Nirvana announce special 30th anniversary edition of In Utero

In Utero went on to mark Nirvana’s first number debut on the Billboard 200 and has since been certified 6x platinum in the United States. Geffen/UMe commemorates the 30th anniversary of the album with several multi-format reissues.

The three Super Deluxe Edition releases comprise a total of 72 tracks with 53 previously unreleased tracks. Among the unreleased material, two full In Utero-era concerts, namely Live In Los Angeles (1993) and the band’s final Seattle performance, Live In Seattle (1994), are included in addition to six bonus live tracks from Rome, Springfield, and New York.

Seattle producer and engineer Jack Endino — who helmed the band’s 1988 debut Bleach —reconstructed the live tracks from stereo soundboard tapes for this year’s reissue. Additionally, In Utero’s original twelve songs, along with five bonus tracks and B-sides, have been newly remastered from the original analog master stereo tapes by Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Services, who assisted Albini as the only other engineer at the original sessions.

JUST ANNOUNCED | Nirvana - In Utero (30th Anniversary): Super Deluxe Editions

Celebrating 30 years of Nirvana's final studio album In Utero. Newly remastered and now available on a range of super deluxe editions!

Pre-order now >> https://t.co/bfLhrQG5O6@Nirvana | @Polydor pic.twitter.com/DAMcNsQetW

— Recordstore.co.uk (@recordstore) September 5, 2023

The physical Super Deluxe Edition box sets also boast a removable front-cover acrylic panel with the album’s iconic Angel; a 48-page hardcover book with unreleased photos; a 20-page newly designed fanzine; a Los Angeles tour poster lithograph by hot rod artist Coop; replicas of the 1993 record store promo Angel mobile, three gig fliers, two ticket stubs for Los Angeles and Seattle, an All-Access tour laminate, and four cloth sticky tour backstage passes: Press, Photo, After Show, and Local Crew.

Originally released September 21, 1993, the band recorded the album over the course of six days in February 1993 at Pachyderm Studio in Cannon Falls, MN with Steve Albini. In Utero's unadorned sonic rawness was received by critics and fans with equal measures of shock and elation, as Albini's recording laid bare every primal nuance of the most confrontational yet vulnerable material Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl would ever record.

With its 1991 predecessor Nevermind having sold some 30 million copies and causing a seismic pop cultural shift, In Utero was essentially the first record Nirvana would make with any expectations from the public.