I thought it fitting to follow up my post on Hole’s Live Through This with one on Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York. This is another album that overachieved due to the tragic suicide of Kurt Cobain.

Recorded in November of 1993 and released a year later, MTV Unplugged in New York found a band famous for pioneering the loud grunge sound settling into an acoustic set that highlighted their skill as songwriters and performers. In a set heavy on deep cuts and covers — they don’t even play ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ — Nirvana makes a case for themselves as an excellent folk rock band.

I’ve never been a big fan of Nirvana’s heavy sound, so this album turns out to be a perfect way to enjoy the band. Cobain is in fine vocal form, strumming on a guitar he couldn’t help but run through an amp despite the show’s title.

Two months after this performance, Nirvana embarked on a European tour. In early March, the tour was cancelled after Cobain overdosed on drugs and alcohol in a hotel room in Rome. He subsequently started using heroin again, entered rehab, then escaped the facility and returned to his Seattle home. A week later, on April 8, he shot himself.

How heartbreaking to go from this powerful, soothing performance to that horrible end in just five months.