It's not a question of authenticity, it's a question of aesthetic: without amplification, without electric beats and guitars, the band loses its identity and all its purpose. At least that's the intention of Korn's MTV Unplugged, but in practice the record is a bit of an unholy mess for one simple reason: apart from Rage Against the Machine, there is no other '90s hard rock band as ill-suited to the stripped-back conceit of MTV Unplugged than Korn. If that was a party record designed to snare younger listeners, this is an album for the long-term fans who have been with them for nearly 15 years, who are also in their thirties and are inclined toward moodier, quieter material. So, after the modest success of 2005's See You on the Other Side, it was time for an MTV Unplugged, a drastic move backward from the heavy hip-hop inflections of See You. They were veterans slightly past their prime, still capable of reaching the Top Ten with their new albums but playing to an ever-more-selective audience, as they lurched toward reinvention without luring in new listeners or settling into their inevitable middle age. It was revived every couple years by major artists in need of either a stopgap release or boost of energy - Lauryn Hill's bizarre 2002 affair, Alicia Keys' perfectly respectable but uneventful 2005 set - which pretty much described Korn to a tee in 2007. During the mid-'90s, it was standard practice for any major rock artist to venture onto the program and prove their worth as "authentic" musicians - the old canard being that only real musicians and real songs can withstand the scrutiny of such unadorned arrangements, even if the arrangements by 1996 were becoming so ornate they barely passed as acoustic - but by the turn of the decade the show fell out of fashion. What does a band do after teenage angst has paid off well, leaving them bored and old? In Korn's case, they turn to that evergreen bastion of respectability, MTV Unplugged.
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