Nirvana ‘Nevermind’ baby recreates album cover 25 years on
The baby who adorned Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ has recreated the seminal album cover to mark the album’s 25th anniversary.
Spencer Elden was four months old in 1991 when his parents’ friend, Geffen art director Robert Fisher, photographed him submerged in a swimming pool. They were paid $7,500 for the shoot.
Now a visual artist, 25-year-old Spencer re-enacted the iconic shot at Rose Bowl Aquatics Center in Pasadena, California with photographer John Chappie.
Unveiled on ‘Nevermind’s quarter of a century landmark on Saturday (25th September), the new image sees Elden with flowing long hair floating underneath water.
> Spencer Elden, the baby on Nirvana's Nevermind, recreates album cover 25 years later. pic.twitter.com/EpvzhtDcvC > > — Eric Alper (@ThatEricAlper) September 24, 2016
“I said to the photographer, ‘Let’s do it naked.’ But he thought that would be weird, so I wore my swim shorts,” Elden told the New York Post.
He added: “The anniversary means something to me. It’s strange that I did this for five minutes when I was four months old and it became this really iconic image.”
“It’s cool but weird to be part of something so important that I don’t even remember.”
It’s the second time Elden has recreated the ‘Nevermind’ cover having done so previously when he was 17 in 2008.
Kurt Cobain had originally wanted a water birth on the album sleeve but Geffen deemed that the images would be too graphic.
After the band selected the shot of Elden, Geffen worried that the naked baby might offend some so prepared an edited sleeve.
Kurt famously said he would only relent if the album was emblazoned with a sticker reading: "If you're offended by this, you must be a closet paedophile."