''MTV Unplugged'' is the first

live album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

recorded by Mexican singer-songwriter

Julieta Venegas Julieta Venegas Percevault (; born November 24, 1970) is an American-born Mexican singer, songwriter, instrumentalist and producer who sings pop-rock-indie in Spanish. She went on to join several bands including Mexican ska band Tijuana No!. Ven ...

. The album features a selection of her greatest hits, along with new tracks, including the singles "El Presente" and "Algún Día". A handful of guest artists was included:

Gustavo Santaolalla Gustavo Alfredo Santaolalla (born 19 August 1951) is an Argentine musician, composer, and record producer. He is known for composing his film scores with his collaborator and acclaimed director Alejandro González Iñárritu, which composed the ...

Natalia Lafourcade María Natalia Lafourcade Silva (; born 26 February 1984) is a Mexican pop-rock and folk singer and songwriter who, since her debut in 2002, has been one of the most successful singers in Latin America. Lafourcade's voice has been categorized a ...

Cuarteto Latinoamericano Cuarteto Latinoamericano is one of the world's most renowned string quartets and, for forty years, the leading proponent of Latin American music for the genre. Founded in Mexico in 1982, the Cuarteto has toured extensively throughout Europe, Nort ...

La Mala Rodríguez LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figur ...

. This album received the

Latin Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album The Latin Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album is an honor presented annually by the Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences at the Latin Grammy Awards, a ceremony that recognizes excellence and promotes a wider awareness of cultural ...

and the DVD released from this live performance also won for

Latin Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video The Latin Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video is an honor presented annually at the Latin Grammy Awards, a ceremony that recognizes excellence and promotes a wider awareness of cultural diversity and contributions of Latin recording artist ...

. "

El Presente "El presente" (English: ''"The Present"'') is a song by Julieta Venegas and is the first single from her album MTV Unplugged Julieta Venegas. Released on April 15, 2008. It is categorized as "A Worldwide Hit". The next song was placed in the to ...

" was nominated for

Record of the Year The Grammy Award for Record of the Year is presented by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to "honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without reg ...

and Song of the Year.

Album history

The live performance of this album was recorded in

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

, on March 6, 2008 at the Estudios Churubusco, before 450 fans. This show was broadcast on July 5, 2008 through

MTV Latin America MTV is a Latin American pay television network that was launched on 1 October 1993 as the Hispanic American version of MTV. It is owned by Paramount Networks Americas, a subsidiary of Paramount Global. The channel broadcasts music videos as well ...

, and premiered on June 12, 2008 on the

MTV Tr3s MTV Tres (taken from the Spanish word for the number three ''tres'', stylized as tr3s, with an acute accent over the '3') is an American owned by Paramount Media Networks, a subsidiary of Paramount Global. The channel is targeted toward bilingu ...

. The recording includes collaborations from

performing the hip-hop section of "

Eres para mí "Eres Para Mí" (English: ''"You are for Me"'') is a Latin pop- Hip hop song by the Mexican singer-songwriter Julieta Venegas and the Chilean singer Anita Tijoux. It was recorded for Julieta Venegas's studio album ''Limón y Sal''. Released as th ...

"; two-time Oscar-winner

playing

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

on "Algún día";

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

ian singer

Marisa Monte Marisa de Azevedo Monte (Brazilian Portuguese: /maˈɾizɐ dʒi azeˈvedu ˈmõtʃi/) (born 1 July 1967) is a Brazilian singer, composer, instrumentalist, and producer of Brazilian popular music and samba. As of 2011, she had sold 10 milli ...

performing in "Ilusion", a brand new song in Spanish and Portuguese; Jaques Morelenbaum participating in "Como sé"; and

included as a part of Venegas's band. Julieta Venegas played the

accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

, and

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

. On the track "Esta vez", the

is included, and

Juan Son Juan Carlos Pereda (born January 24, 1984 in Guadalajara, Mexico) is a Mexican singer and composer of experimental music. He was the vocals of the alternative rock band Porter and collaborated with Simone Pace (Blonde Redhead) as the drummer f ...

(from the band

Porter Porter may refer to: Companies * Porter Airlines, Canadian regional airline based in Toronto * Porter Chemical Company, a defunct U.S. toy manufacturer of chemistry sets * Porter Motor Company, defunct U.S. car manufacturer * H.K. Porter, Inc., ...

) joined Venegas on "De mis pasos". The violet dress that the artist wore during the performance was designed by Andrés Jiménez.

Jose Tillan José Tillán (born May 24, 1966) is a media executive and professional musician, composer and producer whose career has primarily been focused on the Latin music industry. Tillán launched MATT Entertainment in 1993, where he managed Cuban-American ...

served as the executive producer and producer (along with Michael Dagnery) for MTV Networks.

Track listing CD and DVD

The track listing by iTunes Store Mexico.

Personnel

Gustavo Borner Gustavo Borner is an Argentine producer, engineer and mixer. He has worked with several artists both from Argentina like Fito Páez, Andrés Calamaro and León Gieco as well as from other countries of Latin America like Juanes, Ricky Martin and P ...

: Recording engineer, mixing, mastering. Mixed at: Igloo Music (

Burbank, California Burbank is a city in the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Located northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Burbank has a population of 107,337. The city was named after David Burbank, w ...

) * Juan Pablo Falluca: Mobile recording * Juan Carlos Ertze: Recording assistant * Gabriel Castanon: Recording assistant * Daniel Castillo: Recording assistant * Alberto Rodríguez: Recording assistant * Joseph Greco: Mixing assistant * Justin Moshkevich: Mixing assistant * Nikolai Baxter: Mixing assistant * Guillermo Gutiérrez: A&R direction * Gilda Oropeza: A&R * Charlie García: Coordination * Reyna Espinoza: Coordination ''Live crew'' * Claudio Jiménez: Sound engineer * Marco López: Sound engineer * Marcos Juache:

Stage Stage or stages may refer to: Acting * Stage (theatre), a space for the performance of theatrical productions * Theatre, a branch of the performing arts, often referred to as "the stage" * ''The Stage'', a weekly British theatre newspaper * Sta ...

* Kike Sánchez: Stage * Liz Gil: Stage manager * Mannu Mannucci: Tour & personal manager ''Design'' * Alejandro Ros:

Concept Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs. They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by s ...

* Silvia Canosa:

Design A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...

* Enrique Covarrubias: Cover photography * Nicolás Turchetto: Back cover and live photos * Yvonne Venegas: Rehearsal photos * Karla Ortíz:

Wardrobe A wardrobe or armoire or almirah is a standing closet used for storing clothes. The earliest wardrobe was a chest, and it was not until some degree of luxury was attained in regal palaces and the castles of powerful nobles that separate accomm ...

* Lorena Ortíz: Assistant * Juan Chialvo: Assistant * Corina Figueroa: Assistant

Musicians

* La Mala Rodríguez: Vocal on "Eres Para Mí" * Gustavo Santaollala:

Banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

and vocal on "Algún Día" * Juan Son: Vocal on "De Mis Pasos" * Marisa Monte: Vocal on "Ilusión" * Jaques Morelenbaum:

Cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

on "Cómo Sé" * Cecilia Bastida:

Piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

rhodes piano The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, t ...

clavinet The Clavinet is an electrically amplified clavichord invented by Ernst Zacharias and manufactured by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany, from 1964 to 1982. The instrument produces sounds by a rubber pad striking a point on a tension ...

glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( or , : bells and : set) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the vibraphone. The glo ...

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

* Natalia Lafourcade:

Vibraphone The vibraphone is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone is called a ''vibraphonist,'' ''vibraharpist,' ...

timple The timple is a traditional five-string plucked string instrument of the Canary Islands. It started being manufactured in the 19th century. In La Palma island and in the north of the island of Tenerife, many timple players omit the fifth (D) ...

musical saw A musical saw, also called a singing saw, is a hand saw used as a musical instrument. Capable of continuous glissando (portamento), the sound creates an ethereal tone, very similar to the theremin. The musical saw is classified as a plaque f ...

cavaquinho The cavaquinho (pronounced in Portuguese) is a small Portuguese string instrument in the European guitar family, with four wires or gut strings. More broadly, ''cavaquinho'' is the name of a four-stringed subdivision of the lute family of instr ...

, glockenspiel, clavinet, vocals * Mariana Baraj:

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

, vocals * Sol Pereyra:

Trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

cuatro Cuatro is Spanish language, Spanish (and other Romance languages) for the 4 (number), number four. Cuatro may also refer to: * Cuatro (instrument), name for two distinct Latin American instruments, one from Puerto Rico (see cuatro (Puerto Rico), ...

ukulele The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrumen ...

, vocals * Edy Vega:

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

, percussion * Ariel Cavalieri:

Double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

* Silvano Zetina:

Guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

, timple,

vihuela The vihuela () is a 15th-century fretted plucked Spanish string instrument, shaped like a guitar (figure-of-eight form offering strength and portability) but tuned like a lute. It was used in 15th- and 16th-century Spain as the equivalent of t ...

, cavaquinho * Juan Martín Medina:

Flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

, guitar * Leandro Guffanti:

Clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...

* Alejandro Díaz:

Tuba The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the ne ...

* Aron Bitran:

Violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

* Saúl Bitran: Violin * Javier Montiel: Viola * Alvaro Bitran: Cello * Julieta Venegas: Lead vocals, piano,

and guitar.

Chart and certifications

The album debuted at number 61 on the Mexican album charts, climbing to number-one the following week where it spent 10 consecutive weeks, replacing ''

Para Siempre ''Para Siempre'' (English: ''Forever'') is the 79th studio album released by Mexican singer Vicente Fernández on September 18, 2007 by Sony BMG Norte. Written and produced by Joan Sebastian, and co-produced by Jesús Rincón, the album is a su ...

'' by

Vicente Fernández Vicente Fernández Gómez (17 February 1940 – 12 December 2021) was a Mexican singer, songwriter, actor, and film producer. Nicknamed "Chente" (short for Vicente), "El Charro de Huentitán" (The Charro from Huentitán), "El Ídolo de México ...

and being replaced by ''

A Little Bit Longer ''A Little Bit Longer'' is the third studio album by the American band the Jonas Brothers and their second album released on Hollywood Records. It was released on August 12, 2008. The album received generally favorable reviews, and four star re ...

'' by

Jonas Brothers The Jonas Brothers () are an American pop rock band. Formed in 2005, they gained popularity from their appearances on the Disney Channel television network. They consist of three brothers: Kevin Jonas, Joe Jonas, and Nick Jonas. Raised in W ...

. ''MTV Unplugged'' received a gold certification in México after two weeks of its release. In

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

debuted and peaked at number 9 on the ''Billboard'' Top Latin Albums and at number 169 on the ''Billboard'' 200. It also peaked within the Top 20 in Spain and at number 39 in Switzerland.

Weekly charts

Certifications

Year-end chart

Awards

Latin Grammy Awards

, - , rowspan="4" style="text-align:center;", 2008 , rowspan="2", "

" ,

, , - , Song of the Year , , - , rowspan="2", ''MTV Unplugged'' ,

Best Alternative Music Album The Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album is an award presented to recording artists for quality albums in the alternative genre at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards. Ho ...

, , - , Best Long Form Music Video , , -

Latin Billboard Awards

, - , rowspan="4" style="text-align:center;", 2009 , rowspan="2", "

" , align=left, Hot Latin Song of the Year Female , , - , align=left, Latin Pop Airplay Song of the Year, Female , , - , rowspan="2", ''MTV Unplugged'' , align=left, Top Latin Album of the Year Female , , - , align=left, Latin Rock/Alternative Album of the Year , , -

Release history

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mtv Unplugged Julieta Venegas live albums Mtv Unplugged (Venegas, Julieta album) 2008 live albums Latin Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album Latin Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video Spanish-language live albums