And why Elden Spencer, the infant in the photo, has sued the band
The 'Nevermind' album of the ‘90s band Nirvana has one of the most iconic covers of all time, featuring a baby boy in its "birthday suit" swimming toward a dollar bait. This best-selling record, which produced classic songs such as "Smells Like Teen Spirits," "Come As You Are," and "Lithium," is now under fire, however.
Spencer Elden, the baby in the photo, is now 30 years old and he has filed a federal lawsuit against the estate of Nirvana's band members the late vocalist Kurt Cobain, drummer David Ghrol, and bassist Krist Novoselic, among others who were involved. He claimed that they, along with the company Geffen Records that released the album in 1991, have profited from his naked photos and broke the laws around criminal child pornography.
Elden claims his parents, who received $200 after the shoot, have never been compensated properly for the photograph and never signed an approval to use his image in the cover.
Now he is seeking $150,000 or P7.5 million from each of the 15 people and companies enumerated in the complaint, including the photographer behind the iconic photo, Kirk Weddle, who happens to be friends with Elden’s parents.
Kirk was commissioned by Geffen’s art to do the shoot after declining to get a stock image of a swimming baby that will cost them $7,500 a year for its use.
The original cover idea was underwater birth conceived by the late Kurt while watching water birth on TV with David. But later decided to change it into swimming baby when Geffen’s art director Robert Fisher considered it too graphic.
An underwater photographer, Kirk never had a baby as a subject before the said image. In an interview with The Guardian in 2019, he said that he was paid $1,000 for the entire pictorial, including the gears, and for another diver.
Since it was "old-school" photography, they trained with a doll first before doing the actual shoot with the then four-month-old Elden. Kirk took an hour to set up and five minutes to shoot about 25 frames, before he knew he had the shot of Spencer who can hold his breath quite long underwater.
But doubtful of the photos since it's showing Elden’s privates, he took half a dozen more photos of baby girls. The label, however, favored Elden’s photograph for the album, which went on to sell 30 million copies. Meanwhile, the dollar bill was separately taken by "a guy in New York," and just placed together in the process.
In 2015 interview with The Guardian, however, Elden said that the cover was “about abandonment of innocence and everyone chasing money sooner and faster.” He also mentioned that “it’s always been a positive thing” and has opened doors for him.
Fast forward to present, Elden also disclosed to his legal assistant that he suffered “permanent harm,” including emotional distress and a “life loss of income-earning capacity,” because of his association with the album.
Also, according to the lawsuit, “Defendant knowingly produced, possessed, and advertised commercial child pornography depicting Spencer, and they knowingly received value in exchange for doing so.”
For some Gen X Filipino fans of Nirvana, the album cover was never seen as a form of child pornography. Some, however, consider it to have been a form of exploitation. Others saw it as a form of art, like Deroll Bargas who interprets it as “showing innocence yet bound with materialistic things as becoming baits to losing it.”