Dumb

Dumb by Nirvana

All this talk about Neutral Milk Hotel had me thinking about the most important albums in my life. See, for as much as I love "In an Aeroplane over the Sea" it's not all that important in my life.

Enter Nirvana's MTV Unplugged in New York which might be the only worthwhile unplugged album to own (though Jay-Z's gets consideration). In a way it's probably the most iconic album of the 90s - not because everyone owned it (though most do) but because in the mid 90s this show was replayed on MTV at least five times a week. You couldn't get away from it.

And this wasn't a bad thing. Like a "Few Good Men", whenever I stumbled upon the show while flipping channels, I'd watch until a commercial and then probably move on. Maybe I'd come back... but I just remember watching this show about a hundred and nine times between 1993 and 1997. If they ever showed it again, I'd watch it all over again.

So why is this show so addicting? Over all the band is fine. I mean they don't blow you away. Cobain does nail this entire show, he is completely and totally memorizing the entire performance (and that green sweater is the Micheal Jackson "Thriller" jacket of the 90s). Maybe that was because most of the time I watched the show, Cobain had already killed himself. And it's rare and weird that you can watch someone who has died yet be so charismatic, so real, and alive on TV.

Unlike watching actors in movies after the actor has died in real life, watching Cobain was a completely different experience. Maybe we listened a little harder to get a clue from these songs. Maybe we listened and watched for any expression or word that presented the pain that he lived in. I'm not sure... but this performance is utterly memorizing. Cobain allowed himself to be vulnerable for the cameras.

Then again, now that I think about it, that's just me and everyone else who's ever seen the show reading into something that isn't there. He wasn't being vulnerable or allowing himself to be so - he was just up there playing music. He never looked at the camera, or so it seemed, he just played his songs. He looked peaceful up there. And that's probably what was so memorizing about this show. Kurt Cobain looked completely at peace yet also utterly in pain.

BTW, Kurt Cobain would have turned 40 last week.

Anyway, this song sounds surprisingly like the original on In Utero for what it's worth...