The Essentials: MTV Unplugged by 10,000 Maniacs

It’s strange dropping the stylus on a decades-old, much-played album that’s been released on vinyl for the first time. There’s no tactile memory associated with it. I remember the first plays of many LPs, from placing the record onto the turntable to lying on the floor with the LP sleeve before me, and studying everything while the music played. Who wrote what? Who played what instruments? Lyrics were read as the singer sang them. But with CDs? Not so much. 

I don’t recall holding the jewel case for this live set from the Natalie Merchant-era 10,000 Maniacs and dropping the compact disc into our Sony five-disc player, at any rate, nor do I remember, a few years on, dropping the disc into the CD tray of the Acer computer we purchased from Best Buy in 1996, the computer I built in 1999 or the refurbished Dell tower I bought in the early 2000s. In a way, that sums up music from the ‘90s onward: It became unencumbered from haptic pleasure.

At any rate, to the album itself: On April 21, 1993, 10,000 Maniacs and a coterie of colleagues gathered at Sony Music Studios in New York City, where they filmed an hour-plus performance for MTV Unplugged that aired as a 30-minute episode on June 1. Those were days when the M in MTV stood for music, I should mention, and not the muck it now means—and Unplugged, which featured popular artists and bands sans electric instruments, was one of the channel’s crown jewels. Paul McCartney’s Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) in 1991 kickstarted a slew of albums culled from the show.

For fans of 10,000 Maniacs, their appearance fell in the midst of a heady time that saw the band—accompanied by the JB Horns—in the midst of a tour in support of their 1992 album, Our Time in Eden. We saw them in the fall of ’92 and twice more in the summer of ’93, all at the Mann Music Center. Each night was, to employ one of my overused words, wondrous. Rumors occasionally circulated on the Prodigy message boards that Natalie was planning to leave the group but that’s all they were—rumors. No one knew for sure until August of that year, two months before the MTV Unplugged album was released.

Back on point: The “unplugged” format wasn’t a drastic departure for the group. Although they began as a somewhat eccentric rock outfit in the early 1980s, they gradually embraced a sweet folk-rock sound that blended elements of what’s now called “jangle pop” to create a sumptuous sonic stew. Natalie’s lyrics were occasionally blasted as pretentious by critics, as was her sing-song delivery, but—and this is important to remember—she was a kid learning her craft. Her heart was in the right place.

The reissued MTV Unplugged isn’t the complete performance from Sony Music Studios, as an off-the-cuff rendition of “Puff the Magic Dragon” and several attempts at “How You’ve Grown” are absent. But added are three songs, all with David Byrne, absent from the original that have long been the domain of bootlegs: Iris DeMent’s “Let the Mystery Be,” Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s “Dallas,” and Dolly Parton’s “Jolene.” (“How You’ve Grown” also surfaced on bootlegs.) “Let the Mystery Be” did surface as a bonus track on a CD single, as many fans can attest, as well as on the 2004 Campfire Songs compilation—not that it matters, really.

The acoustic set serves as sterling evidence of the band’s melodic strengths and lyrical acumen, with all but one song from the original CD hailing from In My Tribe, Blind Man’s Zoo and Our Time in Eden. The lone exception was their infectious spin on Patti Smith’s “Because the Night.” (Yes, yes—it’s also a Bruce Springsteen song, too, but the hit was Smith’s.) Released as a single, it actually proved a bigger hit than the original version, reaching No. 11 on the charts.

Listening to the album the past few days has found me swirling and twirling into the past. As I noted the other day, the early and mid-1990s were a grand time in our household; there’s much good to be found both in these grooves and the memories associated with them. That said, the downside—and it’s not much of one—is the wall-of-sound the band builds with help from supporting players, plus a string section and—gasp!—bassoons. It’s not the stripped-down approach the “unplugged” moniker indicates, in other words.

Highlights abound, however. “Don’t Talk” is a moody tour de force; “Hey Jack Kerouac” is a steaming cafe flirt of a song sure to please English majors the world over; “Stockton Gala Days” sweeps through the soul; and the original closer, “Noah’s Dove,” flies high.

The bonus tracks, on the other hand, are stripped-down delights, though listening to “Dallas” always reminds me of Natalie accompanying Jimmie Dale Gilmore when he performed it on The Tonight Show that September. “Let the Mystery Be,” for its part, is magical fun, while “Jolene” does Dolly proud.

One last thought: I do wish an enterprising record executive would dig through Elektra’s vaults and officially release the band’s June 1993 shows at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, which were recorded for Westwood One Radio’s “In Concert” series. Perhaps pair them with the band’s hour-long set at the 1992 ActionAIDS benefit in Philly, which was broadcast on WXPN. (Select songs from that night surfaced as bonus tracks on a few CD singles.) Unplugged is fine and fun, and well worth many spins—but is no match for the band’s electric charms.

The track list: