unplugged Week, Monday.
01:10:28
Speaker
Thursday Friday MTV's best of unplugged week Every night next week Every night at ten Every night a great show It's that simple Alright, let's keep things moving by heading into 1993, an equally important rejoinder to the year prior, basically the glow up part 2. While the new season of Unplugged episodes wouldn't start airing until March of 93, the show was still very much at the forefront of cultural conversations earlier in the year due to Eric Clapton's resounding presence at the Grammys that February.
01:11:02
Speaker
Music's biggest night was still a pretty huge deal in the 1990s, and leading up to the 93 show, which ended up being the most watched Grammys of the entire 90s, with almost 30 million viewers reported by the Nielsen ratings data, Clapton's nine nominations was one of the lead stories going into the night. So spoiler alert if you're still holding out on watching the 93 Grammys broadcast and don't want the results ruined for you. But Clapton ended up winning six Grammys that night, including three of the big four. Unplugged won Album of the Year and Tears in Heaven won Song of the Year and Record of the Year. That night, Clapton also took home Best Rock Vocal Performance for the Unplugged Album.
01:11:39
Speaker
best rock song for the unplugged version of Layla, and best pop vocal performance for the studio version of Tears in Heaven. At one point during the broadcast, host Gary Shanling joked, I'll go out on a limb and say if you're up against Eric Clapton in any other categories, I'd go home now. Clapton even played Tears in Heaven live on the broadcast.
01:11:58
Speaker
While his half dozen Grammy wins were evenly split between his Unplugged album and the Rush soundtrack version of Tears in Heaven, for most media commentators and the general public, it all just kind of coalesced under the Unplugged banner. I mean, no shade to the Rush soundtrack at all. It's just that it didn't even crack the top 20 on the album charts or go platinum or anything. Anybody wanting to hear the triple Grammy winning song Tears in Heaven seemed to be just fine getting the alternate version from the triple Grammy winning Unplugged album.
01:12:27
Speaker
The fortuitous connection between Unplugged and the 93 Grammys continued in the other direction as well, meaning some of the night's other big winners, like Best New Artist winner Arrested Development and Best Pop Vocal winner Katie Lang, had their own Unplugged episodes broadcast the very next month after the awards show.
Genre Exploration in Ed Sullivan Theater
01:12:45
Speaker
And it wasn't just as a response to their Grammy wins either because their episodes had already been filmed a few months prior. Over two nights back in mid-December of 92, Lang and Arrested Development set up shop in the Ed Sullivan Theater, and in fact, their unplugged tapings were some of the very last things filmed in that theater before Letterman famously took it over in early 93 and locked it down for his late show for the next 22 years. These two shows also continued to expand Unplug's genre palette this time into twangy jazz cabaret and southern alternative hip-hop. The Arrested Development episode is an especially magical one, both musically and theatrically. I mean, they brought along some handmade instruments and even had skits, props, and costumes, the whole nine. Here's a little snippet of AD Front Man's speech talking about their show from an old, unplugged, interactive CD-ROM program. It's very innovative. We got a lot of black talent, a lot of African creativity.
01:13:39
Speaker
You know, part of being being an oppressed people and and having to live in poverty, we've created a lot of instruments. Like we got a June June up there that's made out of a Pennzoil can. And we got a horn that's made out of a water hose and two milk cartons. There was also a third notable act filmed during the Katie Lang Arrested Development session that didn't quite turn out as successful, at least to the artists' own standards.
01:14:02
Speaker
Making his return, question mark, to the program, after his anomaly of an episode in early 1990, was none other than legendary singer, songwriter, guitar god, and soon to be heralded godfather of grunge, Neil Young. He also filmed an unplugged episode at the Ed Sullivan Theater during that December 92 filming session. But he ended up ah being so unhappy with the performance that after reportedly running out a side door mid-show to catch a breather in the frigid Manhattan night, he tried to confiscate the master tapes and convinced MTV not to air it. Over the years, I've actually been able to interview a couple different people who worked on this ill-fated show, and not a one of them could put their finger on exactly what it was that made Neil so unhappy with the performance. apart from his general dissatisfaction with having to do multiple song retakes and his overall saltiness with the performance of his band, which was an updated version of his recently reconvened Stray Gator's backing band from the early 70s that was augmented by the addition of legendary Muscle Shoals organist Spooner Oldham, Crazy Horse, Springsteen guitarist Neils Lofgren, and background vocalists Nicolette Larson and Astrid Young, Neils' half-sister. Either way, thankfully he agreed to a quick reschedule and ended up filming a spectacular show in Los Angeles the following February with a different setlist, minimal retakes, and an incredible mixture of Neil playing some songs by himself and others backed by his band, including a version of Harvest Moon that, no lie, featured Neil's longtime guitar tech, Larry Crag, playing a broom.
01:15:32
Speaker
Young's second slash third unplugged filming not only pleased all parties enough to land him the 93 season opener slot, but he also released it as an album that summer, just around the time that he was kicking off a multi-year accrual of a newer, younger audience segment after, among other things, playing a jaw-dropping version of Rockin' in the Free World with Pearl Jam at the 93 MTV VMAs,
01:15:56
Speaker
releasing his quasi-cobain-informed Sleeps with Angels album in 94, and then recording the collaborative mirrorball album with Pearl Jam in 95. It's easy to see Neil's spectacularly cool unplugged as a natural, wheels-greasing precursor to all the renewed multi-generational interest he experienced in the mid-90s.
01:16:15
Speaker
There's also this great April 93 musician magazine article where you don't see it as much these days, but they did that cool dual interview thing where you get two artists together and just let them feed off each other while an interviewer loosely plays conversational traffic cop.
01:16:30
Speaker
For the article I'm talking about, they paired up Neil and REM guitarist Peter Buck and their meeting spot was Neil's second unplugged taping in Los Angeles. It's one of the most trivial things in the world, but I always like hearing stories of other artists who are in the audience for unplugged tapings, which I've heard Beatles drummer Ringo Starr was also in attendance for Neil's do-over.
01:16:49
Speaker
Anyways, their whole conversation is pretty freewheeling and amazing, but my favorite part was reading how Neil started off building his unplugged setlist around a couple songs from Trans, his far too maligned vocoder-heavy masterpiece from 1982. As Young described it to Buck, I figured after 10 years that a couple of acoustic versions of these songs would have been cool, but they had to have that magic great groove. You can't make it work without that. Before tagging on in his charmingly salty straightforwardness, the band had it in rehearsals, but they didn't have it last night. Later in the interview, Neil laughingly described the show by saying, we went up we flew and we landed it but the thing never should have left the hangar there were things ready to fall off everywhere and we could have crashed very easily So yes, Neil's episode, unplugged and unsatisfied twice over, has so many magical elements to discuss when I get to it.
01:17:38
Speaker
And while we're manifesting unplugged Longshot wishes into the Cosmic Void, let's get that first unplugged taping released as part of your archive series. What do you say, Shaky? Okay, how about a little solo kneel on Pump Organ and Harmonica before we move on?
01:18:11
Speaker
Continuing the surprising radio hits and album sales successes of Clapton and Carey from the prior year, the 93 season also featured three episodes that fared extremely well outside of the MTV airwaves.
Rod Stewart's Success
01:18:23
Speaker
Interestingly enough, across a season that hosted a dozen really strong shows, the trio of radio hit generating episodes coincidentally aired in a consecutive chunk.
01:18:32
Speaker
It was Rod Stewart in early May, followed by Uptown Unplugged and Ten Thousand Maniacs both debuting during the first half of an Unplugged week that kicked off that summer. Rod Stewart released his Unplugged album within the same month that his episode was first broadcast, which was a smart way to double down on the buzz still surrounding his episode's repeat airings on MTV. For contrast, there was an almost six-month gap between Clapton's broadcast and his album release.
01:18:58
Speaker
His emotional cover of Van Morrison's Have I Told You Lately became a number one hit on Adult Contemporary Radio and a top five hit on Pop Radio. Stewart quickly followed it up by releasing his unplugged version of his 1971 hit Reason to Believe, which went all the way to number two on Adult Contemporary Radio and was a top 20 hit on Pop Radio.
01:19:17
Speaker
He paused his unplugged push in the fall of 93 for just a moment to appear with Sting and Bryan Adams on the platinum selling, globally chart-topping power ballad, All For Love, which appeared on the soundtrack to Three Musketeers. He then released one more single from his unplugged album, a lively cover of Sam Cooke's Having a Party, which also became a top 20 AC radio hit. Stewart's unplugged album went double platinum just four months after release, even before the All For Love side bump.
01:19:45
Speaker
and would eventually go on to get certified triple platinum. Unplugged co-creator Jim Burns once said that the album was so profitable that he bought a Mercedes off the royalty checks and named it Rod Stewart. Understanding the importance of properly balancing out the repeat successes of older skewing acts like McCartney, Clapton, and Stewart with MTV's younger Hipper Target demo, the Unplugged crew followed up the Rod Stewart episode with another cool experiment.
01:20:10
Speaker
a multi-artist review-style show built around a single record label's roster. Uptown Records had been started in 1986 by the gone-too-soon label mogul Andre Harelle and found its first successes in the late 80s with hip-hop and R and&B acts like Heavy D and the Boys, I'll Be Sure, and New Jack Swing Progenitor's Guy, which featured soon-to-be super producer Teddy
10,000 Maniacs' Standout Performance
01:20:32
Speaker
Riley.
01:20:32
Speaker
For the 93 Uptown Unplugged episode, which was recorded the day after Rod Stewart and the day before Neil Young's do-over, Harrell showcased five of his label's strongest acts, including rappers Heavy D and Father MC, singer-actor Christopher Williams, and R and&B stars Mary J. Blige and Jodeci, whose swing mob collective also provided the instrumental backing for all the Uptown acts that night. In my opinion, when it comes to these best of unplugged retrospective lists, this episode and album is truly one of the most slept on. There is such vocal and instrumental talent oozing from every single corner of the stage throughout these performances. Plus, I think the label-centric experiment delivered an incredibly cool unplugged that could have been easily replicated with other labels that have a really unique singular personality.
01:21:17
Speaker
Like, can you imagine how cool and unplugged would have been from a label like So So Def, or LaFace, or 4AD, or Merge, or Epitaph? Ah, you get the picture. Anyways, back to Uptown Unplugged. Jodeci's smooth as silk cover of Stevie Wonder's Lately became a smash hit for them, rocketing to number one on the Billboard R and&B chart, and number four on the pop chart.
01:21:46
Speaker
with the vivid
01:21:52
Speaker
The third radio impacting unplugged episode of the 93 season came courtesy of College Rock favorites 10,000 Maniacs who were returning for their second unplugged filming after their 1990 dual artist episode with Michael Penn. On their second time around, 10,000 Maniacs unquestionably delivered one of the most imaginative and inspired performances the program had ever witnessed.
01:22:13
Speaker
The way they transformed their already impressive catalog of songs with a string ensemble and a collection of backing musicians on Pump Organ, Banjo, Bassoon, and more was so impressive on its own that the awesome trio of covers they did with their surprise special guest, David Byrne of Talking Heads, didn't completely make the TV broadcast, was kept off the album entirely, and only appeared in full on the VHS release.
01:22:37
Speaker
Just in case you've never heard it, here's a little bit of 10,000 Maniacs and Burn, covering Iris Dement's phenomenally great Let the Mystery Be during their unplug taping.
01:22:57
Speaker
The band also recorded an intoxicating cover of Patti Smith's Because of the Night, which became a triple format hit, landing in the top 10 on both alternative and AC radio, and going all the way to number 11 on the top 40 pop chart. Overall, their unplugged album ended up going triple platinum, and it's still the biggest hit of their career, which I'm sure is a genuinely bittersweet consolation for the band, as it was announced just a month or so before the album came out that, well, sad news always sounds better coming from Kurt Loder, so I'll let him tell it.
01:23:26
Speaker
In music news, singer Natalie Merchant of 10,000 Maniacs College Rock's most collegiate band is leaving that group after 12 years. MTV News spoke to Merchant about the split on Thursday at a recording studio in Laidback Woodstock, New York, where she's mixing the band's album version of their recent MTV Unplugged performance.
01:23:43
Speaker
As a personal side note, it baffled me for years that this album had never been released on vinyl, and I would daily light my Natalie Merchant prayer candle in hopes of it one day coming to be. Well, friends, it was just recently announced during pre-production of my podcast, causing this specific paragraph to be hastily but happily rewritten, that not only is the 10,000 Maniacs Unplugged album finally getting pressed to vinyl, but they are also including the three bonus tracks with David Byrne on it as well. When I tell you that I audibly gasped when I got the press release in my inbox,
01:24:13
Speaker
Seriously beyond stoked to get this one on my turntable come September. Okay, where were we? Back to the 93 season.
Creative Experiments in 1993
01:24:19
Speaker
Alongside the label-centric experiment of Uptown Unplugged, the 93 season also boasted a couple other unconventional episodes that exhibited just how far Unplugged was willing to push the creative envelope and test the waters a bit. One experiment turned out to be a bit of an interesting head scratcher, and the other turned out to be, to me, hands down, one of the coolest things MTV has ever done. The slightly mystifying oddity was with comedian Dennis Leary, which I should contextualize, wasn't completely out of the realm of MTV-adjacentness.
01:24:49
Speaker
While Leary was mostly known as a stand-up comic and actor, he had been appearing on MTV for quite a few years at this point, going all the way back to playing a handful of comedic characters in the amazing late 80s MTV quiz show, Remote Control. In the early 90s, he started filming some popular MTV interstitials with his chain-smoking, culture-roasting, mile-a-minute comedic rantings. You know, the whole, I think you hear me knocking and I think I'm coming in thing. And by 93, he had also been a part of a big TV commercial campaign for Nike with Dion Sanders and Bo Jackson. And he had a popular TV special, album, and book around his no cure for cancer stand up material. Leary's experimental unplugged set featured a full backing band and was heavy with song parodies about the Kennedys, Elvis, REM, and other topics. But one of the most interesting details about his episode is that, for his special surprise guest, he brought out House of Pain frontman Everlast to sing and play acoustic guitar on a song years before his acoustic blues meets hip-hop double platinum solo album Whitey Ford Sings the Blues, which wouldn't come out until, like, 98. On the flip side, the third creative experiment of the season
01:25:53
Speaker
And genuinely one of my favorite parts of the entire Unplugged canon was Unplugged's first foray into spoken word poetry. And fair warning, I will bring these episodes up constantly. The beats are back. Step into MTV's coffee house for a spoken word special edition of Unplugged. The rebirth of poetry. Don't lick bicks cause fire sticks to flames. Plug into native tongues. MTV's spoken word Unplugged. Wednesday night at 10.
01:26:24
Speaker
Inspired by the traditions of coffee house poetry readings, open mic nights, poetry slam competitions, and the electrifying early 90s spoken word poetry movement coming out of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe in Manhattan, Unplugged proved to be an early believer in helping to promote, popularize, and televise the growing spoken word poetry scene of the early 90s.
01:26:43
Speaker
I mean, this episode aired in 1993, which was still a few years away from PBS doing that incredible United States of Poetry miniseries, and almost a full decade before HBO's popular Deaf Poetry Jam series debuted and ran for five seasons in the early to mid 2000s.
01:27:00
Speaker
There's this really incredible book on the history of slam poetry in New York City called Words in Your Face, and the author Christine O'Keefe-Aptowitz points to 94 as the year when poetry slams really became a part of the American pop cultural consciousness and quote, stopped being a fad and really became a movement. She specifically credits this spoken word unplugged episode from 93 as being one of the early elements that quote, caused a perfect storm of pop cultural resonance for the art form.
01:27:27
Speaker
Pop culture anthropological artifact aside, on its own merit, this was truly just an insanely cool and unique episode. I'll be doing quite a few standalone episodes on the spoken word unplugs, plural that is, because they ended up doing three of them total, but more on that in the next episode.
01:27:43
Speaker
So here's just a super quick overview of the first one. They filmed a dozen poets, although only eight performances were broadcast, and most of them were improvisationally backed by a band called Huge Voodoo. Going into the night, the most recognizable name in the bunch was probably Black Flag frontman and DC punk legend Henry Rollins, who delivered his playfully tongue-in-cheek ode to MTV Unplugged. Alongside Rollins, New Eureka Poets Club co-director Bob Holman brought a decades-long lived-in legitimacy to his reading, and Reggie Gaines was truly mesmerizing with his topical social commentary piece, Please Don't Take My Air Jordans. Which, side story for later, I recorded this episode off TV and somehow convinced my 7th grade teacher to let me play Gaines' performance during a cafeteria assembly because at the time we were having quite a few conferences about fights over stolen shoes and starter jackets. For me, though, the breakout takeaway of that episode, at least in my small little middle school brain, was the audaciously magnetic and mysterious magiesta.
01:28:53
Speaker
At that point in my life, you could not tell me there was anyone smarter or cooler than her. I mean, who else could have gotten a 13-year-old me to ask my school librarian if we had a copy of the executioner song? Unsurprisingly, my middle school library did not have it, but thankfully my county library did.
01:29:08
Speaker
I immediately became obsessed with Estep's work and got so thrilled whenever I would see her pop up in things like Fighting Words, which was MTV's 30-second poetry interstitials they would play between videos throughout the summer and fall of 93. I was also supremely stoked when she actually got to release her own debut album, No More Mr. Nice Girl, the next year.
01:29:27
Speaker
Naturally, I wasn't the only one transfixed into her creative orbit. As an early 94, MTV announced it would be doing a 20-stop, free-your-mind, spoken-word tour co-headlined by S. Step and Gaines, with special appearances by Speech of Arrested Development, Evan Dando of The Lemonheads, and others. You can't say MTV never gave us young bucks anything of substance, as their interest and promotion of spoken-word poetry was surprisingly cerebral and wildly entertaining.
01:29:52
Speaker
Alrighty, a couple more quick, yet important notes about Unplugged's 1993 before we get into its game-changing season closer with Nirvana. 1. Real Quick Logo Watch Update The 93 season featured the debut of the most recognizable, classic Unplugged logo. That full, Dobro-style guitar body with the circle resonator and the F-holes. This was the fourth iteration of the logo.
01:30:15
Speaker
The show debuted with a chill, nondescript rectangle featuring the word unplugged. The second logo was kind of a quasi-abstract guitar blending the body, pickguard, and strings, with the UN n being stylized much larger than the plugged. The third logo was that half-guitar half-piano one I already mentioned, and this fourth one ended up being the real winner. It stuck around longer than the previous single-season versions, and perfectly ornamented the show and album releases during not one, not two, not three, but four,
01:30:44
Speaker
of Unplug's true heyday years. 2. While most retrospective discussions about Unplug's legacy understandably focus on the multi-platinum albums and chart-topping radio hits, I think one of the true secrets to Unplug's juggernaut success in the 90s was actually the consistency provided by the lesser praise shows that ran between the more celebrated ones.
01:31:04
Speaker
To me, those shows were the unsung MVPs that really helped cement Unplugged as more than just a passing fad in the moment and more than just a totally 90s time capsule now. To me, the consistency and reliability of recurring episodes, whether or not they generated top-selling albums or impacted radio, is one of the biggest things that has been missing from every single post-90s Unplugged
Global Influence & Reunions
01:31:26
Speaker
reboot. Unplugged was never meant to be a one-off special style format.
01:31:29
Speaker
It was, and could be again in my opinion, a consistently recurring show that builds a rhythm and generates momentum with a trusting audience. During the 93 season, those lesser remembered but still incredibly good MTV episodes came courtesy of acts like Soul Asylum, Duran Duran, and Midnight Oil, as well as a couple shows that were primarily recorded for MTV's international markets. namely with Swedish pop stars Roxette, which was filmed in Sweden for broadcast on MTV Europe, and with Australian rockers Boom Crash Opera, which was filmed in Melbourne for MTV Australia. Now, none of those episodes I just mentioned got album releases at the time of their original broadcast, which in some ways seems like the biggest factor in who does and doesn't get included in modern day writings that mention Unplugged.
01:32:14
Speaker
In fact, Soul Asylum is the only one of those who eventually put theirs out in full, and that was just last year on Record Store Day to celebrate the episode's 30th anniversary. By the way, do yourself a favor and revisit that one. Or check it out for the first time, whichever. Because Soul Asylum is a really great alternative band, and hearing them backed by a string ensemble, or covering Victoria Williams, or duetting with 60s pop icon Lulu on To Serve With Love is all just really, really special.
01:32:42
Speaker
Plus, their unplugged taping is reported to be where Soul Asylum frontman Dave Perner was first introduced to Wynonna Ryder right before they started dating. So it's possibly the most quintessentially Gen X meat cute ever. 3. The 93 season featured the first of what would become a bit of a recurring trend in future episodes of Unplugged, the reunion show. Which I think speaks a lot not only to the nature of the cool factor that Unplugged espoused,
01:33:06
Speaker
but also to the level of respect and gravitas the show was able to foster in a relatively quick period of time. The first time the Unplugged stage was used for a notable reunion was during Rod Stewart's episode when he brought out Ronnie Wood, whom he had not played with in almost 20 years, to play acoustic guitar. At the time, Wood had been in the Rolling Stones since the mid-1970s, but his musical partnership with Stewart could be traced back to the late 60s, when they were in a couple notable rock bands together. First, the Jeff Beck group, and then the Faces.
01:33:36
Speaker
More than just a guest spot for a song or two, Wood ended up sitting in on a dozen songs, more than half of Stewart's entire set, and even appears prominently in the picture used for the album's cover art. The Stewart-Wood reunion would end up being the first of a trio of high-profile unplugged reunions that would play out over the next couple seasons. 4.
01:33:55
Speaker
1993 is also when we really started seeing Unplugged getting some interesting pop culture pop-up moments outside of the show itself. Like when the second Wayne's World movie was coming out, MTV made an hour-long Wayne's World 2 MTV special, and one of the segments featured Mike Myers and Dana Carvey doing a full-on Unplugged skit. And not just a low-key Wayne and Garth play acoustic guitars in the basement type of thing. They did a whole two stools, two mics, small stage surrounded by audience members
Nirvana's Iconic Session
01:34:25
Speaker
scene. They even had a guy playing tambourine behind them that was dressed to look like Ray Cooper, the immediately recognizable tambourine percussionist from Clapton's Unplugged. For their song, of course they just parodied Layla by Wayne's Whirling all the lyrics. And not just for a quick jokey chorus, they worked up a whole three minute song parody. Here's a little snippet of that, if for no one else, then the glued-to-NTV 13-year-old version of myself is still rattling around inside somewhere.
01:35:02
Speaker
Okay, I can't move on from 1993 without talking about not only the most dynamic and magical episode of the season, but of the whole Unplugged Project overall. Nirvana. take away their power and
01:35:27
Speaker
Man, what to say and where to begin with this enchantingly creative apex of an episode. If you wanted to explain everything magical about Unplugged using only a single entry, you could easily do it with Nirvana's episode. This entire podcast could be solely devoted to story threads about Nirvana's Unplugged, and I'd probably never run out of episode ideas. Over the last 30 years, countless written pieces and entire documentaries have tried to encapsulate just what transpired when the most explosive band of the 90s swapped out their amp frying guitars, distorted bass, and God of Thunder drums for acoustic instruments, doweled drumsticks, a cello, and an accordion.
01:36:04
Speaker
But no one, myself included, has been able to accurately reinterpret the full scope of Musical Majesty unearthed by the band during their mid-November 93 unplugged filming. If you've ever been experiencing a transcendentally beautiful real-world scene, pulled out your phone to try and snap a picture of it, and then stopped yourself due to the futile inability to condense the enhancement down to some sort of bounded facsimile, that is the exact same manner of ineffectuality in trying to translate Nirvana's Unplugged into any other medium.
01:36:34
Speaker
especially as a quick hit entry in a 30 plus years overview episode. Honestly, your time would be better served just listening to it than hearing me talk about it. But alas, I can't just play the whole thing front to back on this podcast. So let me just strap on these wax wings and set course for the sun. I think there are three distinct phases of Nirvana's Unplugged. There was the first era of its recording and broadcast filmed on November 18th and aired on December 16th. the second era of what it became after Kurt Cobain's death in early April 94, and then the third era of the response to the Unplugged in New York album that was released in November of 94. At this point in the episode, I'll just quickly talk about that first era, everything surrounding the original broadcast as the highly anticipated season finale of 1993.
01:37:19
Speaker
Going into the taping, Nirvana had just released their third album, In Utero, in September and had just started their first US tour in a couple years that October. In Utero's chart-topping lead single, Heart-Shaped Box, was getting major radio airplay and its music video was in heavy rotation on MTV. In Utero first went platinum, on its way to five times platinum, in the window between their mid-November unplugged taping and its mid-December broadcast.
01:37:45
Speaker
And just a quick side note, its broadcast date of December 16th was important, at least in my personal experience, because it was the Thursday night right before school was out for two weeks for Christmas break. So I only had one short day to talk to my middle school buddies about it before entering into a two-week period of isolated repeat airings of my homespun recorded off the TV VHS copy. I got to ingest and synthesize over and over again one of my favorite bands in an unorthodox setting and really take in all its magical touches in my own little bubble without anyone else's commentary shading it in any way. MTV also aired Nirvana's very electric Pier 48 show that New Year's Eve under the Live and Loud banner, which also featured sets from Cypress Hill and the Breeders, so my 93 Christmas break was almost entirely soundtracked by Nirvana thanks to those two homemade VHS tapes.
01:38:36
Speaker
Also, my retroactive 30 years too late apologies to family, friends, church folks, and any unsuspecting holiday shoppers at South Lake Mall who had to hear my obnoxious silent night to the tune of Come As You Are shtick throughout the 93 Christmas season. Okay, I'll end up doing multiple episodes on this one, so just a couple quick things to note about the enrapturing sounds, setlist, and stage.
01:38:59
Speaker
the sound Nirvana's core trio, guitarist Kurt Cobain, bassist k Chris Novoselic, and drummer Dave Grohl all adhered to their unplugged instrumental duties, but each one tweaked it a bit to suit their own predilections. Cobain played an acoustic guitar, but he still ran it through an amplifier, which was cleverly hidden on stage to appear as a vocal monitor, and also used a couple of his effects pedals, heard most prominently on Come As You Are and The Man Who Sold The World.
01:39:35
Speaker
Novoselic took splendidly to his acoustic bass for the majority of the show, but also brought out an accordion and an acoustic guitar for a couple tracks. Grohl, one of the most beastly drummers in the annals of rock music, masterfully measured his playing style, both in physicality and equipment, by trading out his normal drumsticks for the quieter, bundled dowel style sticks. Grohl also played the bass when Novoselic switched to accordion. The band augmented their sound for their Unplugged set even further with the addition of second guitarist Pat Smear and cellist Lori Goldstein. At the time, Smear was most well known for co-founding the late 70s influential LA punk band The Germs and had just recently been hired by Nirvana to join them for their In utero tour. In fact, he had only been with the band for less than two months at the time of their Unplugged taping. as his first appearance with them was on that amazing Saturday Night Live episode hosted by Charles Barkley in late September. For her part, Goldstein was also hired for the In utero tour and appeared on the band's live and loud New Year's Eve broadcast as well. the setrs I'm sure MTV execs and the label heads at DGC would have preferred to hear Nirvana try to reinvent their big hits or even promote In utero's lead single Heart-Shaped Box, but thankfully Kurt and the band had entirely different plans.
01:40:47
Speaker
As far as quote-unquote hits go, Come As You Are was the only song of their Unplugged setlist that had been previously released as a proper radio single with accompanying MTV music video. They instead crafted an inspired and unpredictable What in the World Will They Play Next setlist that bounced between some of the more atmospheric album cuts from Nevermind and In utero, a surprising set opener from their lesser known debut Bleach,
01:41:12
Speaker
a trio of ingenious covers from David Bowie, Leadbelly, and Scottish alt rockers The Vaseline's, and an additional trio of early 80s meat puppets covers featuring their special guests, Chris and Kirk Kirkwood of The Meat Puppets. The mystifying alchemy of this particular collection of songs might have twisted up a lesser band, but the raw emotional livewire coursing through each individual performance resulted in the most spectacularly magical unplugged episode of the show's entire run.
01:41:40
Speaker
Of course, future events would soon add many additional layers to Nirvana's Unplugged episode, but we'll get into those when I discuss the 94 season in the next episode. For the moment, I really want to underscore just how truly special and remarkable Nirvana's Unplugged session was on its own merit at the exact moment of its recording and original broadcast.
01:42:00
Speaker
the state Nirvana's Unplugged broadcast in mid-December 1993 was also one of the first times we saw another visual elevation in the show's stage design. They were still filming multiple bands in single sessions. For example, Duran Duran and Stone Temple Pilots were filmed in the same session as Nirvana. So while some similarities could still be seen in and some of the background set dressings, the end of the 93 season really saw the show starting to individualize the aesthetics of the onstage setup to enact individual preferences. In prior seasons, I think the background elements that reappeared across multiple episodes, the multicolored draperies, the painted camouflage netting, the quasi-tie-dye parachute material,
01:42:40
Speaker
I think those things really help solidify the cohesive nature of Unplugged, establishing itself as a recurring, aesthetically identifiable television show. I mean, if you want a fun game, just try to see how many times you can count that huge gold mirror somewhere in the background of almost every episode of the first two seasons. It's everywhere. But back to Nirvana's stage design.
01:43:02
Speaker
As striking as their music and visuals were on their own, I mean, like many of you, I can still envision the exact fuzzy texture of Kurt's ratty green cardigan. The vibe of the whole performance was powerfully informed by Cobain's hand-picked tableau of black candles and stargazer lilies. Along with elevating the aesthetic nature of the show, after all, let's not forget that MTV's entire founding ethos was the inextricable marriage of music and visuals.
01:43:27
Speaker
Customizing these additional visual components during the next few years of Unplugged really proved that the show wasn't verging into cruise control territory by resting on their laurels of platinum albums and radio hits. Sure, you could still hear a vast amount of Unplugged content on radio, CD, cassette, or vinyl anytime you wanted, but the Unplugged crew was intent on making sure that you'd still get so much more by continuing to tune into the televised broadcast.
01:43:52
Speaker
Even pointing out all these important, intentional, bandcrafted elements, it's always been mind-blowing to me that Kurt was so unsure of how their unplugged would land, both going into and coming out of the episode's filming session. And Mark Yarm's incredible Everybody Loves Our Town book on the history of grunge, there are a couple really cool stories about that night from Amy Finnerty, who worked in MTV's programming department and was very influential in first getting the channel to play the Smells Like Teen Spirit video. In the book, she talks about how to calm himself down before the taping, Kurt asked to meet with some of the teenagers from the Nirvana fan club who were in the audience, and how after the show he was kind of bummed about his performance and what he perceived to be an unenthusiastic audience reception.
01:44:36
Speaker
Naturally, she was able to properly contextualize the cultural weight and historical significance of what he and his band had just unleashed. If you enjoy reading first-person accounts of Nirvana's Unplugged taping a few years back for the 25th anniversary of the Unplugged in New York album,
01:44:51
Speaker
I got to interview former Nirvana manager Danny Goldberg for the Grammys. He had some really incredible stories, some of which I even got to publish, so go check that out on the Grammys
Unplugged's Ongoing Influence
01:45:00
Speaker
website. Okay, much more to come on Nirvana's Unplugged, both in these explainer episodes and also throughout the run of the podcast.
01:45:10
Speaker
Alrighty, I think right there is a great spot to end the first part of my introductory trio of explainer episodes. Part 1 took us from the show's earliest days in 1989, all the way through its hard-earned momentum-building early 90s pop-cultural ubiquity, and right up to the transcendentally magical apex of the 93 season closer with Nirvana. In two weeks, give or take, depending on when you're listening to this of course, Unplugged 101 Part 2 will pick up in 1994 and run through 1999. On it, I'll be discussing what exactly MTV Unplugged did with their multi-tentacled creative platform throughout the second half of the decade, as well as how they handled the pre-Y2K dismount of the show's Imperial 90s run right before the turn of the century-slash-millennial.
01:45:54
Speaker
One final piece of business before closing things out. 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 of ways you can get in touch. 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.
01:46:16
Speaker
that'll maybe get played on the show by dialing 234-REVISIT. That's 234-738-4748. Okay, there we go. Thank you so much for tuning into the inaugural episode of Unplugged Revisited. Unplugged 101 Part 2 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. Until then, my friends, be kind to yourself and look out for each other.
01:46:44
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 Ollam, and you can find more of their incredible work