Which was the best Unplugged?

Best female unplugged : Annie Lennox

I only think I've ever heard the Nirvana and Neil Young ones, so I'm going to have to go with Nirvana.

But Nirvana probably owns the thread, as everything about the performance was just shocking.....not that metal-ish bands hadn't done acoustic stuff before, but I remember there being something sublime about the whole thing.

What I also liked about it (as I remember it, it was long ago) was they'd obviously put a lot of thought into that one job, rather than just showing up w/acoustic guitars and strumming through ver hits.

So WHAT ABOUT the voice of Geddy Lee eh

i still know him and he still does.

http://content.internetvideoarchive.com/content/photos/300/012637_17.jpg

Yo! Unplugged Rap: LL Cool J, MC Lyte, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest and Pop's Cool Love - Chelsea Studios, NYC, April 10, 1991

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_artists_featured_on_MTV_Unplugged

Would be a whole other thing to list the best "unplugged" sessions, not for MTV Unplugged but things like Graham Parker's Live! Alone in America, Neil Young's 1990 Jones Beach concert, and Sam Cooke's Night Beat.

And Nebraska, obv.

Complete List:

11/26/89  Squeeze with Syd Straw and Elliot Easton
01/28/90  The Smithereens and Graham Parker
02/04/90  10,000 Maniacs with Michael Penn
02/11/90  The Alarm with Nuclear Valdez
02/18/90  Joe Walsh and Dr. John
03/04/90  Stevie Ray Vaughan with Joe Satriani
03/11/90  Michelle Shocked with Indigo Girls
03/18/90  Sinead O'Connor with The Church
04/22/90  Don Henley
05/06/90  Great White with Damn Yankees
05/13/90  Crowded House with Tim Finn
06/05/90  Hall and Oates
08/05/90  Elton John
09/20/90  Aerosmith
09/30/90  Crosby, Stills & Nash
10/07/90  Ratt & Vixen
12/02/90  The Black Crowes & Tesla
12/09/90  The Allman Brothers Band
12/13/90  Poison
03/03/91  The Cure
03/24/91  Winger & Slaughter
04/03/91  Paul McCartney
04/10/91  Sting
04/24/91  R.E.M. (1)
05/01/91  Yo! Unplugged Rap
07/03/91  Elvis Costello
03/11/92  Eric Clapton
04/29/92  R&B Unplugged
05/13/92  Pearl Jam
05/20/92  Mariah Carey
06/03/92  Paul Simon
07/22/92  Queensrÿche
08/12/92  John Mellencamp
09/21/92  Annie Lennox
10/09/92  Eurythmics
11/11/92  Bruce Springsteen: Plugged
02/13/93  Roxette
03/03/93  Neil Young
03/13/93  Denis Leary
03/28/93  k.d. lang
03/31/93  Arrested Development
05/05/93  Rod Stewart
05/31/93  Uptown Unplugged
06/01/93  10,000 Maniacs
06/02/93  Soul Asylum
06/03/93  Midnight Oil
07/28/93  Spoken Word I
12/13/93  Duran Duran
12/14/93  Nirvana
02/02/94  Stone Temple Pilots
06/01/94  Tony Bennett
06/21/94  Spoken Word III
06/21/94  Spoken Word II
06/22/94  Inside the Spoken Word
07/12/94  Lenny Kravitz
09/29/94  Los Fabulosos Cadillacs
10/12/94  Page & Plant
11/07/94  Björk
12/14/94  Bob Dylan
03/21/95  Melissa Etheridge
04/16/95  Inside Unplugged
04/17/95  Hole
04/18/95  The Cranberries
04/19/95  Live
04/20/95  Sheryl Crow
05/04/95  Charly Garcia
05/15/95  Herbert Groenemeyer
06/17/95  Cafe Tacuba
08/12/95  Los Caifanes
09/14/95  Los Tres
10/31/95  Kiss
11/23/95  Chris Isaak
04/22/96  Hootie and the Blowfish
05/21/96  Illya Kuryaki & the Valderrama
05/28/96  Alice in Chains
06/04/96  Seal
06/25/96  Tori Amos
11/05/96  La Maldita Vecindad
06/12/97  Soda Stereo
06/15/97  Maxwell
07/01/97  The Wallflowers
07/29/97  Fiona Apple
08/10/97  Jewel
09/03/97  Blackstreet
10/29/97  Santa Sabina
11/10/97  Aterciopelados
11/18/97  Erykah Badu
11/21/97  Babyface & Friends
11/28/97  Bryan Adams
04/03/98  Björk - Live 'n' Loud
03/24/99  Mana
10/05/99  The Corrs
11/01/99  Alanis Morissette
12/08/00  Jay-Z
06/28/01  La Ley
07/03/01  Los Ratones Paranoicos
08/09/01  R.E.M. (2)
09/27/01  Staind
11/03/01  Shakira
11/20/01  Alejandro Sanz
11/28/01  Utada Hikaru
05/03/02  Lauryn Hill
06/16/02  Dashboard Confessional
08/31/02  Die Aerzte
09/20/03  Die fantstischen Vier
04/20/04  Luis Alberto Spinetta
09/23/05  Alicia Keys
11/10/05  Die toten Hosen
11/07/06  Ricky Martin
02/23/07  Korn
06/22/07  Bon Jovi
06/05/08  Julieta Venegas
09/17/08  Söhne Mannheims vs. Xavier Naidoo
05/21/09  Sportfreunde Stiller
07/22/09  Katy Perry

Looking at that list (though admittedly not seeing a lot of them) if we did a search and destroy, there would be a lot of destroying going on. Though I'd bet the Great White / Damn Yankees would occupy a special place in hell...

03/04/90 Stevie Ray Vaughan with Joe Satriani

hahahaha noooooooooooo

Out of what hasn't yet been mentioned I definitely enjoyed Fiona Apple's the best.

honestly i really feel like stevie ray vaughan with joe satriani would be a full hour of 2 dudes staring incredulously at acoustic guitars and going all samsonite ape on them out of frustration

Lots of badly arranged songs that otherwise would've been less annoying..

Duran Duran "Come Undone" was stretched out way too long and had a really annoying female vocalist singing over the outro.. I suppose STP's swing version of "Sex Type Thing" could've been worse..

Oh yeah the worst of these was definitely Korn.. Thanks for the reminder..

As for the best, I'm surprised no one's mentioned REM just yet, since once upon a time people were hardcore jerking off over that shit..

sorry but there is no way that any of these can be worse than unplugged katy perry in 2009

ok i can believe that

Was she joined by Amy Lee from Evanessence for a breathtaking cover of "Freak On A Leash"?

The Alarm with Nuclear Valdez

ok waht

What they should do is have a programme where they pick only one track from all of these, and play them out in order, without voxpops or the "I love the seventies" style "oh I remember when Vanessa Paradis was on the TV and..."

Because, for all that the "joe satriani" sounds like nonesense, it might have actually been, um, ok...

Just had a nasty flashback to the special school singalong bus ride that was Dashboard Confessional's appearance

wait a second, Die Aerzte and Die Toten Hosen????????

why did they go through a random "old German pop punk bands" phase

that's just... odd

it looks like in recent years there have been a lot of international artists who did Unplugged that were only aired on MTV in other countries (or latin artists on MTV Tres, etc.). or would those be odd picks even in Germany?

would like to try to do a poll or a series of polls of Unplugged, even if i'm afraid of some boring results like a landslide for Nirvana. maybe i'll do a poll of ones that were released as albums and a separate poll for ones that weren't?

Just had a nasty flashback to the special school singalong bus ride that was Dashboard Confessional's appearance

― OH RICHEY, WHY. (PaulTMA), Monday, March 21, 2011 10:14 AM (59 minutes ago) Bookmark

that was hysterical, i remember MTV hyping it up as "wow the KIDS really LOVE this guy, watch them SING ALONG TO THE LYRICS OH WOW"

it looks like in recent years there have been a lot of international artists who did Unplugged that were only aired on MTV in other countries (or latin artists on MTV Tres, etc.). or would those be odd picks even in Germany?

Neither of those would be particularly odd in Germany... in, say, 1995? Although I haven't really followed the music scene there for about 15 years so it's very possible that they've retained cultural cachet.

Of course noone mentioned Soda Stereo but the correct answer is Soda Stereo. The best Soda Stereo album and therefore the best “rock en español” album of all time.

Haven't heard the Soda Stereo one, but the Julieta Venegas one was amazing. Natalia Lafourcade was the arranger/bandleader and played a whole bunch of different instruments throughout, and Mala Rodríguez and Marisa Monte showed up, too.

You are both very close but I think the correct answer is Titãs. Marisa Monte is on that one too, as well as a visitor from Argentina, Fito Paez.

The Brazilian bands in particular got a new lease on life or at least a big boost from those performances.

Forgot that the Titãs Acústico MTV album also has Jimmy Cliff singing "The Harder They Come" with them. For those who don't know, Brazilians are pretty good at reggae.

Reminds me that I never listened to the relevant album by Os Paralamas do Sucesso.

Reminds me that I never listened to the relevant album by Os Paralamas do Sucesso.

That's twice I haven't listened to it now.

Another one I need to listen to properly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdPt7m928NI

The Soda Stereo album is of course great and notable for not being all that acoustic but more an electronic reinvention.

One more I need to get to:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu_hLHX44Qs

it looks like in recent years there have been a lot of international artists who did Unplugged that were only aired on MTV in other countries (or latin artists on MTV Tres, etc.).

ok fuckin A other countries were getting Gilberto Gil? like I know everybody gets very excited about the Nirvana one but Jesus

fuckin' hell I would've paid for it

11/26/89 Squeeze with Syd Straw and Elliot Easton
01/28/90 The Smithereens and Graham Parker
02/04/90 10,000 Maniacs with Michael Penn
02/11/90 The Alarm with Nuclear Valdez

^^^ crazy combinations

Believe there were at least three distinct and mostly separate MTVs, one for North America, one for Spanish-speaking Latin America and one just for Brazil.

The rest of Latin America didn’t interact musically directly much at all with Brazil, lapart from a kind of exchange program pipeline between Fito Paez and Os Paralamas do Sucesso.

also I just looked up the Great White one and the brief era of hair bands reaching for the mantle of serious rock band status will always be very funny to me

(Xp) This despite the big Rock in Rio breakout in 1985.

Maybe Rita Lee had some crossover success at some point with "Lanza perfume."

Or "Lança perfume" even

The Clapton one is pretty good actually, especially the old blues covers.

^^^ crazy combinations

jules shear was a really weird - in a good way - host! (and his vision for the show was obviously very different from what it became after mtv gave him the boot after a handful of episodes.)

Shouting out The Cure’s awesome unplugged with the kazoos used for the synth line on “The Walk” on the occasion of Perry Bamonte’s passing

Jules Shear has a promo-only CD called Unplug This where he plays through a bunch of his own songs solo. Really exceptional thing, especially given the not-great full production of the same songs on his albums.

yes! easily jules shear's best cd, imho. the one where he finally got out of his own way. the title was a nice little quiet f*** you to his former employer.

Oh ok I stand corrected… I had no idea there were Mtv Brasil Unplugged ones… I have homework.

gil has a top 5 goat voice for me personally