Anniversaries

This month has marked the anniversary for two different milestone moments. Michael Jackson's Thriller and Nirvana's MTV Unplugged Live From New York. The latter finally gets its DVD release while the former is fondly remembered as having changed music. My memories of both fall along the latter. Jackson's Thriller just kept building in momentum even while getting off to a slow start because of the first single, "The Girl Is Mine." But once "Billie Jean" charted it was all over but the 20+million who bought it. Because almost every song was a single it changed the way record labels milked albums. No more 3 singles and done, here you could get 6 singles off of one album to go Top 10.

Kurt Cobain died 4 months after taping his Unplugged. But even by the time the album was releasesd their folllowup to Nevermind was in the stores, In Utero. It didn't have the same cultural effect that Nevermind did, but it was a great album. But for most of us, their Unplugged was the one and only time we got to see what a musical future with Kurt Cobain would've been like. I say he would've shown more of the melodic side he played on Unplugged. But there is no doubt that re-watching this performance that Cobain, like Jackson, were talents like we have never seen.