MTV Unplugged in New York - Nirvana

Nirvana's MTV Unplugged was issued after Kurt Cobain's death. It is no exaggeration to say that this performance increased exponentially the celebrity of both the band and the chain, at least outside the English-speaking World. 1994 was the year when a number of countries lifted restrictions on cable TV, of which MTV was the ultimate symbol.


MTV Unplugged in New York is aslo, according to some critics, an indication of what kind of music Kurt Cobain would do in a hypothetical post-Nirvana era. There is some truth to that; after all, we know what Dave Grohl and the other guy have done since.


But this is mainly and simply a good album.

Binaural - Pearl Jam

You know a rock band is consolidated when its fans are split in the following two groups:

a) The first one are the ones who say: "everything band X has done since album Y sucks."
b) The second group says: "the band is experimenting with new sounds and techniques, but their new stuff is good."

You can call groups a) and b) "nostalgic" and "believer", respectively. Both groups, however, are composed of adults who have not been able to grow old with dignity: neither group can deal with the fact that people, including rock stars, change: that's a fact of life, and either criticizing somebody for changing, or staying with him regardless of that person's transformations is equally immature.

Pearl Jam became a consolidated band with Binaural. Its fan base split between people who said that the band had decayed since Ten, Vitalogy and Vs., and those who said that the band had become more mature from an artistic perspective, etc...

The band obviously didn't care. Since Binaural, they have released three studio albums, several live albums, and a couple of collections. They have also toured around the World extensively and have supported several liberal causes.

Yield - Pearl Jam

Yield is a great album, not only because the music is really good, but also because it is the quintessential example of how music used to be done in the late 1990s. Internet was on its infancy, so the idea of issuing one single song and sell millions of copies on your website or Itunes was unthinkable. Music companies had a great leverage on artists, which was probably a bad deal for the bands as far as profit-sharing is concerned, but guaranteed some quality in terms of production: companies used to invest millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours in studio recording and in creating an art concept around the album, because they knew that profits would come from record sales. Few bands considered going to markets like Mexico or Brazil on a regular basis, partly because these countries lacked the infrastructure to hold decent concerts, but mainly because the so-called emerging markets lacked a sizable middle class, so going tho these countries was not profitable.

The "traditional" way to do music back then was to spend months in a fancy studio recording between 10 and 13 tracks, issue a video of track number 7 (or 3), have your company distribute your album around the World, and tour the United States, Europe, and sometimes Japan. An album was considered average if three tracks were distinguishable from the rest, and was considered a success if each song brought something different and new to the public. Compare that to today: an average guy can record his song in his studio, mix it on his Ipad, upload it on his website (sometimes for sale), and tour in your state. A musician is considered successful if he can charge any money on his music.

For Yield, Pearl Jam spent around one year in studio. The art of the album is decent (all the pages of the booklet have a Yield sign hidden, kind of like Wheres Wally), and the video of "Do the Evolution" was co-directed by Kevin Altieri and Todd McFarlane, a hero in the world of comic books.

The way popular music is created has become more democratic, but we have definitely lost in terms of quality assurance and we might be exposed to an over-supply of music: music companies used to filter bands for us; now, we have to do that ourselves.

Its just evolution, babes!