WEEKEND VIDEO / A FAVORITE FROM 15 YEARS AGO
“The Man Who |
The last Nirvana collection recorded before the untimely death of Kurt Cobain, Unplugged caught many by surprise with its stripped down, neo-acoustic offerings with a bridled fury. When Cobain sings, “I swear I don’t have a gun, I don’t have a gun” with clenched teeth (instead of an open howl) and when the haunting strains of “About a Girl” — from their earliest LP — chills even with quieted guitars, you discover a new appreciation for the nuances of one of the greatest bands of recent times. Highlights include covers of three Meat Puppets tracks (featuring special guests Curt and Kris Kirkwood of that influential “college rock” band), the weepy cello on the Vaselines’ “Jesus Doesn’t Want Me for a Sunbeam,” and their cover of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World.”