Ah, grunge rock! The distorted guitars, the somber and hardened voices, the sorrowful lyrics that exude a sort of apathetic, "my life sucks" attitude...The Simpsons (Is there anything they can't do?) ingeniously satirizes grunge in this YouTube clip of Homer's own grunge rock band, title "Sadgasm".
Back in high school, I had a friend who was into the grunge rock movement (even though he was really about 8 years too late). He got me into Nirvana, which was sort of the gateway to one of my all-time personal favorite bands, Pearl Jam. But I've since been a moderately casual fan of Kurt Cobain's posse.
MTV aired Unplugged in New York in December 1993, only five months prior to Kurt Cobain's supposedly heroin-induced suicide. The album was released posthumously in November '94.
After minute one of "About A Girl", you know what the rest of the album is gonna be about. Sure, you get Kurt Cobain's scratchy and very identifiable wailing. But, as the title so subtly suggests, the guitars are far more subdued -- an interesting departure from what launched Nirvana to fame.
The set list is fantastic. They wisely chose to stray from recording many of their hits. "We knew we didn't want to do an acoustic version of 'Teen Spirit'. ... That would've been horrendously stupid," said drummer Dave Grohl. Good call. Selections include the perennial classics "Come As You Are" and "All Apologies", a cover of David Bowie's 1970 single "The Man Who Sold the World", and my favorite new discovery, the sadly subdued "Something In The Way."
Given my taste in music, Unplugged in New York is one of those albums which I'll pull out once a year. Like I said earlier, it's cool to hear Nirvana without the edginess you're used to hearing, but it's because of that lack of edge that it can't quite hold my full attention for the duration of the album. But it will definitely find its way into the rotation once every several moons.
Probably not the most in-depth musical analysis ever, but hey, it's almost Friday and mie brane hurtz.
Grade: B-
Note: The DVD of the show, from what I hear, is pretty dag-gum excellent. Here's one of their songs, "Dumb":
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