The Random Album Review with Larry and Brian · Larry Wetzel

The Random Album Review with Larry and Brian Season 2 Episode 13: MTV Unplugged In New York by Nirvana

·27 min·5 clips

Larry opens by greeting listeners and laying out the show's simple album-swap setup. Each week he and Brian pick an album for the other to hear in its entirety, then come back and talk it through. This week's pick is a live album: Nirvana's MTV Unplugged in New York. He jokes that the title is very descriptive and tells you everything you need to know. Larry explains what MTV Unplugged was for anyone who missed it, a late-80s and early-90s TV format for stripped-back performances, before noting that it later turned up less often. He then points out that Nirvana's session hits differently in hindsight. Unlike many artists who went on the show, Nirvana filmed the entire 14-song performance in one take. Larry contrasts that with other acts that sometimes had to retake songs for broadcast. He walks Brian through the mix of material on the album. There is one song from Bleach, four from Nevermind, and three from In Utero. The set also includes six covers. Three of those covers come from the Meat Puppets. Larry calls the band name outrageous, and Brian runs with the joke. He says the three Meat Puppets songs were played back to back during the taping, even if the album sequence is listed differently. The episode also mentions that Kurt Cobain invited people he actually liked and had toured with instead of chasing bigger guest names. Two Meat Puppets brothers came on stage and played with him while he sang their songs. The discussion ends in the show's usual loose way, with bed jokes, a "bed gang" bit, college jokes, and a playful sign-off.

As heard by us

A relaxed, fact-rich look at Nirvana's famous unplugged set.

This episode takes a plainspoken look at Nirvana's MTV Unplugged in New York. Larry treats it as a live record first, then works through the setup, the one-take 14-song performance, the span across Bleach, Nevermind, and In Utero, and the Meat Puppets covers that give the set…

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Why you'd press play

You want a loose Nirvana revisit that still gets into MTV Unplugged in New York, the one-take performance, and the setlist.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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