Nirvana – Heart-Shaped Box (Director’s Cut MV)

Just in time for the 20th anniversary of Nirvana’s third (and final) studio album In Utero — which is getting a deluxe re-release — the director cut’s music video for Heart-Shaped Box has made its way online. And I’m pleased that everyone can finally see (or revisit) the original video online.

As most Nirvana fans remember (or maybe not), the music video was directed by Anton Corbijn back in 1993 and was rotating on MTV (back when it was still about music videos) and other tv music stations until Kurt Cobain died, which led to an edited version of the video [MV]. The director’s cut was only available in a 2005 release of Directors Label – Volume 6: The Work of Director Anton Corbijn and not available online (officially) until now. Unlike the edited video Heart-Shaped Box video, the original footage can be noticed from 03:03 to 03:39 and includes the large woman, the little girl and a dead Cobain lying in a field of poppies rather than seeing Cobain singing the third verse of the song.

All in all, this is a much preffered viewing of the video and a better appreciation of the song — whose music video combined elements from The Wizard of Oz, the Ku Klux Klan and religion imagery — which is now a classic and was inspired by documentaries about children with cancer.

Hitting store shelves on September 24 (pre-order on iTunes here), the anniversary edition of In Utero will be available in a number of different versions, but the most deluxe edition features three CDs featuring a fresh mix of the album, a never-before-released instrumental, Dave Grohl’s first demo, Marigold, the Steve Albini versions of singles Heart Shaped Box and All Apologies (R.E.M. producer Scott Litt sweetened the album versions), new liner notes by Bobcat Goldthwait, and Kurt Cobain’s handwritten lyrics.