Nirvana
Hormoaning
DGC GEF 21711 LP / GEFD21711 CD / GEFC21711 Cassette, released 1992 (Australia)
DGC MVCG-17002 CD, released 1992 (Japan)
DGC B0015411-01 LP, released 2011 (U.S./Europe)
Ah, the Hormoaning EP. One of the original Nirvana collectibles. Released in conjunction with the band's 1992 Australian and Japanese tours. It contained two tracks that had been released as b-sides to singles and four that had not been released elsewhere to that point (those were all later included on Incesticide.
The Australian version came out on vinyl, CD, and cassette. There were 4,000 copies made of the vinyl, which has been heavily bootlegged, but the copies are easy to spot. The sleeve was often reproduced poorly, missing details like the shower fixture. The bigger tell was the vinyl itself, though. The real ones were red vinyl with blue swirls. It can look a little muddy unless held up to the light - then, you can see the real red and blue effect. Only one of the fakes looked anything like this. It was a red and black mix that looked kind of like the real thing, but not enough. It didn't have a swirl effect, and definitely did not look red and blue when held up to the light. So basically, before 2011, anything other than the red and blue swirl vinyl was a fake. And there were a LOT of color variants of the fakes.
There were two pressings of the Australian CD. The first was a classic silver CD with black lettering. The matrix code was DIDX-012255 2. The second pressing had a blue base color printed on the CD with white lettering (except for the band name, which was in red print). The second pressing matrix code was MADE BY DISCOTRONICS B ** GEFD21711 ** #01. There were 10,000 copies made of this pressing. This second pressing was bootlegged a couple of times. Most of the fakes are easy to spot because they have different matrix codes. One is a bit tougher, as it had the same matrix code. However, the lettering on this one was smaller than on the original (not helpful unless you have an original), but it was also printed backwards. On the real one, you can read the text correctly from the front of the CD. On the copy, it reads properly from the back of the disc. There was also a cassette released in Australia. There were 1,000 of those, and it has not been bootlegged, to my knowledge.
The Japanese pressing only came out on CD. It had different artwork from the Australian version, which much more closely resembled the artwork from Nevermind. This one was also bootlegged several times. However, the fakes are easily recognizable - none matched the correct original matrix code: MVCG-17002-1- 1M :1 V. Finding this one new in a Japanese CD store was one of my early collecting triumphs (yes, it was a real one).
In 2011, they re-released the Hormoaning LP for Record Store Day. It was on brown marble vinyl, and was limited to 6,000 copies worldwide. Not terribly hard to find, but it's getting fairly expensive. So let's recap: the only two legitimate vinyl versions of Hormoaning on vinyl were the original pressing on red and blue swirl vinyl and the 2011 re-press on brown marble vinyl. All other colors are fakes.
| Version | Value ($) | Scarcity | Price Trending |
|---|---|---|---|
| DGC GEF 21711 LP Red/Blue Swirl (Australia) | 330-400 | 6 | Volatile |
| DGC GEFD21711 CD Silver 1st Press (Australia) | 30-40 | 5 | Stable |
| DGC GEFD21711 CD Blue 2nd Press (Australia) | 30-40 | 4 | Stable |
| DGC GEFC21711 Cassette (Australia) | 110-130 | 7 | Volatile |
| DGC MVCG-17002 CD (Japan) | 20-25 | 2 | Stable |
| DGC B0015411-01 LP Brown Marble (U.S./Europe) | 50-70 | 3 | Up |
 Red/Blue Swirl Original |
 Red/Blue Swirl Original - Backlit |
 Brown Marble Re-press |
This page was last updated on May 3, 2020.
