Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

MTV Unplugged No. 2.0

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Released
  
May 7, 2002

Length
  
106:31

Release date
  
7 May 2002

Producers
  
Lauryn Hill, Alex Coletti

Recorded
  
July 21, 2001

Artist
  
Lauryn Hill

Label
  
Columbia Records

MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 httpsimagesnasslimagesamazoncomimagesI5

Venue
  
MTV Studios in New York

Genres
  
Hip hop music, Soul music, Rhythm and blues, Contemporary R&B, Neo soul

Hip hop music albums
  
Blunted on Reality, The Score, MTV Unplugged, MTV Party to Go Platinum, MTV Party to Go 1998

MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 is a live album by American recording artist Lauryn Hill. The performance comes from her 2002 MTV Unplugged special recorded on July 21, 2001 at MTV Studios in Times Square, New York City. Hill abandoned the hip hop sounds of her debut album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998) in favor of folk and soul songs she performed with an acoustic guitar. The songs were interspersed with spoken interludes about her personal and artistic struggles.

Contents

When MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 was released, it received mediocre reviews and did not sell well. Most critics found Hill's performances self-indulgent and repetitive, although some appreciated the album as a bold and sincere change in artistic direction. It has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, having shipped one million copies in the United States.

Music and lyrics

For MTV Unplugged No. 2.0, Hill departed from the hip hop sounds of her debut album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998) in favor of austerely performed acoustic soul and folk songs. She jokingly described herself as a "hip-hop folk singer", and according to Robert Hilburn, assumed the role of a folk singer accompanied only by her acoustic guitar. Rather than singing any of her previous hits, Hill debuted all new songs in a folk style and, in between songs, spoke at length about her personal and artistic struggles.

Release and reception

MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 was released to mediocre sales and reviews. It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 before quickly falling down the charts, while most critics questioned Hill's discipline as an artist on the album. In Entertainment Weekly, David Browne said it was "perhaps the most bizarre follow-up in the history of [popular music]", appreciating some of the music's "poetic flow" but finding it exhausting to hear Hill's "strummed sermons directed at unspecified enemies and soul crushers". Alexis Petridis panned the record as "messy" and "inconsequential", mostly because of what he felt were her clichéd self-help lyrics and self-indulgent monologues: "A scant handful of powerful moments, including a furious meditation on the police shooting of a young black man, 'I Find It Hard to Say (Rebel)', are outweighed by repetitious rambling." In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau called it one of the "worst albums ever released by an artist of substance", finding the songs overlong, verbose, and unmelodic. Christgau was also critical of Hill's singing voice, calling it typically poor, and "a solo guitar [she] can barely strum (the first finger-picked figure occurs on track 10, where it repeats dozens upon dozens of times, arghh)."

Some critics appreciated MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 as a radical and bold change in direction by Hill. In a positive review, AllMusic's William Ruhlmann conceded that Hill's spoken interludes sounded vain and foolish but still felt the album was "fascinating" as an "unfinished, unflinching presentation of ideas and of a person". Q was more enthusiastic, finding her songs beautifully sincere and performed austerely in a way that recalled the vibrant quality of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" (1980).

Track listing

Disc one
  1. "Intro" – 2:28
  2. "Mr. Intentional" – 6:58
  3. "Adam Lives in Theory" – 7:26
  4. "Interlude 1" – 1:56
  5. "Oh Jerusalem" – 8:54
  6. "Interlude 2" – 1:21
  7. "War in the Mind" (or "Freedom Time") – 4:59
  8. "Interlude 3" – 3:18
  9. "I Find It Hard to Say (Rebel)" – 6:50
  10. "Just Like Water" – 6:09
  11. "Interlude 4" – 1:40
  12. "Just Want You Around" – 4:36
  13. "I Gotta Find Peace of Mind" – 9:21
Disc two
  1. "Interlude 5" – 12:12
  2. "Mystery of Iniquity" – 5:10
  3. "Interlude 6" – 1:42
  4. "I Get Out" – 5:17
  5. "Interlude 7" – 0:20
  6. "I Remember" – 3:46
  7. "So Much Things to Say" – 5:59
  8. "The Conquering Lion" – 3:19
  9. "Outro" – 2:58

Songs

1Intro2:29
2Mr Intentional6:59
3Adam Lives in Theory7:26

References

MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 Wikipedia
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