Kurt Cobain, seen performing in 1993, killed himself in 1994. Nirvana had made only three CD albums.Kurt Cobain, seen performing in 1993, killed himself in 1994. Nirvana had made only three CD albums. (Associated Press)

The full music catalogue of Seattle grunge band Nirvana, headed by the late Kurt Cobain, will be released on vinyl this year for the first time.

The band — whose hits include Smells Like Teen Spirit, Come As You Are and All Apologies — released only four CD albums before Cobain killed himself in 1994. Band members included Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl.

Their first album was 1989's Bleach and it is being re-produced for vinyl release by the band's first label, Seattle-based independent label Sub Pop.

Nirvana's second effort, Nevermind (1991), which contained the breakthrough hit Smells Like Teen Spirit, and their last album, In Utero (1993), as well as Unplugged in New York, will be released by another company — Original Recordings Group, which produces and sells vinyl records for a niche audience of record turntable users.

Unplugged was recorded live for an MTV show.

"To our knowledge this is the first time Unplugged has ever come out on vinyl," Monti Olson, founder of ORG, told Billboard magazine. "They might have done a limited promotional thing, but I doubt it."

In 1992, Nirvana did release Incesticide — a collection of unreleased early recordings, some previously-released singles and material from the band's sessions for the BBC. These will not be part of the vinyl re-release.

More vinyl plans

Olson also indicated several other iconic rock albums will be getting the same remastered vinyl treatment.

"We're going to be releasing a lot of classic alternative music from the '80s and '90s on 180-gram vinyl. Stuff that's more obscure and more popular. We're in negotiation with quite a few of those artists," he said.

Nirvana is widely regarded as the band that made the early '90s Seattle grunge scene a mainstream commodity.

In their wake, other Seattle acts, including Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, also gained fame and fans.

Nirvana remains popular to this day and has sold more than 75 million records worldwide.

Grohl formed his own band, the Foo Fighters, in 1994 and has participated in other acts, including Queens of the Stone Age.

Novoselic has played with other bands, most recently Flipper, and has been writing a regular music and politics online column for Seattle Weekly.