Thursday, November 13, 2008

Nirvana's Nevermind baby recreates famous image

The baby who graced the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind album has recreated the famous image 17 years on. Spencer Elden was the four-month-old baby photographed in a swimming pool reaching towards a dollar bill on the end of a fish hook.


Now a teenager, Spencer Eldon strikes a familiar pose

The picture became the cover of Nirvana's second album, released in September 1991, which went on to sell 26 million records worldwide. Seventeen years later, he has recreated the classic underwater shot, this time wearing shorts. Now the 17-year-old high school student, who lives in Eagle Rock, near Glendale, California and his ambitions are to go to art school next year.

In 1991, his parents were paid $200 for allowing their friend, underwater photographer Kirk Weddle, to photograph their baby. The original photograph and the recent recreation by the British photographer John Chapple were shot from the bottom of the pool at the Rose Bowl Aquatic Centre in Pasedena, 17 ft (five metres) underwater.

Spencer said: "It's kind of cool, knowing that I've been on an album cover"


Spencer Eldon stars on Nirvana's Nevermind album

"But I feel pretty normal about it because growing up, I've always known I was the Nirvana baby. It never really struck me like, 'Oh, ****, that's me on the cover'."

"Quite a few people in the world have seen my penis. It's kind of cool, I guess," he told the Independent. "I feel like I'm the world's biggest porn star. But I'm just a normal kid living it up and doing the best I can while I'm here."

For Nirvana, it was the band's breakthrough record, bringing the Seattle grunge scene to a worldwide audience. The first single, Smells Like Teen Spirit has been described as one of the greatest rock songs of all time.

The album replaced Michael Jackson's album Dangerous at number one. Three years after its release, Kurt Cobain, the band's lead singer, shot himself in a suicide believed to be linked to his drug addiction.

SOURCE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk

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