I’m pressing pause on the Random Weekend in progress to peck out a few thoughts on the new Taylor Swift album, which I received in the mail Friday and have given a few listens.
Reputation is pretty much what I expected based on the mostly disappointing pre-release singles. The good news is the rest of the album is a step up in quality, even if the subject matter is disappointingly more of the same. Dis tracks, love songs and meditations on what it’s like to be as famous as Taylor Swift.
Today’s Random Weekend selection had twice the chance of showing up because I have it on two different albums. Originally released as the final track of U2’s 1993 album Zooropa, it was later selected for Johnny Cash’s compilation album The Legend of Johnny Cash.
It’s the Cash album version that popped up when I spun the old iTunes wheel, but the two are identical (save for a minute of silence tacked on to the end of the U2 track).
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve mostly featured MTV Unplugged performances that were milestones of one sort or another. Today I’m closing out the series with a performance that’s notable only because it’s a beautiful performance of one of my favorite songs.
10,000 Maniacs was a big enough deal in the early 90s to score two Unplugged appearances within a few years. The band appeared on the third-ever show (along with Michael Penn) in 1989 and returned for this performance in 1993, with special guest David Byrne.
While Eric Clapton’s appearance was the most successful MTV Unplugged set, Nirvana’s performance in late 1993 is the most iconic.
Recorded and aired just a few months before lead singer Kurt Cobain’s suicide, this haunting appearance took on even more meaning following the news of his death. Stripped of the grunge trappings, bearing his soul onstage, it’s hard not to see Cobain’s tragic future in his sad eyes.
Paul McCartney was the first artist to release an MTV Unplugged appearance as an official album. His 1991 set was heavy on old-school covers with a few Beatles and solo tracks in between.
“I liked the idea that there was a show that reduced music to its bare essentials,” he said, and he took that concept to heart. While previous performers used acoustic instruments plugged into amplifiers, McCartney opted to play his instruments truly unplugged.
Meet Me In Montauk 