Release
Nirvana was the third Nirvana album to be released following the death of singer/ guitarist Kurt Cobain in April 1994, and the first to feature studio material. The first track on the album is "You Know You're Right" which was also released as a downloadable single. The only song to appear from Nirvana's 1989 debut album Bleach is "About a Girl". Bleach producer Jack Endino saw "About a Girl" as a potential single and the song was later released as a single from the MTV Unplugged in New York album in 1994. The song "Been a Son" was originally a B-side from Nirvana's 1989 Blew EP, which itself was only a limited release in the United Kingdom, making the song a rarity. Nirvana's 1990 non-album single "Sliver" which was their last Nirvana only release on the Sub Pop label is the fourth track on the album.
The four commercially released singles from 1991's Nevermind album ("Smells Like Teen Spirit", "Come as You Are", "Lithium" and "In Bloom") are all included, as are three singles from 1993's In Utero album ("Heart-Shaped Box", "Pennyroyal Tea" and "Rape Me"). The version of "Pennyroyal Tea" that is included is a remixed version which was planned as a single in March 1994 from the In Utero album, however due to Cobain's death the single was recalled shortly after its release making this remixed version rare and hard to find until its inclusion on Nirvana. Also included is "Dumb" which was an album track from In Utero.
Two tracks from Nirvana's 1994 MTV Unplugged in New York album ("All Apologies" and "The Man Who Sold the World") are included, both of which had been released as promotional singles from the Unplugged album. Vinyl and Japanese CD versions of the album include two bonus tracks both from the MTV Unplugged in New York album; "Something in the Way", which had been a B-side to the "About a Girl" single and "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" which had been released as a promotional single from the Unplugged album. On CD versions of the album released outside of the US and Japan, "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" is the only bonus track.
The album opened at #3 on the Billboard 200 with 234,000 copies sold. Currently, it has sold over 7 million copies worldwide. It has sold nearly 2.2 million copies in the United States, according to Soundscan, and has sold more than 2 million copies in Europe as of 2007.
The album contains liner notes by music journalist David Fricke of Rolling Stone magazine.
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