The First Session - Packaging

Packaging

The album's cover artwork features a black and white photograph of the band in 1990, taken by photographer Vicki Berndt, and an early Hole logo in pink text. Another Berndt photograph is featured on the first page of the EP's twenty-page booklet and was used by Sympathy for the Record Industry as an official promotional photograph a year later around the time of the release of Hole's debut studio album, Pretty on the Inside (1991). The booklet focuses strictly on Hole's early career and includes a full transcipt of one of the band's first interviews for Flipside in October 1990, accompanying photographs by Al Flipside, the cover of the "Retard Girl" single, flyers and posters for some of Hole's early shows and various text written by Courtney Love, including a quote of Proverbs 9:13 from The Bible. On the final credits page of the booklet, Hole gives special thanks to an someone of the nickname "Miss K. Sugarheart Belljar," labelmate Mia Ferraro of the band Spoons and a member of staff at Olympia's Evergreen State College.

According to Broadcast Music Incorporated's official web site, the songwriting credits on The First Session are mistaken. Although all the songs are listed as being written collectively written by Hole, Love wrote and composed "Retard Girl" solely by herself and the rest of the songs were written by both her and Erlandson.