Unplugged Version

We got asked to play on MTV Unplugged
You should've seen it...
We went right out there and refused to play acoustical versions of the electrical songs
That we refused to record in the first place

— Todd Snider, Talking Seattle Grunge Rock Blues

One of the most common and traditional ways for budding musicians to get a foot in the door with record companies is to make acoustic demo recordings of their songs. Some bands, such as AC/DC, will write their songs using acoustic instruments even if their recordings and concerts will be electric. This trope applies to neither of those.

The Unplugged Version is when a musician releases a new version of one of their songs played primarily with acoustic instruments. Acoustic guitars are used most often, but any instrument capable of being played without amplification is fair game. It is not uncommon for an artist to release an entire album of Unplugged Versions, either as a collection of older songs or a complete rerecording of a previous album with acoustic instrumentation.

When an ensemble does this, the Unplugged Version may include the entire band on acoustic instruments, or it may be A Day in the Limelight for someone in the band (often literally in a spotlight with an acoustic guitar).

Sometimes inverted, where an artist will release the Unplugged Version of a song first, and rerecord it later with everyone plugged in. This is most common with folk-rock acts that "go electric."

Only counts as Unplugged Version if the musician or song isn't already an acoustic act... unless they manage to make it more acoustic. For harder acts, this can be a Surprisingly Gentle Song, but soft-rockers are just as likely to ditch their electric guitars from time to time. If an artist does an acoustic version of somebody else's song, that's a Softer and Slower Cover, not this trope.

At least partially named for MTV Unplugged, a TV series in which well-known artists are invited to play an all-acoustic set. Artists on Unplugged will include a Unplugged Version of at least one of their songs (as shown in examples below), but typically also play acoustic Cover Versions of other songs they like.

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Examples from MTV Unplugged

• Eric Clapton did acoustic versions of both "Layla" and "Tears in Heaven" for his Unplugged set. This version of "Layla" is nearly as well known as the original and in a bit of Adaptation Displacement, he exclusively plays the acoustic version in concert now, due to the sheer difficulty of coordinating the electric version live.
• Dashboard Confessional's performance on MTV Unplugged (and indeed, their entire career) is an amusing inversion. Dashboard was originally Chris Carrabba's solo acoustic outing and many of the songs on their Unplugged album, while still acoustic, appeared for the first time played by a full band. Dashboard would later on release several electrified versions of previously acoustic songs.
• Paul McCartney's Unplugged (The Official Bootleg) album is among the first unplugged albums ever released and was the very first MTV Unplugged performance/album.
• Nirvana's performance on MTV Unplugged, MTV Unplugged in New York, contains several of these. Pretty much any pop culture TV show featuring Nirvana will feature the clip of Cobain singing "All in all is all we are" from the Unplugged Version of "All Apologies." While the instrumentation IS gentler, because Cobain was so insecure about playing unplugged, he was playing an electro-acoustic guitar plugged into an amp hidden in the stage. You can even hear mild distortion effects on a few of the songs (such as the Cover Version of David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World").
• Subverted on Bruce Springsteen's MTV Unplugged appearance. He first played an Unplugged Version of the unreleased song "Red Headed Woman." Then, he turned to his band, shrugged, and they all plugged in and played an electric set. The album MTV released for the show had the "Un" of "Unplugged" scratched out.
• The Corrs did a show for MTV Unplugged and released it as an album and DVD. Despite not being a huge stretch due to having a central set of instruments of a tin whistle, one guitar, a violin and drums, it let them perform more vocal harmonies and put a larger focus on the violin.
• Bryan Adams did an MTV Unplugged show in 1997, which was released as an album and DVD; he debuted three songs in this performance, with another being released on CD for the first time in it. His performance mainly emphasised the acoustic guitar, with heavy drum support.
• KISS famously did an edition of "Unplugged" that included both '90s members Eric Singer and Bruce Kulick and original members Ace Frehley and Peter Criss, reuniting the original foursome for the first time since 1980. It actually quite jarring to hear the self-proclaimed "Hottest Band in the World" doing a stripped-down unplugged set, but oddly enough, it's a surprisingly cool listen...except for the notorious country version of "God of Thunder."
• The Eagles did their 1995 album "Hell Freezes Over" with several fully-produced new songs alongside a semi-unplugged set of their classic hits, including their famous unplugged version of "Hotel California" that became a hit single in 1995. (Though other songs off the set were fully plugged-in, including an epic version of "Life in the Fast Lane".)
• Lauryn Hill's only other album after The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is an MTV Unplugged album of mostly brand new songs.
• Jay-Z also appeared on Unplugged which required what may have amounted to an orchestra to recreate his beats using acoustic instruments.
• Elton John and Melissa Etheridge took the format to their logical conclusions by performing their concerts entirely solo on piano and acoustic guitar, respectively.
• The MTV Unplugged special featuring Tony Bennett (with a piano trio accompanying him, and special appearances by Elvis Costello and k.d. lang) arguably revitalized his career, helping bring his music (and The Great American Songbook Bennett specialized in singing) to a rock audience. Not long after, he would perform similar concerts at Lollapalooza festivals.
• Shakira did an MTV unplugged special for the latin version of the network. Be wary that this was before her American crossover, when she still had red/black hair and was mostly know as a pop-rock artist.
• Neil Young had a performance and album in 1993 - the first half of the set was performed by Neil alone, while on the second half he was joined by a band. A lot of the featured songs were acoustic to begin with, but there were some notable rearrangements: "Like A Hurricane", originally one of his heavier songs and an example of Epic Rocking, was cut down to five minutes and played on pump organ, while one of the most surprising inclusions was "Transformer Man", originally from the synthesizer and vocoder-heavy New Sound Album Trans. It's also notable for once being the only official release of "Stringman", a song written for the previously-unreleased album Chrome Dreams.
• Roxette were the first artists to perform as non-native English speakers in their 1993 appearance. They covered "Heart Of Gold", setting a career milestone by singing something that made sense in the process.
• Florence + the Machine put together a latter-day appearance with a gospel choir reproducing Welch's studio-crafted harmonies. Though Josh Homme made a guest appearance, Florence's solo cover of "Try A Little Tenderness" is the signature moment of the show.
• Stevie Ray Vaughan performed "Rude Mood" "Pride & Joy" and "Testify" in his 1990 appearance.
• Joe Satriani appeared on the same episode as SRV, he is more known for electric guitar playing that is sometimes effects laden.

Unplugged Version albums

• Against Me! inverted this by releasing an acoustic EP in 2001, several songs from which would eventually be rerecorded with an electric band for their proper debut LP, Reinventing Axl Rose.
• Garth Brooks' Double Live version of "Unanswered Prayers" is just him, his guitar, and 50,000 of his closest friends.
• The Foo Fighters fifth album In Your Honor was a two-disc set, one being electric and the other being unplugged. The tour for that originated a live unplugged album, Skin and Bones. They also have several slower songs on their sixth album Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace.
• The Cure's Acoustic Hits was released as a bonus disc on some versions of their Greatest Hits album; it contained newly recorded acoustic versions of all eighteen songs on the North American version of Greatest Hits.
• Delaney And Bonnie recorded Motel Shot in 1971, a likely candidate for Trope Makers.
• Hella released Acoustics in 2006, an EP consisting of six acoustic versions of previous songs.
• In Jars of Clay's Distinct Double Album Furthermore: From the Studio, From the Stage, the "From the Studio" disc consisted of unplugged versions of prior tracks.
• Joy Electric's album Unelectric covers his prior Synth Pop songs on acoustic guitar (though they still have some synths, so it's not completely unplugged).
• Alanis Morissette released Jagged Little Pill Acoustic, which is the Unplugged Version of her entire debut album.
• Tesla: Five Man Acoustical Jam.
• Tomas Kalnoky of Streetlight Manifesto has released two - Streetlight Lullabies, which is an acoustic sampling of the band's first three studio albums, and The Hand that Thieves, an acoustic version of their album The Hands that Thieve.
• Los Campesinos!' 2010 EP All's Well That Ends consists of acoustic (and slightly re-arranged) versions of a handful of songs from their Romance is Boring album.
• Clint Black's D'lectrified was done entirely with acoustic instruments.
• The Veronicas have at least two Unplugged EP's in circulation
• Erasure have Union Street, a compilation of unplugged versions of songs from their back catalog; and World Beyond, an acoustic orchestral arrangement of World Be Gone.
• Woven Hand: Black of the Ink, an EP with acoustic versions of six songs from prior albums.
• Switched-Off Bach by Joe DeGeorge, a normal acoustic recording of Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, is a sort of parody of the more famous (and controversial) Switched-On Bach by Wendy Carlos, a recording of the Brandenburg Concertos played on a Moog synthesizer.
• J Mascis' Martin + Me, consisting of live solo acoustic performances of his Dinosaur Jr. material and a few Cover Versions. "Martin" is his acoustic guitar.
• The Pixies have an entire DVD of unplugged performances from the Newport Folk Festival.
• Ice Nine Kills have "Undead and Unplugged: Live from the Stanley Hotel", a live recording of 5 songs played at the Stanley Hotel.
• Jethro Tull released an acoustic live album in 1992 called A Little Light Music. Tull claimed (not without good reason) to have pre-dated the trend by many years by having an acoustic/acoustical section in their concerts years before the MTV show.
• Daniel Amos' When Everyone Wore Hats (released 2002) is an acoustic re-recording of their 1995 album Songs of the Heart (though it omits the cover song "I Can't Take My Eyes Off of You").
• Sublime's Sublime Acoustic is a hodge-podge of acoustic tracks, some recorded in the studio and others performed live.
  • Slightly Stoopid's Acoustic Roots: Live & Direct is arguably a spiritual successor, though it was entirely recorded during one radio session.
• Bon Jovi's album This Left Feels Right reworks many of the band's greatest hits with a focus on Jon playing acoustic guitar. The associated Concert Film from the support tour also features an unplugged version of "Last Man Standing" from their next album Have A Nice Day, which Jon claims he left off the acoustic album because it was too personal.
• Lights has the Acoustic EP, Siberia Acoustic, Midnight Machines, and Skin & Earth Acoustic.
• Diary of Dreams' Anatomy of Silence.
• Noah held an acoustic virtual concert mostly consisting of songs from the Keterkaitan Keterikatan album in December 2020 and released the concert recordings as a two-part album in the next year.
• VNV Nation's Resonance: Music For Orchestra Vol. 1.
• In 2021, Joan Jett released "Change-Up," an album featuring 25 acoustic versions of songs she's recorded over the years.
• Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin released No Quarter: Page and Plant Unledded featuring several Zeppelin songs played acoustically with a variety of acoustic instruments and musicians backing them up. Most of those songs originally featured electric instruments.
• Resurrection Band recorded Ampendectomy which featured acoustic version of several songs. The album was inspired by a concert in an old venue where their normal volume levels could have caused damage and endangered concert-goers.
• Melvins' Five Legged Dog is a two-disc studio album featuring acoustic versions of songs from throughout their career and some covers. Drummer Dale Crover still makes use of his full kit, and their heavier songs are generally played with the same amount of aggression, just without the benefit of electric guitar, making for an unusually rowdy "unplugged" album.

Unplugged songs

• Perhaps the Trope Codifier is Bon Jovi's performance of "Livin' on a Prayer/Wanted Dead or Alive" at the 1989 Video Music Awards. It is credited with inspiring MTV Unplugged. An Unplugged Album was released in 2003.
• Daughtry have released acoustic versions of a few of their songs.
  • The deluxe version of their 2006 Self-Titled Album contains acoustic versions of both "Home" and "What About Now".
  • "Battleships" on the 2013 deluxe version of Baptized was also given the acoustic treatment.
  • On October 1st, 2023, the band released a version of "Artificial" dubbed the "Bare Bones Edition" as it's a recording of a live performance from the acoustic "Bare Bones" tour.
• Elvis Presley did a prototype of the Unplugged session on his 1968 comeback special, which featured an informal jam session surrounded by a small studio audience in which Elvis and a few electric and acoustic guitar players, joined by a drummer who kept the beat on a guitar case, played a mix of Elvis' early hits and a few blues classics.
• Bandits Of The Acoustic Revolution is an all-acoustic ensemble founded by ex-members of Catch-22. Most of their material is original, but they did record an version of "Dear Sergio," originally a song from their old band. Two different bands, but the same songwriter.
• Dave Matthews Band did an acoustic version of Dave Matthews' solo song "Grave Digger."
• George Harrison:
  • George Harrison recorded a well-known acoustic version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." It was finally released on The Beatles Anthology.
  • He performed "Here Comes The Sun" acoustically with Pete Ham of Badfinger in The Concert for Bangladesh, then performed in again "unplugged" with Paul Simon in 1976 on Saturday Night Live.
• Daft Punk released an unplugged version of "One More Time," performed by Romanthony (the original singer, without vocoder this time).
• Starflyer 59's song "Mr. Martin" started off as an electric guitar-heavy demo on the Ghosts of the Future boxed set, with a softer version on piano and acoustic guitar recorded as a B-side. Then when it came time to re-record the demos for the album Dial M, the band decided they liked the B-side better, so the unplugged version became the official version. And then the next EP featured two more tracks from the album—"The Brightest of the Head" and "I Love You Like the Little Bird"—and a cover version of The Church's "Under the Milky Way", all performed in the same unplugged style.
• The Foo Fighters have a solo acoustic version of "Everlong" played by Dave, along with full band acoustic versions of "Floaty", "Everlong", "Next year", "ain't it the life", "Walking after you" (these five were released as b-sides to various singles), "Friend of a Friend", and "Marigold". The last two were both originally penned by Dave Grohl in 1990 and released on a cassette of his songs called the "Pocketwatch demos", and rereleased as full fledged Foo Fighters songs in 2005 on In Your Honor (with "Friend Of A Friend") and 2006 on their Skin and Bones live cd/dvd (Marigold). Out of all of their acoustic songs, "Everlong" is the best known, and is always played at their concerts, in recent years being played completely unplugged.
• Rush released a live acoustic version of their song "Resist" on the live album Rush in Rio. Geddy and Alex perform the song, while Neil takes a break after performing his drum solo.
• Stone Temple Pilots did an unplugged version of their hit Plush on Headbanger's Ball. This version is still played on radio to this day.
• Weezer have officially released a few acoustic versions as b-sides, namely versions of "No One Else", "Jamie", "Pink Triangle" and "The Good Life" (they've done acoustic versions of other songs which have been bootlegged too): These were all live recordings originally done for radio or TV, and typically feature Rivers Cuomo and Brian Bell playing acoustic guitars, and Matt Sharp singing backup but not playing any instruments - drummer Patrick Wilson would either be totally absent from sessions or would be there to sing backup and participate in between-song interviews, but not to play.
  • The band released an acoustic version of "Feels Like Summer" as a digital single - some fans preferred the acoustic version, as the original had a divisive EDM-influenced arrangement.
• Even Marilyn Manson have done this— Remix And Repent includes an acoustic version of "The Man That You Fear" subtitled "Acoustic Requiem", and they also did acoustic versions of "Heart-Shaped Glasses" and "Putting Holes In Happiness" as b-sides. Including an acoustic version of "Cake And Sodomy" In the Style of country on Smells Like Children may or may not count, since no one who is actually in the band performed it (Oasis' batshit insane bus driver Tony F. Wiggins, who was at the time friends with the band, did). Additionally, there are acoustic versions of "Coma White", "The Last Day On Earth" and "The Nobodies" and acoustic covers of "Working Class Hero" and "Suicide is Painless".
• Five Finger Death Punch got in on it too: Some versions of The Way of the Fist include an acoustic version of The Bleeding as an unlisted track.
• Kouji Wada performed an acoustic cover of "Hirari", the second themesong of Digimon Data Squad, for the Digimon Savers Flash Back album in 2008.
• Yellow Magic Orchestra's Rydeen 79/07
• DragonForce did an accoustic version of their song Seasons in place of that album's power ballad.
• The "10th Anniversary Edition" of Give Up by The Postal Service included an acoustic version of "Recycled Air" performed live on the radio. Though it's credited to the band, it's actually just vocalist Ben Gibbard singing and playing acoustic guitar.
• One of the Minutemen's last performances before D. Boon's untimely death in 1985 was an unplugged set for Los Angeles public access television, featuring their drummer playing bongos rather than a drum kit.
• Miley Cyrus has been known to do "unplugged" sections in her concerts, notably "These Four Walls" from her 2009 Wonder World Tour. A full, live-broadcasted MTV Unplugged special occured January 29,2014.
• Green Day featured an acoustic version of "One For the Razorbacks" from Kerplunk! on the enhanced CD version of their debut album.
• E-Type released acoustic versions of his massive dance hits Set The World On Fire and This Is The Way, called Set The World Unplugged and This Is The Way Too respectively. Both songs are pretty advanced funky jazz compositions.
• Paramore have released many acoustic versions of their songs on deluxe editions of albums: some examples include “Misery Business” on Riot! and “Brick by Boring Brick”, “Ignorance”, and “Turn It Off” on brand new eyes.
• Sia has an acoustic version of "I'm in Here" as the final track on We Are Born. It's labeled "Piano Vocal Version" because those are the only instruments.
• Mariachi El Bronx, a side project of hardcore punk band The Bronx, owe their existence to this trope. Fuel TV asked The Bronx to perform a live acoustic show. Since the band members hated the way unplugged rock songs usually turn out, they decided to challenge themselves and rearrange their songs as mariachi. The show was a success, and Mariachi El Bronx went on to put out several albums. (And the first studio song they released was a cover of "I Would Die 4 U" for a Prince tribute album.)
• "The Piano Song" by A Cursive Memory has the original, rock version and a softer version.
• Amorphis played a half-hour acoustic set at Wacken Open Air festival 2013, adding horns and jazz to their instrumentation. This can be seen here.
• Finnish Alternative Rock band Poets of the Fall does this frequently when performing live, but only a few have seen official release.
  • The band's first single, "Late Goodbye," contains multiple versions of Max Payne 2's Solemn Ending Theme, one of them fully acoustic.
  • The single for Break Up Song "The Ultimate Fling" includes "The Impromptu Alternate Version," an acoustic version that sands off the original's hard rock edges.
  • When performed live, Alan Wake Power Ballad "War" is often played with an acoustic guitar.
  • Temple of Thought Bonus Edition has unplugged live studio versions of love songs "Temple of Thought" and Love Nostalgia Song "Skin."
  • The digital single of "Daze" also includes an unplugged version of Carnival of Rust's "King of Fools" which lengthens the song considerably, turning it torchy and Surprisingly Gentle.
  • For their live performance at Radio Nova's Nova Stage, they performed acoustic versions of Jealous Gods songs "Daze" and "Love Will Come to You" as well as a Cover Version of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep".
• Lindsey Stirling recorded an orchestral version of "Transcendence" with the Landfill Harmonic.
• Avenged Sevenfold did a short acoustic concert in the Grammy Museum in 2018. While most of the songs they played ("Roman Sky", "So Far Away", the midle part of "Exist" and a cover of "As Tears Go By") were already partly acoustic ballads, they also performed an unplugged version of "Hail to the King", originally a straight heavy-metal song.
• Ferry Corsten has "Cry Unplugged" from his System F project, and an orchestral version of his Moonman single "Galaxia".
• The Cruxshadows' "Winter Born (Sacrificial Acoustic Version)".
• Collective Soul's "Shine Acoustic".
• Cascada produced "Candlelight" versions of "Everytime We Touch" and "What Hurts The Most". DJ Sammy, Yanou(co-founder of Cascada) and Do likewise did a candlelight version of their cover of Bryan Adams' "Heaven", in addition to Adams himself including it in his aforementioned MTV Unplugged set.
• German trance act Ayla has "Atlantis (Atmosphere)" and "Angelfalls (Particular Beach)".
• Lights' The Listening ends with a piano & vocal reprise of "Pretend".
• While the band didn't do this themselves, a fan covered the album Somewhere Along the Highway by Cult of Luna in its entirety on piano. it has to be heard to be believed.
• Rick Astley recorded a "Pianoforte" version of his memetic Signature Song "Never Gonna Give You Up" for his 2019 Greatest Hits Album The Best of Me, which also includes "Reimagined" acoustic versions of "Together Forever", "Whenever You Need Somebody", and others.
• Bronski Beat's synthpop hit "Smalltown Boy" has two of these. First, in 1994, The Band Minus the Face recorded an acoustic version with Steve Bronski on vocals. Then in 2014, original singer Jimmy Somerville did a solo piano & vocals version in honor of the song's 30th anniversary.
• Synthwave diva Parallels(Holly Dodson) acoustically re-recorded "Edge Of The Universe", her 2019 collaboration with Futurecop!, for her 2021 solo album Supersymmetry.
• During Papa Emeritus III's time as the singer of Ghost, they occasionally did acoustic performances of their cover of Roky Ericson's "If You Have Ghosts" and their songs "Jigolo Har Megiddo" and "Ghuleh/Zombie Queen". For the latter song, Papa would play the keyboard parts on a kazoo, lending a song about an undead ruler an odd air of silliness. He would also dramatically announce it as "the Kazoo of Destiny" when it came out.
• The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus's "Face Down: Symphonic Edition".
• Midge Ure and backing band Right The Stars performed an unplugged version of the Charity Motivation Song "Do They Know It's Christmas?" as an encore at World Café Live on January 10, 2013.
• Moby has done an acoustic version of "Natural Blues" with Gregory Porter and Amythyst Kiah providing live vocals.

Examples of Unplugged Version invoked in-work

• Newman and Baddiel in Pieces has a series of sketches in which they would pretend to be a techno or synthpop band doing an Unplugged concert. They'd come on, shout the line from the band's big hit, and then shuffle off again in embarrassment.
• MTV's The State would often lampoon other MTV shows, including Unplugged. One parody was an unplugged version of a song called "You'll Always Give Me A Boner."
• In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "The Mane Attraction", Coloratura says "This song may be familiar, but yet, it's totally different" before performing "The Magic Inside" as a piano, strings, and vocal number, suggesting a more mainstream pop version is part of her normal repertoire.

Rockumentaries

• Classic Albums: In this Rockumentary series about classic music albums artists will often demonstrate how a certain song was constructed by playing it acoustically or with some electronic accompaniment.

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