Five stunning MTV Unplugged albums that sold over one million 

Alicia Keys - Unplugged - 1.35 million

Here’s another album testing the unplugged boundaries. Alicia Keys recorded her Unplugged album in July 2005 in front of a large audience at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. She too had backing from her 16-strong band with an electric bass and organs, plus a large group of backing singers. Quite a way from the small crowd at an intimate venue as was the case for the much earlier MTV Unplugged sessions. 

That tends to make this closer to a live album for Keys generally than a uniquely different style and sound. Though she isn’t particularly full of chatter and personality on stage to add that authentic live feeling. All the same, it’s a good album from the soul star. 

The album has a couple of singles released from it, “Unbreakable” and “Every Little Bit”. The former reached number 34 on the Billboard 100. The latter single didn't chart. The album itself was pretty successful. Those 1.35m sales make it the 13th biggest-selling MTV Unplugged album. On release, it went straight to number one on Billboard, which hadn't been seen for an MTV Unplugged record since the days of Nirvana over ten years before.

Reviews generally were kind, she does put on a decent show after all. And those record sales can't be wrong. Some critics expected something different from the album and Keys herself. Perhaps it needed to be less grand and plugged and get closer to the smaller stripped-back album style. But then what do the critics really know, it sold plenty!

Continued on the next slide...