True Fans Still Applaud Nirvana's Courage With MTV Unplugged in New York

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True Fans Still Applaud Nirvana's Courage With MTV Unplugged in New York
by Nick Law - December 5, 2008

Unlike many people my age, I don’t seem to remember where I was when Kurt Cobain was pronounced dead on April 8, 1994. The death of the Nirvana front man has become somewhat of a landmark event for my generation. Unlike our parents with the Kennedy assassination, however, Cobain’s death didn’t exactly shake the world. Just perhaps the grunge movement.

Cobain was an American musician who brought Seattle grunge music into the national spotlight with his band Nirvana. Along with fellow band members Krist Novoselic (bass) and Dave Grohl (drums), the band would go onto write some of the best selling music of the early 90s, including one of the top all-time greatest rock songs of all time, “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

Due to the overwhelming success of the band’s second album Nevermind, Nirvana started to tour the world, playing to sold out stadiums in European countries where their music had been well received by an MTV generation desperate for something different. On January 11, 1992, the album reached number one on the Billboard album charts, replacing Michael Jackson’s album Dangerous.

In 1993, Nirvana performed for MTV Unplugged in New York. Citing their own reasons, the band decided not to play any of their more recognizable songs, and opted to play only one of their hits, “Come As You Are.” The result would be one of the band’s greatest achievements. Not only were they playing acoustic music to a mainstream audience, but they were performing songs that only the true die-hard fans knew.

Nirvana Unplugged in New York would go onto be the band’s first album released after the death of Cobain and has continued to be an enormous commercial success due to that fact. The nation was still in a state of mourning and the album’s mellow tone was exactly what fans needed. People who saw Cobain as somewhat of a punk were now hearing a much different, gentler side of the rock star.

Few musicians have been able to successfully put out an acoustic album and the fact that Nirvana was able to pull it off with such ease is a testament to the band’s greatness. Many fans of Nirvana’s early work are undoubtedly proud of the fact that the group chose to sing their less popular songs to the mainstream MTV audiences. After all, an acoustic version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” may not have gone over so well.

It’s been over 14 years now since Kurt Cobain committed suicide and the band is still enjoying success. Drummer Dave Grohl has gone on to be one of the founding members of the Foo Fighters, a band that has had enormous financial success over the years. Novoselic has gone onto several other projects including Sweet 75 and Eyes Adrift. Still, true fans of Nirvana have to wonder just how far the band would have gone had it not been for the tragic event in 1994. Would the band have sold out like so many acts before and after their time? Unplugged in New York leads you to believe otherwise.

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