Great news, music fans: MTV has announced it is bringing back one of the channel’s most well-known and loved series, MTV Unplugged. The show wrapped up its regular episodes back in 1997 after an eight-year run, with only sporadic specials going to air in the time since. Now, MTV has said it will aim to restore the key elements of Unplugged while bringing other elements into a contemporary multimedia setting.
Over its lifetime, Unplugged was a staple of an era dominated by music videos. It featured performances by some of the biggest names from around the globe, though whether its return will make an impact in a world that has largely moved on from watching MTV remains to be seen. In honour of the show’s return, we’ve picked out five of the most influential episodes from its heyday.
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Paul McCartney (1991)
In 1991, Paul McCartney played one of Unplugged’s most iconic sets at Limehouse Studios in London. He was one of the first artists to feature on Unplugged, and unlike most performers up to that point – who played the show with acoustic instruments plugged into amplifiers – McCartney’s instruments were in fact 100 per cent unplugged.
Up until that point, the show had slowly been gathering momentum, but McCartney’s appearance propelled its upward spiral in a massive way, and according to beatlesbible.com, show producer Alex Coletti has claimed that if McCartney had not released his recording as an album, the whole Unplugged concept would never have gained the cult status that it did.
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Eric Clapton (1992)
Eric Clapton was another to rearrange and strip back several of his most popular songs for Unplugged, performing at the Brays Studio in London in 1992. The session included a heavily altered, acoustic version of Clapton’s inimitable 1971 hit ‘Layla’ – revitalising that song, along with many others, for a new audience who received Clapton’s work exceedingly well.
Clapton originally did not want the concert film or the recorded album released, but eventually gave in. Thank goodness he did – especially for his sake, as the live album went on to win three Grammys including Album Of The Year and sell 26 million copies worldwide after its 1993 release. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine goes as far as to say that this record was solely responsible in revitalising Clapton’s career.
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Nirvana (1994)
Nirvana’s performance on Unplugged and the resulting 1994 album MTV Unplugged In New York remains to this day one of the most famous in the show’s history. The album was also the first release from Nirvana following the death of frontman Kurt Cobain. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and would go on to become the group’s most successful posthumous release, going five times platinum in the United States. It also won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album in 1996.
Featuring a baby-faced Dave Grohl clearly trying to his best to lightly tap his drum kit, and other members putting away their natural instincts, the performance also featured a cello. It was a side to Nirvana that many hadn’t seen before, and would never seen again.
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KISS (1995)
KISS recorded their Unplugged set in 1995 at New York’s Sony Music Studios. The set was remarkable for a number of reasons, although admittedly it was one of the least stripped-back sets up to that point in the program’s history (other than the fact that the band members played acoustic guitars).
The performance on Unplugged was the first time that the band members had performed together as KISS since 1979, with the band shocking audience members by bringing out Peter Criss and Ace Frehley – and the critical reception of their performance was such that a year later, the band officially reunited. Additionally, it was the only time the original lineup of KISS all performed together without their trademark makeup.
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Alicia Keys (2005)
It’s fair to say that recording a live album for MTV Unplugged unlocked a hidden part of Alicia Keys’ ability as a live singer, in that she would go on to record two more live albums in the years that followed. Her 2005 recording at the Brooklyn Academy of Music included songs from her preceding two multi-platinum albums, and although it didn’t receive entirely positive reviews from critics, its reception with the public spoke for itself.
Keys’ Unplugged album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, the first Unplugged record to do so since Nirvana in 1994. She was also first female artist to debut at number one, with the album going on to sell over 2.5 million copies worldwide.
