29/01/10 Lecture: Can popular music ever really be unplugged?

"Unplugged" is a word tossed around with relative frequency in this day and age of heavily produced, enhanced and distorted popular music. Normally used to describe more stripped down, intimate performances, "unplugged" is actually a highly inaccurate term. From microphones, to amplifiers, to PA systems; each and every one of these devices requires power of some kind, and certainly a connection which involves some form of "plugging". The only truly "unplugged" music nowadays takes place in bedrooms, and around campfires, and occasionally in hippy tents. But if that music is ever recorded, or distributed to increase its popularity, then it will subsequently be stripped of its "unplugged" status. So, if you switch the initial question around, and ask if truly "unplugged" music can ever be considered popular, then we're faced with another debate entirely. And one that definitely requires more than one-hundred and fifty words to answer.