In around summer 2021, a chance encounter with the song “Get Born Again” led me to get reacquainted with the band Alice in Chains. As I binged on their albums, I kept coming back to their acoustic MTV Unplugged album. Sooner or later I maxed out on Alice in Chains, started getting into their contemporaries like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots and others. Music I grew up with but hadn’t really properly explored. These bands mostly all had their own MTV Unplugged albums, or at least an acoustic performance somewhere to be found on YouTube. So in November of last year I decided to make a mixtape of just acoustic music. I dug up new things I hadn’t heard, of course, like performances from The Cure, Korn and Fuel, among others. Some are covers, like Denis Pauna’s Type O Negative acoustic album, or reimaginings. For example, the first song of the second tape is a rendition of “In Bloom” by Nirvana, made by Youtuber Riot Earth to sound like it was played at the Unplugged concert when it really wasn’t. At one point during the concert Kurt Cobain asked if anyone in the audience had a request, and someone shouted “In Bloom!” To which he replied, “How are we supposed to play ‘In Bloom’ acoustic?” Well, in this alternate universe, he plays it. Unfortunately there isn’t a lot of acoustic goth music out there, although I did remember William Control’s acoustic album.
So the mixtape came together, and it was a really nice tape to listen to and I kept coming back to it. In fact it became a good remedy for sleepless nights. I have chronic insomnia, and putting some soft, calm music on that I can sing along to helps. I love singing “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters, “Nutshell” by Alice in Chains, among others. Ever since my official autism diagnosis I’ve tried to unmask myself more, and one of the ways I’ve done that is by singing shamelessly. I liked the mix so much that recently I made a sequel tape. Now I had the hardest time coming up with a good title for these mixes. I called the first one Suren’s Songs Unplugged, but the title struck me as too corny. So I changed it to Acoustic Anarchy. Which is corny too but whatever.
I made a YouTube playlist so I could listen to it on the go if I wanted. And I wrote this blog to show it off, mainly. I’m most likely going to make a third mixtape, but I want to give it a few months and see if I come across any songs I haven’t discovered yet.
Here’s the playlist:
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