AD Unplugged

Arrested Development Unplugged a.k.a.  "I waited 6 to 8 weeks for this?"

For music fans in the age before the internet and file sharing, BMG Music Service- and to a lesser extent Columbia House- were the greatest companies on earth.  Where else could you order 5 tapes for a penny?  It was an incredible deal.  But BMG was a little better because while you didn't get as many tapes at the start, you only had to commit to buy one more album whereas I think Columbia House required 4 or 5 purchases.

Yet and still, for some reason it took some convincing for me to finally join- I can remember spending a ridiculous amount of time going over my 5 selections, looking at the available albums over and over, before finally sending in the little postcard to some place in Indiana.  Of course I read the little fine print that said it would take 6 to 8 weeks to fill my order- how could I ever possibly wait so long?  And I remember my first 5 selections.  Now keep in mind I was somewhat handicapped by what I could buy, because I was 13 at the time I joined, so I had to keep them somewhat clean to avoid the wrath of my mom who was never too crazy about her son listening to all of this rap music.

So for my first 5 selections I went with Black Reign by Queen Latifah (I liked "U.N.I.T.Y."), the first TLC album, Das EFX's Straight Up Sewaside, OutKast's Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, and Arrested Development's Unplugged.  I slipped Southern in because my friend had it and I knew that the parental advisory warning was actually a sticker, so I could peel it off and as far as mom knew, it was clean.

Out of the five, I think I was looking forward to Unplugged the most because I had read somewhere that it had three new Arrested Development songs, so naturally I was excited.  I waited my 6-8 weeks, a la Ralphie from Christmas Story waiting for his Lil Orphan Annie decoder pen (I think I started checking the mailbox in eager anticipation starting on day one, in the off chance that they shipped my order overnight) and then, finally, one cold winter day during Christmas break, I had a package waiting for me.  Christmas had come early, and it was perfect because now I had at least a week of school-free bliss to listen to my new albums.

So out of the five, I had the following reactions- I hated Black Reign, I actually liked TLC (I had the hots for all 3 of them as well), loved Das EFX (and may have been the only person who loved their second album judging from reactions I've seen, and I don't get why), loved OutKast of course, and was decidedly disappointed by Unplugged.

Yes, I did not like Unplugged.  As most everyone reading this likely knows, the three new songs weren't really unheard gems- "Time" was an intro, "The Gettin'" went way over my head and probably works better with the live performance, and "Searchin' For One Soul" is an instrumental piece basically.  So that disappointed me.  Plus, there wasn't a live version of "Tennessee" included, which didn't make any sense to me.  I also had a hard time relating to the slowed down "Mr. Wendal."  Artists experimenting with different styles and tempos was lost on me then.  And lastly, I did have the tape version, which meant if I wanted to listen to the performance again, I had to rewind the tape and start again, which could take a long time and also wasted precious AA batteries.  It was a different world back then.

So listening to it now, I do obviously have a different opinion and can appreciate it for what it is.  I still don't know why "Tennessee" isn't on here, but I've got 10 or so other live versions so it doesn't bother me.  It also has a few live songs that are harder to come by like "Natural" and "Raining Revolution" and the only live version of "U" that I know of right now.  The version of "Mr. Wendal" is actually really good too- sorry 13-year old me.  I will say that the sound quality isn't the best, but supposedly there is a remastered version out there and I am expecting that to show up pretty soon via amazon so that could make a difference.  And I also own the DVD, where the sound is much improved and watching it with the performance is a better experience (I remember only seeing it briefly when it was originally in rotation on MTV).

In short, while it's far from their best live album in my opinion, I can look back on it and appreciate it, and as mentioned, it's the only place that I know of where you can find "U" as well as a very unique arrangement of "Mr. Wendal."  So when I broke up with this album and told it that it was me, not you, I was right- it was me. 

I should also point out that the tape version has three instrumentals that do not feature on the CD version- "Time," which is basically an instrumental anyway, "Fishin' For Religion," and "U."  I'm hoping to have those converted to mp3 at some point in case anyone is interested.  And the remastered version apparently has a bonus remix of "Revolution."  So I will have more on this project later- you could say that this is part one of a four-part series on Unplugged.

(Note:  I actually spelled Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik without any help.  I've impressed myself on that one.)