

It’s beautiful in its simultaneous messiness and melodic sheen. They don’t enhance the quality of the original album, and yet, they humanize Cobain and the band because of their imperfection compared to the somewhat more polished concert performances. Yes and no-both because of the takes’ raggedness. Are the new rehearsal tracks enough to justify repurchasing the album? Recorded in late 1993, less than two years after their landmark album, Nevermind, reached #1 on the Billboard album charts, and achieving notoriety as leader Kurt Cobain’s epitaph after his suicide months after the concert’s recording, Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York is back for a 25th anniversary reissue.

In either sense, the album should be considered a classic. For those of us who got into Nirvana from outside of punk, MTV Unplugged in New York was a gateway to Kurt Cobain’s genius and madness.

In fact, for those who came from a punk angle, the album was far rawer than the average live acoustic album that was popular at the time.
#NIRVANA UNPLUGGED IN NEW YORK TRACK LIST SERIES#
Looking back on the phenomenon that was MTV’s Unplugged series in the 1990s, Nirvana’s Unplugged set was atypical for many reasons: not just for the quality of the band’s work, but for the exceptional rawness despite the sometimes-subdued musical setting.
