MTV Unplugged was a show that had to happen.” Then again, Robert Small is biased, as alongside fellow freelance MTV producer Jim Burns, Small created MTV Unplugged. But, give him his due, Small is right: in retrospect, the show’s formula of huge artists playing acoustically in as relaxed a manner as TV cameras allow was ludicrously simple. It now seems inevitable that MTV Unplugged would revive careers, launch artists and sell millions and millions of albums along the way. But the show nearly didn’t happen at all.
Nirvana’s Unplugged session suggested the band were on the cusp of a new sound and style
“A lot of people, high up the ladder, didn’t get it,” says Small, who freelanced in MTV’s promotions department when he and Burns pitched the idea in 1987. “The reaction tended to be, ‘Why would MTV do a folk music show?’ Unplugged wasn’t folk music, except my thought process was, ‘Well, folk music does bring people together’. Unplugged took a little persuading to get on air, that’s for sure.”