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Artwork
All Nirvana artwork were initially created in USA. This artwork included Geffen/DGC USA copyright info, catalog numbers, "Made in USA", etc. The artwork were sent to for example UK in the form of a chromalin along with a set of printing films, still with US credits. A chromalin is a high quality card color print of the artwork laid out flat without any of the folds or cut-outs. For examples, see the US made Pennyroyal Tea chromalins, and the Nevermind and Smells Like Teen Spirit (may be a "transparency progression or similar") chromalins discussed on this page. All these were sent to Geffen UK. They had to change the US credits into British credits. Someone in the record label would write amendments on the chromalin they received from USA, as with the Smells Like Teen Spirit pictured below (images 4-6). The amendments include "NEW BARCODE" followed by the correct UPC, same with catalog number and legal information. The UK CD single would have one more track, Drain You, which is probably what the text "AMEND TRACK LISTING TO CD DIGI SUPPLIED" is for. On the top it says "REMOVE IF ON FLOATER", and in the lower right corner the text "USE TYPE W/O" is added, I don't really know what those two mean. Note that the single was not released in a digipak with this artwork in USA, so this was only meant for use in UK. The chromalin with handwritten amendments were then sent to the repro house along with the printing film. The repro house would add the amendments from the chromalin properly to the film by erasing and writing over the US credits. (This was in the early 90'ies, pre-digital artwork. Today I guess they use layered computer images, where one can edit text without having to do anything to the background.) This would leave marks on the artwork. First they had to erase the old text, which would also erase the background. Then they had to create a new background which blended in with the surrounding background, and then write the new text. The quality would depend on the existing background and time spent trying to make it seamless (they usually were more careful with this in UK than for example in Croatia). Images 7-9 show a detail from the back sleeve of the Nevermind LP from Germany (GEF 24425), Holland (GEF 24425), and Croatia (LP-7-1 2036318), where one can see remains from the old text or the erased background. The repro house would then print a chromalin of the amended film, and send the film and the new chromalin to the printers. The new UK chromalin would be used to check the amendments, and by the printers to get the correct colors when printing the film. The US chromalin was either kept by the Geffen office or discarded. Sometimes they didn't even bother to correct some of the text. The French Lithium 7" single (GES 19134) still has "Made in USA" written on the back. The vinyl labels have all the proper French credits though, as they were custom made in France. Labels rarely have any artwork, only track info and legal text. The Universal reissues is another example of artwork mastering. It seems that all (European at least) Universal reissues released from around 2000 and on are of worse printing quality than the original releases. Most likely they had lost the original films, so they had to clone their own artwork. This is evident from the newly added Universal credits which appear very sharp in good quality. Old text appear in worse quality. If they had the old films, all the text should have the same quality. Another frequent error similar to not changing "Made in USA" text, is not removing old MCA credits. Geffen was owned by Universal for the entire time since Nevermind was released, but they kept the MCA name for some years. Some new Universal reissues still have "© David Geffen Company, an MCA Company", along with new Universal credits.
1. US Nevermind chromalin 2. US Nevermind chromalin, front 3. US Nevermind chromalin, back 4. US Smells Like Teen Spirit chromalin 5. US Smells Like Teen Spirit chromalin, front 6. US Smells Like Teen Spirit chromalin, back 7. German Nevermind, from the American artwork, but the American version does not have any text in that area 8. Dutch Nevermind, appears to be an edited version of the German artwork 9. Croatian Nevermind, appears to be an edited version of the German artwork Thanks to Craig Mills (images 1-6) and Enrico Vincenzi (images 7-9).

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