Four MTV Unplugged albums that failed to meet expectations

Korn - MTV Unplugged: Korn

By late 2006 Korn as a band were looking for something new and perhaps different to revitalise their fans and probably themselves too. Their 2005 album, See You On The Other Side, had made some style changes, a bit funkier, a bit rap, but still metal at the core. So what next?

Perhaps MTV Unplugged seemed obvious given the success other artists had there. Even if the show’s heyday was back in the 1990s it was still putting out great music. But was it really thought through enough for Korn?

Certainly, we’d seen some surprising bands from metal and grunge there. The problem is that without the noise, the guitars amplified to the max, the high voltage energy - what have you left of Korn? In front of a small crowd of around 50 people to record the TV show and album, Korn was about to find out. 

The answer probably lies in the album sales and chart progress. A promising debut to number nine in the Billboard 200 with just over 50,000 sales when released in March 2007 looked decent. A slump of around 50 percent in week two sales wasn't so encouraging. The slide continued with the album dropping out of the top 200 after just seven weeks.

The sound just didn't work. Vocals from Jonathan Davis which work fine on all powered-up songs sounded weak, thin, and whiny. The songs themselves didn't adapt too well to the format. Perhaps there wasn't enough work on the arrangements.

I know they are meant to be different, but the adjustments made didn't seem to be enough to make them sound good. And the Korn distortion levels are needed to get that right. Not even an appearance by the fabulous Robert Smith of The Cure on a song can save this - it's a miss for me.

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