"This is a choice that he has never had." "Today, like each year on this date, our client Spencer Elden has had to brace himself for renewed unwanted attention from the media and fans alike throughout the world," his attorneys wrote in a release obtained by USA TODAY. Elden is requesting his genitalia be removed from "all future album covers" on the 30th anniversary of the project. Spencer Elden, who is now 30, filed a lawsuit against the band last month after claiming he has suffered "lifelong damages" from Nirvana knowingly producing "commercial child pornography" with the 1991 album cover. Now, the man who appeared on the cover as a child wants the cover art permanently changed. Nirvana released their second studio album three decades ago with an iconic cover, a naked baby in a pool being lured by a dollar bill. In the end, he chose not activism, but a retreat from stardom, descent into drugs and ultimately suicide.Īs the song says - perhaps in mockery, perhaps in exhausted dejection - "Oh well, whatever, nevermind.Watch Video: Nirvana 'Nevermind' baby, now 30, sues band for child pornography I don't care if you like me, I hate you," he said.īut while Cobain expressed disgust at the apathy of his generation, he also seemed to encapsulate an era marked by the end of the Cold War when political ideologies were dead and it was hard to know where to direct your youthful ennui. "If you're sexist, racist, a homophobe, or basically an asshole, don't buy this CD. when Kurt Cobain came with that statement it was like, 'We got to wait awhile.'"Ĭrucial to the cult around Cobain was his anti-macho politics. "Hip-hop was becoming this force, then grunge music stopped it for one second. "That's why 'Teen Spirit' rang so loud because it was right on point with how everyone felt. "'Hair bands' dominated the airwaves and rock became more about looks than actual substance and what it stood for: the rebellious spirit of youth," he told Pharrell Williams in his autobiography. Jay-Z said Nevermind was so successful at this that it stalled the rise of hip-hop. This combined with the raw power of Cobain's voice which somehow encapsulated both joyous abandon and tortured adolescence. It was down to the fact that Cobain loved not just underground hardcore bands but also The Beatles, Abba and Queen. Cobain's suicide note was a long screed about the torment of "selling out".īut it was Cobain's monomaniacal dedication to the punk cause that gave Nevermind such a ring of authenticity.įrom the immediately catchy riffs of "Come As You Are" and "Lithium" to the quieter anthems of "Polly" and "Something in the Way", the sound was often furious, but the melodies simple - "like nursery rhymes", Cobain said. Producer Butch Vig pointed out that Cobain had no problems with it in the studio: "If it had only sold 50,000 copies, he probably wouldn't have had any comments on whether it was too slick." I can't stand that kind of production," he told biographer Michael Azerrad. "I haven't listened to it since we put it out. He was traumatised at the idea that "yuppie scum in BMWs" were listening to Nevermind, and disowned its glossy production. "It was the album that made hard rock obsolete - the rock that was popular at the time: superficial, misogynistic, less intense," Charlotte Blum, author of a recent book about the grunge movement, told AFP.Ĭobain was ambitious, his diaries filled with intricate plans, ruthlessly firing drummers until they found the perfect fit in Dave Grohl (now of the Foo Fighters).īut the quadruple-platinum success of "Nevermind" was a nightmare for his punk-rock ethics. In doing so, Nirvana made all the permed-hair, spandex-wearing posturing of 1980s rock look ridiculous. "It was very pop but very honest and very authentic of the whole American punk rock ethic." Nirvana came along and delivered the goods," said Thurston Moore, of fellow grunge outfit Sonic Youth, at the time. "It's been building up through the years. Nevermind united musical tribes that had been largely separate - punk, indie, metal - and added a pop element that made them accessible to everyone else. He was pictured naked, swimming after a dollar bill on a fish hook, in an image that became another iconic aspect of an album whose lead track "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was ubiquitous across MTV and radio stations around the world.Īt the heart of the album's success were the strange contradictions of Cobain, who was torn between apathy and rebellion, sweetness and rage.