How did they get the album cover for Nevermind?
One of rock’s most iconic images was captured by a photographer and an art director; they explain how the cover was created. How did they get the album cover for Nevermind? Grunge was popularized by Nirvana’s second album, Nevermind, which was released this month 25 years ago and transformed rock and roll. Equally as innovative…
One of rock’s most iconic images was captured by a photographer and an art director; they explain how the cover was created.
How did they get the album cover for Nevermind?
Grunge was popularized by Nirvana’s second album, Nevermind, which was released this month 25 years ago and transformed rock and roll.
Equally as innovative as the music itself was the album’s cover artwork, which featured a naked, 4-month-old baby swimming for a dollar note attached to a fish hook while immersed in water. EW spoke with the photographer and art director in 1992 to get the inside scoop on how the well-known portrait was created. Read the summary that follows.
Okay, now throw the baby into the water.
Photographer Kirk Weddle claimed that Spencer Elden, a 4-month-old baby who was shown on the number-one album Nevermind cover, was on the road to fame with those remarks. You are conscious of the setting: They stood in the shallow end of the pool, either being passed by workers or the parents of the babies. When little Spencer first got in the water, a caregiver blasted a puff of air into his face to make him wrinkle his nose, and he floated aimlessly for three or four seconds toward the bottom.
Rick Elden, the inventor of movie props, recalls that Spencer’s little body “obviously felt the adrenaline surge.” Spencer gasped and asked, “What was that?” Weddle survived five shots before realizing he was safe. Later, the fishhook was taken out of the picture at Cobain’s request.
For his skinny-dipping adventure, Spencer was paid $250 (the normal hourly rate for a no-name model), and Ed Rosenblatt, the head of Geffen Records, later handed him a triple-platinum album. The sparkling disc is on display in the family’s living room in Los Angeles. A Nevermind poster hangs over Spencer’s little bed.
When asked whether Spencer likes Nirvana, Rick Elden responds, “very indifferent to the music.” In the future, he might work as a rock reviewer.
