MTV Unplugged

MTV Unplugged is a television series showcasing musical artists usually playing acoustic instruments. The show has received the George Foster Peabody Award and 3 Primetime Emmy nominations among many accolades.

Unplugged

The term Unplugged has come to refer to music that would usually be played on amplified instruments (such as an electric guitar or synthesizer) but is rendered instead on instruments that are not electronically amplified, for example acoustic guitar or traditional piano, although a microphone is still used.

MTV launched MTV Unplugged in 1989. The show featured musicians performing unplugged versions of their electric repertoire. Many of these performances were subsequently released as albums, often featuring the title Unplugged.

Inspiration for MTV Unplugged

The underlying concept behind the Unplugged series has been attributed to the popularity among musicians of a variety of informal musical performances on stage, film, television and record in earlier decades. The casual "in-the-round" sequence in Elvis Presley's 1968 Comeback Special, and The Beatles' informal studio jams documented in the 1970 film Let It Be were both precursors of the "Unplugged" concept, though they were neither conceived nor promoted as such at the time they occurred.

Unplugged (Alice in Chains album)

MTV Unplugged is a live album and DVD by the American rock band Alice in Chains. It was recorded at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Majestic Theatre as part of the MTV Unplugged series of concerts and contains live, acoustic versions of the band's songs and has been certified platinum by the RIAA.

Overview

Alice in Chains resurfaced on April 10, 1996 to perform their first concert in two and a half years for MTV Unplugged, a program featuring all-acoustic set lists. The show first aired on MTV on May 28, 1996. A live album of the performance was released in July 1996, which debuted at number three on the Billboard 200, and was accompanied by a home video release. The album has received platinum certification by the RIAA and the home video release has received gold certification by the RIAA. A full length DVD of the concert was also later released in 1999. The songs "Angry Chair", "Frogs", and "The Killer Is Me" were cut from the original MTV broadcast but are included on both the CD and home video releases. The album was re-released as a CD/DVD package on September 18, 2007.

Unplugged (Eric Clapton album)

Unplugged is a live album by Eric Clapton released in 1992. It was recorded for the MTV Unplugged series and includes both the hit song "Tears in Heaven" and a heavily reworked acoustic version of "Layla". The album won three Grammy Awards in 1993 and sold 26 million copies worldwide.

Background

Clapton performed the show in front of a small audience on 16 January 1992 at Bray Film Studios in Windsor, England. In addition to the final album tracks, the performance included early versions of "My Father's Eyes" and "Circus Left Town" along with "Worried Life Blues" and a version of "Rollin' and Tumblin'". Clapton played Martin 000-42 acoustic guitars for much of the performance, and in 2004, one of the guitars sold for 791,500 USD (£ 434.400) in auction. Commenting on the popularity of the album in his 2007 autobiography, Clapton wishes the reader to understand the great emotional toll he experienced around that time, and suggests that they visit the grave of his son Conor in Ripley to do so.

AMV video format

AMV is a proprietary video file format, produced for MP4 players, as well as S1 MP3 players with video playback. There are now two different MTV formats: the older one for the Actions chip, and a newer one for ALi’s M5661 chip. This format for ALi one was ALIAVI.

Format

The container is a modified version of AVI. The video format is a variant of Motion JPEG, with fixed rather than variable quantisation tables. The audio format is a variant of IMA ADPCM, where the first 8 bytes of each frame are origin (16 bits), index (16 bits) and number of encoded 16-bit samples (32 bits); all known AMV files run sound at 22050 samples/second.

Low decoder overhead is paramount as the S1 MP3 players have very low-end processors (a Z80 variant). Video compression ratio is low – around 4 pixels/byte, compared with over 10 pixels/byte for MPEG-2 – though as the files are of low resolution (96×96 up to 208×176) and frame rate (10, 12, or 16 frame/s), file sizes are small in bytes per second. With a resolution of 128×96 pixels and a framerate of 12 frame/s, a 30-minute video will be compressed into 80 MB.

MTV Plus

MTV Plus was a digital entertainment television channel available in Greece and an Italian version also aired until it was replaced with MTV Music on March 1, 2011.

MTV Plus in Greece

The channel was launched in Greece on October 18, 2009. The launch party was held in "Vogue" Club in Thessaloniki 17 December 2009, with a guest appearance from British dance band Freemasons, as well as Greek band as C Real, Stavento and other Greek acts. MTV+ is available in Thessaloniki, in northern Greece. Its programming is similar to its sister channel MTV Greece. MTV+ utilizes MTV's current global branding. The Greek version has closed on December 12, 2011, replaced by Nickelodeon Plus.

MTV+ in Italy

The channel launched Free-to-air in Italian DTT in May 2010 and on Sky Italia on October 18, 2010. The Italian version has closed on March 1, 2011, replaced by MTV Music.

Former logos

This version was used in Greece.

This version was used in Greece.

This version was used in Italy.

This version was used in Italy.

MTV Netherlands

MTV Netherlands is a television channel broadcasting to the Dutch speaking markets in the Netherlands and Flanders. It started in September 2000. Before the start of country-specific channels, the Netherlands viewed the pan-European MTV - MTV Europe.

The channel is broadcast from the MTV Networks Benelux headquarters in Amsterdam.

History

MTV began its services in Europe on August 1, 1987. Under the name of MTV Europe. At the end of the 90s MTV Europe began to regionalize its MTV feeds. In September 2000 the localized MTV Netherlands started.

On May 14, 2009 MTV launched its first HD channel in the Netherlands. MTVN HD started on the CAIW cable network and on CanalDigitaal satellite TV. In 2010 followed by the larger cable network UPC Netherlands (May 3). The N stood for Nickelodeon. The channel combined the programs of MTV and Nickelodeon.

On July 1, 2011 MTVN HD changed into MTV Live HD, dropping the programs of Nickelodeon because in many European countries a separate HD-simulcast of Nickelodeon began. In September of that same year Ziggo added MTV Live HD to its line-up.

Sting (musical phrase)

A sting is a short musical phrase, primarily used in broadcasting and films as a form of punctuation. For example, a sting might be used to introduce a regular section of a show, indicate the end of a scene, or indicate that a dramatic climax is imminent.

It can be played on a variety of instruments and performed by a group or orchestral ensemble.

Another form of sting, often mistakenly called a rimshot, is used only in comedy and played just on percussion instruments (such as drums or cymbals) as a payoff after the delivery of a punchline.

A musical sting can be used in drama, comedy, horror or any genre, and in radio and television advertising. It is a part of the music director's lexicon. It is often used to build tension.

See also

References