Nirvana Is Being Sued for Its Most Iconic Album Cover
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You know this baby. Everyone knows this baby! The cover of Nirvana's 1991 LP, Nevermind, which featured a naked four-month-old floating underwater, chasing a dollar bill on a fish hook, surrounded by bubbles, is nearly as iconic as the songs it adorned. One of the most famous covers in music history, it has been recreated plenty times in pop culture—several times even by the subject, named Spencer Elden—but, now, 30 years after its release, it's embroiled in new controversy.
On Wednesday, news broke that Elden and his lawyers have filed suit against the estate of former Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, Cobain's wife at the time of his death, Courtney Love, the grunge outfit's surviving members, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, as well we the image's photographer, Kirk Weddle, and art director, Robert Fisher. It also named the labels behind the album's distribution as well as the executors of Cobain's estate and the managers of the estate. As Variety, who has obtained a copy of the filing, reports, former Nirvana drummer Chad Channing is also a defendant, despite the fact that he had already been replaced by Grohl by this time.
Elden alleges that he has suffered "lifelong damages" and that his guardians never signed a release "authorizing the use of any images of Spencer or of his likeness, and certainly not of commercial child pornography depicting him." He is also launching claims of sexual exploitation at the image, suing for distribution of private sexually explicit materials, negligence, and what his team has described as a "sex trafficking venture."
He is seeking at least $150,000 from each defendant as well as compensation for legal fees.
The cover image has long been understood to be a comment on capitalism, but, as Variety adds, Elden's attorneys have arrived at a different conclusion: "Defendants intentionally commercially marketed Spencer’s child pornography and leveraged the shocking nature of his image to promote themselves and their music at his expense. Defendants used child pornography depicting Spencer as an essential element of a record promotion scheme commonly utilized in the music industry to get attention, wherein album covers posed children in a sexually provocative manner to gain notoriety, drive sales, and garner media attention, and critical reviews."
Elden has recreated the image on a number of the album's noteworthy anniversaries, but in interviews has occasionally waxed ambivalently about his own involvement, and has expressed dismay that his parents received just $200 for his shoot. "Everyone involved in the album has tons and tons of money," he told TIME in 2016, for the 25th anniversary. "I feel like I’m the last little bit of grunge rock," Elden says, "I’m living in my mom’s house and driving a Honda Civic."
He also added that his attempts to contact Grohl and Novoselic have always been unsuccessful, and in the same interview he hinted at feeling exploited. "It’s hard not to get upset when you hear how much money was involved,” he says. "[When] I go to a baseball game and think about it: 'Man, everybody at this baseball game has probably seen my little baby penis,' I feel like I got part of my human rights revoked."
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