{ Lick That Riff! }

Well hello there and welcome to another weekly riff! I know its been quite a few weeks but the World Cup was on, so you can’t begrudge me that can ya? This weeks riff comes from one of my favourite acoustic performances ever. The version that I have decided to do is from 1993 and an MTV Unplugged performance in New York, which was actually featured in my MTV Unplugged post a few months back. The original version of this song was released way back in the early 70′s by the legendary David Bowie and then covered again in the MTV performance by Nirvana. The guitarist? The late great Kurt Cobain. This is often considered as one of the best tracks from Cobain’s amazing unplugged performance, one in which he performed lots of covers instead of some much loved Nirvana songs. So what is this weeks classic riff? The terrific The Man Who Sold The World.

Nirvana are an American rock/grunge band that formed in 1987 with several drummers before finally settling with Dave Grohl. They released three studio albums; Bleach, Nevermind and In Utero. Bleach was released in 1989 and received little recognition until the bands second album was released in 1991, with the popularity more to do with the hugely successful single, Smells Like Teen Spirit. By their 1993 album was released they were a massive band and Cobain was increasingly feeling the pressure of this. Sadly in 1994 he tragically took his own life. A couple of months before this though, MTV recorded an acoustic performance by Nirvana for their series, MTV Unplugged, and this was where the world saw the spectacular performance of the Bowie hit.

Here’s how to play this riff:

And here’s how it should sound:

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I hope you have enjoyed this weeks riff. I’ve really enjoyed writing it as it’s been a while since I last wrote a post. R.I.P Cobain

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