observed trend toward commercial online music
sharing. Napster, one of the most prolific file-sharing
services, attracted a great deal of media attention as
well as massive numbers of online users before a law-
suit by the Recording Industry Association of Amer-
ica (RIAA) led to its shutting down in 2001. The
RIAA continued to try to limit the explosion of pi-
rated music files from music-sharing services in the
early twenty-first century.
Further Reading
Ewing, Jack. “How MP3 Was Born.”BusinessWeek,
March 5, 2007, 17.
___. “An Idea Incubator Tries to Grow Cash.”
BusinessWeek, March 12, 2007, 61.
Julia M. Meyers
See also Apple Computer; Computers; Digital
audio; Jobs, Steve; Internet; Inventions; Microsoft;
Music; Science and technology; World Wide Web.
MTV Unplugged
Identification Television concert series
Date Began airing in 1989
MTV Unpluggedbecame the first television concert series
revolving around popular musicians performing in acous-
tic settings. The program spawned a series of best-selling
sound-track CDs and VHS/DVD releases, which, in some
cases, have left a seminal impact on the modern-day enter-
tainment industr y.
The roots of “unplugged” music, acoustic music per-
formed by musicians who typically play with electric
instruments, date back to Elvis Presley’s’68 Comeback
Specialand the Beatles’ 1970 documentaryLet It Be.
Though the trend occasionally crept into concert
performances during the early to mid-1980’s, it truly
hit a stride in 1989 when Jon Bon Jovi and Richie
Sambora (both of the band Bon Jovi) performed
stripped-down versions of their hard rock hits
“Livin’ on a Prayer” and “Wanted Dead or Alive” dur-
ing the MTV Video Music Awards.
Following the initial broadcast, the network was
flooded with positive feedback over what was still
considered an unconventional medium, inspiring
MTV producers to brand an entire program around
the concept. ThoughMTV Unpluggeddebuted in
fall, 1989, with an episode led by English rockers
Squeeze, the concept did not fully catch on until the
following year, becoming a mainstay of the subse-
quent decade and attracting a cavalcade of marquee
names.
One of the series’ most popular 1990 episodes
featured guitarists Stevie Ray Vaughan and Joe
Satriani, two of the most recognizable electric guitar
players who proved equally proficient in acoustic
contexts. Having those major names on the series
landed instant credibility to the program, which
soon attracted the likes of Don Henley, Elton John,
and Aerosmith. In addition to revisiting the song-
books of already-established stars, the program
also introduced new acts of the time, such as metal
men Damn Yankees (comprised of Ted Nugent
with members of Styx and Night Ranger).
The blockbuster first year also attracted Paul
McCartney for one of 1991’s most-viewed episodes,
which focused on solo material and several rarely
performed Beatles treasures. After inciting extreme
fan demand for copies of the recording, he and the
network eventually compiledUnplugged: The Official
Bootleg(1991), launching the first of several episode
sound tracks.The Glory Years The momentum from McCart-
ney’s appearance carried over into 1992, which be-
gan with an emotional performance from Eric
Clapton (who had just lost his young son in an acci-
dent). The famed rock guitarist performed “Tears in
Heaven,” a tribute to his son; several blues tunes;
and a reimagined “Layla” as a jangle-based ballad.
Once again, the television audience rapturously re-
ceived the performance, which led to an audio and
video sound-track release. That process was also du-
plicated by soulful pop star Mariah Carey the same
year, followed by Bruce Springsteen, though he was
the first artist to tinker with the show’s tried and true
formula. “The Boss” and his solo band of that time
period performed an intimate concert, but outside
of one acoustic selection, ran through the rest of the
set with amplified instruments, in turn rebranding
that sound track’s titleIn Concert/MTV Plugged,re-
leased in the United States in 1997.
Additional attention came in 1993, when entirely
acoustic albums were released by 10,000 Maniacs,
Neil Young, and Rod Stewart with Ron Wood. Yet
Nirvana’s appearance became one of the most criti-
cally acclaimed concerts to date, in part because of
the band’s inventive reworking of its alternative rock590 MTV Unplugged The Nineties in America