April 8, 1994. Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s death reverberates a ripple of shock around the world. For a man so reserved, Cobain carried himself with what seemed an unshakable sense of himself; he was everything people wanted to see in a musician and, at the same time, nothing like anyone had ever seen. At the time of his death, he frontmanned the most famous band in the world, but fame seemed antithetical to who he was. Kurt Cobain was famous because he was an outcast, and the world revered him because it saw itself in his music.
That is not to say that Cobain did not put up a front. He cared — a lot — about the public’s perception of him. His persona was curated as much as any other rockstar; Nirvana had a brand image, after all. They were angsty, they pushed limits, they played loud. So when MTV Unplugged invited them to play a live show in late 1993, a little over 30 years ago and five months before Cobain’s death, the band needed to figure out what they would do. MTV Unplugged was a show that touted itself for its musical honesty. With no autotune, production effects or, importantly in the case for Nirvana, distortion, artists were forced to strip down their sounds into its most basic components — often, the setup would simply entail a microphone and an acoustic guitar. Stripping Nirvana of their electric instruments would strip them of their forceful punk rock sound. To perform without distortion would be like performing on stage naked.
In deciding the route they would go for this performance, Nirvana once again deviated from the MTV Unplugged tradition. “We’d seen the other Unpluggeds and didn’t like many of them, because most bands would treat them like rock shows — play their hits like it was Madison Square Garden, except with acoustic guitars,” said drummer Dave Grohl. So, instead, Nirvana chose to include only one hit song, “Come As You Are”, and six cover songs in the fourteen song setlist. They chose to invite the Meat Puppets, a relatively unknown indie band, to play on stage with them. They decided to run their acoustic guitars through amps, which was untraditional for Unplugged sessions. And when asked about the stage decor, Cobain requested stargazer lillies and black candles; in envisioning a fully acoustic Nirvana stage, Cobain envisioned a funeral. Though this motif may seem portentous considering what would happen just five months later, the funeral decor only added to the almost crudely raw nature of what would soon be touted as one of the most iconic live albums ever recorded.
Still, the question remained: Would Nirvana be able to pull off their sound acoustically? The answer turned out to be yes … and no. Nirvana’s Unplugged stage was not quite a reimagining of their sound as much as it was a reinvention of it. Immediately, upon watching the recording, it is obvious that there is something different about this performance. Cobain sits down, hunched over an acoustic guitar, dressed in jeans and a grandpa sweater. His face is ashen — a result of drug withdrawals and stress — and he exudes a palpable anxiety: “There was no joking, no smiles, no fun coming from him,” one audience member noted, “everyone was more than a little nervous about his performance.” And yet, as the band launches into “About a Girl” from their 1989 album Bleach, they seem to gain their footing. That is not to say that the 45-minute long performance was perfect; before “Pennyroyal Tea,” we can hear Cobain asking Dave Grohl, “Am I going to do this by myself?” before deciding on which key in which he was going to play the song. But the imperfections do not detract from the performance’s cohesiveness or quality. Immediately, it is Kurt Cobain’s voice, cutting through the mix of guitars, that grabs attention. It is gravely and powerful; there is a certain added vigor to his vocals when they are not being undercut by heavily distorted guitars. In “Pennyroyal Tea,” specifically, Cobain’s vocals lilt and lift with emotion; he decides to play this song alone, without help from Grohl, and the outcome is stunningly raw and expressive. Nirvana’s grunge charm remains, but their sound seems to have matured; if Nirvana’s past albums captured angst, this MTV Unplugged performance captured pain.
Upon leaving the performance venue, Cobain told MTV programmer Amy Finnerty that he was disappointed with the lack of audience response to the performance, to which she said, quite accurately, “Kurt, they think you’re Jesus Christ.” And 30 years later, the only honest response to the performance remains one of silent shock. Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York album still resounds as hauntingly emotional as it did in 1993 and even more so after the album was officially released on Nov. 1 of 1994. The performance, which has gained an untouchable reputation, especially after the news of Cobain’s untimely death, showed a different side of Nirvana; it was Kurt Cobain without the bluster of a rockstar. It was Kurt Cobain as the broken man that he was.
Yaelin Hough is a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached at [email protected].