Nirvana
MTV Unplugged In New York

THE REVIEW

I decided to write this review even though the album has already been reviewed many times. The reason is that it's inevitable that reviews of Nirvana's unplugged should be filled with a pathetic and self-serving lyricism that doesn't convey anything interesting or truly relevant to the album itself. Most of the time, people talk about the candles, the incense, the Persian carpets, the flowers, and Cobain's shirt. Then they indulge in the most absurd pathos about how emotion, more than the song, played a decisive role in the album's success. A flood of tears over the unplugged in New York. Prophecies of death, pain, emotion. And then ramblings and pure display of knowledge about the covers performed during the evening. Who doesn't know the Meat Puppets? Leadbelly? Or Mr. Bowie? But we were on MTV, and Cobain says it, "About a Girl", many didn't know it. Imagine the Meat Puppets. And there's nothing lyrical about all this. Boasting knowledge is the most vile and prosaic thing imaginable. And pretending lyricism and emotion is a mean expedient; the result is mediocre, it is poor.

Moving on to the album, it goes without saying that we're dealing with a successful episode of acoustic live, complete with a suggestive and exciting atmosphere. Beautiful as we want, touching as you like. Lyrical, yes. But Cobain was visibly high, had dirty hair and two like Krist and Dave are anything but lyrical. They start playing Nirvana's songs on the acoustic guitar, just like each one of us has done, in front of the fireplace or in the garden. And they add the Meat Puppets, Leadbelly, Bowie. Great evening in New York, face to face with Nirvana. Cobain doesn't look at you, he shuns the camera, drinks tea. Discomfort, boredom, embarrassment. Anything but poetry and emotion.

The emotion of that live is tied only to our selfishness, to our over-excited imagination, to the unconscious impulse of wanting to create myths. All the rest is prose.