MTV Unplugged is back

Younger readers probably don't know this, but "Unplugged" was easily one of the greatest series in MTV history. While it's probably best known now as the source of that one Nirvana album with "Plateau" and what have you, there was a time when you couldn't turn on the radio without hearing, for example, Rod Stewart's semi-acoustic "Reason to Believe" or the 10,000 Maniacs version of "Because the Night."

Ah, the early '90s. "Mr. Jones" > most songs.

Having begun in the early '90s after a famous acoustic performance by Bon Jovi at the Video Music Awards, it probably reached its absolute peak of popularity around the time when Eric Clapton won the Grammy for his album with the acoustic version of "Layla" and the classic "Tears in Heaven," about his son that he accidentally dropped out of a window.

After that I think it sort of went into decline when the TIs realized that you could make an easy 10 million dollars or whatever by having their washed-up old artists go on there and then releasing the performance as an album. One of the last ones I remember was Babyface back in like '96 or '97.

Well anyway, I see that they're bringing the series back. If there's a problem - and of course there had to be one -  it's that the artist I'm seeing in all these commercials is the scandalously untalented Alicia Keys. Which leads me to believe that it might be a while until her next studio release is done and so Clive Davis (one of the top TIs of all time) made a few phone calls.

This could still be sweet if they get some good artists to do it.