Lower-quality recordings from the Hammersmith concert had previously appeared in a different configuration on the bootleg LP Tonight We Walked With Giants.

Pigpile coincided with the re-release of Big Black's entire catalog on Touch and Go Records.

A limited edition of Pigpile was issued as a box set that included the LP and its insert, a VHS tape of the Hammersmith concert, the "In My House" one-sided 5" single, a poster and a Big Black T-shirt.

[1] Released five years after Big Black chose to disband at the peak of their artistic and commercial success, Pigpile received concurrent and retrospective reviews ranging from lukewarm to gushing.

"[9] Looking back at Albini's career through Big Black and his subsequent band, Rapeman a decade on, Rolling Stone called Pigpile a "fun-but-not-revelatory live album," ranking it a notch below any of the group's studio albums.