The Nirvana Nevermind album cover baby recreates the picture 25 years on īut just five years ago, he recreated the photoshoot for the album's 25th anniversary. Spencer Elden, who was famously photographed as a baby for Nirvana's Nevermind album cover, is now suing the band for child sexual exploitation. That’s a fact critics of his current lawsuit have pointed out on social media. It’s worth pointing out here that Elden posed for a recreation of the original cover for that 25th anniversary - and even offered to do it naked, according to New York Post report from the time. “The album catapulted alternative rock - specifically the grunge subgenre fizzing in the Pacific Northwest - into homes across America.”
“Two-and-a-half decades later, it’s nearly impossible to imagine a world without ‘Nevermind.’” Billboard reported for the album’s 25th anniversary in 2016. The album sold millions, after debuting relatively low at 144 of the Billboard 200 in Sept.
Until then, the musical landscape was dominated by leftover sounds from the late 1980s, and the not-so-subtle transition to the darker, moodier, seedier, more brooding tone of grunge helped set the scene for a full transition to a more “’90s sound” - one we often associate with the decade’s rock music today.Īs someone raised with a love for the glamor, luster and excess of the late 1980s hair bands, I’ll always be a little bitter about the change, I’ll admit, but music is a landscape as malleable as time itself it’s both a byproduct and sculptor of culture. Nirvana took the music industry by storm in 1991 with its “Nevermind” album, which propelled alternative rock to the mainstream with songs like “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Lithium.” To capture the significance, let’s rewind 30 years. Nirvana fans are astonished by Elden’s legal move, I’m sure, but do we realize just how significant his takedown of the album, the band could be?
“The permanent harm he has proximately suffered includes but is not limited to extreme and permanent emotional distress with physical manifestations, interference with his normal development and educational progress, lifelong loss of income earning capacity, loss of past and future wages, past and future expenses for medical and psychological treatment, loss of enjoyment of life, and other losses to be described and proven at trial of this matter,” the suit added.Įlden, who was 4 months old at the time the image was captured, maintains that his family never consented to the photoshoot.Īnd, to make matters worse, his accusations extend even further, alleging that the group forced him to engage in “commercial sexual acts” and “went back on a promise to conceal his genitals,” the outlet added. “The band, photographer and record labels ‘intentionally marketed Spencer’s child pornography and leveraged the shocking nature of his image to promote themselves and their music at his expense,’ the suit alleges,” according to the Post’s report. The man whose baby portrait was used for the cover of Nirvana's 'Nevermind' has filed a lawsuit alleging that the nude image constituted child pornography. The image of a dollar bill dangling from a string before a naked baby submerged in water has been plastered everywhere since the triple-diamond-selling album brought alternative rock to mainstream recognition and established an iconic mood - a revolution, if you will - for its time.īut the baby behind the image, now a 30-year-old man, has something to say about the cover.Īccording to the New York Post, Spencer Elden claims he’s suffered “lifelong damage” from having his naked, infant’s body plastered on the iconic cover, and has opted to file a child pornography lawsuit against late singer Kurt Cobain’s estate and the group’s surviving band members.Įlden claims the group violated federal child pornography statutes and “sexually exploited him” in branding its image during its up-and-coming stage. Lover of ’90s grunge or not, you’ve probably seen some version of the iconic cover of Nirvana’s 1991 breakthrough album “Nevermind” at some point. Nirvana Faces Huge ‘Child Pornography’ Lawsuit for 1991 Marketing Decision Home › Music › Nirvana Faces Huge ‘Child Pornography’ Lawsuit for 1991 Marketing Decision