Nirvana Baby Recreates ‘Nevermind’ Cover for Album’s 25th Anniversary
As far as album covers go, they don't get much more iconic that the 4-month-old baby found on Nirvana's landmark disc Nevermind. While fans around the world celebrated the record's 25th anniversary over the weekend , Spencer Elden, the baby featured on the album cover, did so in the most fitting of ways.
Much like Elden did for the album's 15th anniversary, he jumped into a pool to provide an updated version of the now classic cover. In the photo below, the "Nevermind" tattoo etched in cursive across his chest bears the significance the album has had on his life, although he is reportedly a bigger fan of the Clash that the grunge legends that pictured him on the album that made its way into the hands of over 30 million people around the globe since its release.
While Elden sports swimming trunks in the photo below (via photographer John Chapple's Instagram), he first envisioned recreating the album cover in a more purist way, telling the New York Post, “I said to the photographer, ‘Let’s do it naked.’ But he thought that would be weird, so I wore my swim shorts."
Reflecting on Nevermind's meteor-like impact, he continued, “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."
Los-Angeles based photographer John Chapple took the photo, paying Elden $200, the same amount his family received for the original photo shoot a quarter century ago.
See Where Nirvana's Nevermind Landed on the Top 90 Hard Rock + Metal Albums of the 1990s
Red Hot Chili Peppers' Chad Smith Talks 25th Anniversary of Nevermind + RHCP's Blood Sugar Sex Magik