Tuesday 19 January 2010

Nirvana 'Bleach' 20th Anniversary Double LP

Twenty years since Nirvana's first album dropped, Sub Pop have decided to reissue 'Bleach' as a double LP. Given that I don't own this one on vinyl (and haven't done for many years) I figured I would pick one up, which I did a couple of weeks back on a post-xmas shopping trip to London:

As is now custom for every record, this comes in a gatefold sleeve. The cool thing is that they have stayed true to the original issue of the record, and pressed this on white vinyl (the first pressing of this was 1000 copies on white vinyl). Both of these records are on white vinyl, although one looks off-white due to being housed in a clear plastic dust sleeve that has a pink tint to it:

For anyone wondering how they could have stretched this album onto a second record, disc number two contains a live set, recorded on February 9 1990 at the Pine Street Theatre in Portland, OR.

The best bit is that this comes with a large, 16 page booklet of photos:

Some of the photos are shots of the band playing live, whilst others are of the original artwork layouts, and original master tapes. My favourite though is a shot of the original recording contract as signed by label and band:

This is a great reissue of a classic album. Overall though, when I hold this I feel nostalgic, old and a bit sad. It reminds me of my later teenage years, and a time when music was, for me, new and exciting... unlike today, when everything seems like a rehashed version of something from 10-20 years before. It also reminds me of my early days of buying records and trying to collect colour vinyl. It also makes me want to try to acquire an original first pressing white vinyl copy of this album.. although I imagine that could be pretty expensive.

Anyway, if you like looking at photos of pretty coloured records, there's a great discography here which shows all the versions of this record that you should check out:

http://www.sliver.it/nirvana/test/index.html

2 comments:

jhulud said...

Funny you mention the nostalgia feel of this release. I felt the same way when I got it. It seems that back then music was new and exciting. There was always something new to discover...whereas nowadays it's all a rehash as you said.

mcs said...

I agree with you completely, Juan. But that's hardly surprising, since your comment is just agreeing with what I wrote in the first place. So I'm agreeing with you agreeing with me. Do you agree?