LOW VOLTAGE, HIGH POWER

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The show is about to start, but the bickering seems unstoppable. Courtney Love and her punk-rock group, Hole, are on the stage of the Brooklyn Academy of Music in mid-February, preparing to tape a performance for MTV Unplugged--the hugely influential show in which rock bands cast aside their electric guitars and amplifiers in an attempt to demonstrate their musical talents on old-fashioned acoustic instruments.

The pressure is getting to the band, which has been through difficult times lately--Love's husband Kurt Cobain committed suicide last April, and the group's bassist, Kristen Pfaff, died of an apparent heroin overdose last June. During rehearsals, Love and guitarist Eric Erlandson snap at each other. "Shut up, Eric," Love says at one point. "You're the one with the girlfriend on the cover of Playboy." (Erlandson is dating actress Drew Barrymore, who recently appeared nude in that magazine.) The testy exchange makes one wonder, Can this band pull it together in time to perform?

It does--and with impressive results. "Welcome to MTV Unglued," Love says jokingly at the start of the show. Her voice is raw, but the band's ragged sound is perversely charming in this folksy format. They rip through a few songs from their current CD, Live Through This, as well as an unreleased Cobain tune, You Got No Right. The performance is unexpectedly loud, and not completely unplugged--Love and Erlandson gamely pluck away at acoustic guitars and are backed by a harpist, but their instruments are wired to not strictly kosher onstage electric amplifiers. Still, the show has grit and guts. Love, relaxing later at a local club with comic Sandra Bernhard, is upbeat: "I thought it went well." Erlandson is less sure: "That was one of the hardest things I ever had to do."

MTV Unplugged has become the place where boys strive to be men, women to be divas, and rockers of any gender or persuasion can become megastars. Unplugged albums are showing up ever more frequently at the top of the charts, and the unplugged ethos has influenced much of pop music. The very term unplugged has entered the language, connoting that something or someone has stripped off the gaudy trappings of the disinformation age and gone back to basics. MTV this month is launching a new series of Unplugged concerts, featuring some of the hottest acts in pop music. Among them: Grammy winner Sheryl Crow, the tart but sweet Irish pop group Cranberries, the spiritualistic rockers Live and singer-guitarist Melissa Etheridge--whose show, featuring a duet with Bruce Springsteen, airs this week. Says Crow: "Getting to perform in this format, which is taking your music and honoring the song as opposed to blowing up amps and stuff--I think that's a cool way to reach people." Adds Live lead singer Ed Kowalczyk: "It's become an important show for bands in their career now."

Unplugged has come a long way since its humble, low-budget beginnings in 1989 with a concert featuring the band Squeeze, Syd Straw, Elliot Easton and Jules Shear. The aim then was high concept, not high ratings: a return to unvarnished, straight-from-the-artist rock after years of high-voltage, high-volume entertainment. Says Unplugged producer Alex Coletti: "There were no tricks, no effects. It was a whole reaction to the '80s and the [disgraced lip-synching pop duo] Milli Vanilli mentality. We wanted Unplugged to be as straightforward as possible."