If someone without any knowledge of Nirvana being the biggest band in the world had seen Kurt Cobain on the set of MTV’s Unplugged on November 18, 1993, it would have been reasonable for them to assume that the session wasn’t going anywhere. The grunge band’s frontman was nervous, tense, and somewhat disheveled the day that Nirvana recorded their toned-down set for MTV’s live session series. Despite having a best-selling record that was dominating the airwaves, Cobain wasn’t even sure if the people in the room would clap.
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They did, of course, but it’s not like the environment was conducive to emotions like joy and elation. In fact, Cobain had specifically asked producer Alex Coletti to decorate the stage with Stargazer lilies, black candles, and a chandelier. “You mean like a funeral?” Coletti asked Cobain. The Nirvana frontman said yes. At the time, it seemed like an appropriate choice given that most of Cobain’s songs mentioned death. After Cobain’s suicide the following year, the funeral-esque setup seemed like a macabre foreshadowing of the tragedy that was to come.
Cobain’s behavior that day was another element of Nirvana’s Unplugged session that took on new meaning after his death. “I’m scared,” he told MTV’s VP of music and talent, Amy Finnerty, before the taping. “Can you make sure that all the people who love me are sitting in the front?”
Nirvana’s ‘Unplugged’ Performance Became One of Their Most Iconic Career Moments
Tragedies often compound upon themselves, and Kurt Cobain’s suicide in April 1994 was no exception. Because the official live album didn’t come out until November of that year, almost one full year after they taped it in New York City, Cobain never got to see how successful that album would become. Despite his fears that he would mess up, that no one would clap, that he would ruin the set, and whatever other anxious worries plagued his mind that day, Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York was a massive success. The record debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and was the band’s most successful first week to date.
Cobain’s death certainly contributed to the album’s critical acclaim. But we’d argue that success would have happened regardless. The performance was too good not to be successful. With Cobain’s songwriting front and center, Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged set was able to show off a different side of the band. It showed off a different side of Cobain, too, especially as he moved through cover songs like David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World” and his particularly haunting rendition of the traditional folk tune, “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”.
No one was more aware of the 1993 performance’s extraordinary qualities than those in the studio that day for the MTV taping. “People just saw their version of God playing three feet in front of them,” Amy Finnerty told Cobain after the show. The somber silence in between Cobain’s songs that day wasn’t indifferent boredom. It was speechless reverence. And those feelings of melancholic admiration only grew after Cobain took his life five months later.
Photo by Frank Micelotta
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