Nirvana light the candles and play a funeral

MTV Unplugged was a hits-with-acoustic-guitars format, and Nirvana refused to treat it that way. Cobain had the set dressed like a wake, with lilies, black candles and a crystal chandelier, and filled the running order with covers: three Meat Puppets songs with the Kirkwood brothers on stage, David Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World, the Vaselines, and only two of the band's singles, Come As You Are and All Apologies. The network was nervous. The band played the whole thing straight through in one pass, without the retakes a taping normally allows.

The last song was Where Did You Sleep Last Night, a traditional murder ballad Cobain knew from Lead Belly. He sang it almost to breaking point, and on the final verse stopped, drew breath with his eyes open, and finished the line as a scream. The producers asked for an encore; he said he could not top that, and did not.

The show aired in December 1993. Cobain died in April 1994. The recording was released as MTV Unplugged in New York that November, went to number one in the United States, and won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album. It is the record that turned the loudest band of the decade into something quieter and more lasting.