Re: The Music Thread
Posted: Wed Aug 25, 2021 6:18 pm
I guess I'll put this here.
Man photographed as baby on 'Nevermind' cover sues Nirvana, alleging child pornography
The man who was photographed naked underwater as a baby and later ended up on Nirvana's iconic "Nevermind" album cover filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging he was a victim of child pornography.
The album cover shows Spencer Elden, now 30, in a swimming pool as a then-infant with his penis exposed.
The image used for the cover of Nirvana's sophomore 1991 album includes a digital imposition of a dollar bill on a fishhook that the baby looks like he is trying to grab. The cover was widely considered a rebuke of capitalism.
Nonsexualized nude photos of infants are generally not considered child pornography under law. But Elden's lawyer, Robert Y. Lewis, alleges the inclusion of currency in the shot makes the baby appear "like a sex worker."
Kurt Cobain "chose the image depicting Spencer—like a sex worker— grabbing for a dollar bill that is positioned dangling from a fishhook in front of his nude body with his penis explicitly displayed," the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, stated.
Elden is asking for at least $150,000 from each of the defendants, who include include surviving band members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic; Courtney Love, the executor of Cobain's estate; Guy Oseary and Heather Parry, managers of Cobain's estate; photographer Kirk Weddle; art director Robert Fisher; and a number of existing or defunct record companies that released or distributed the album in the last three decades.
Original Nirvana drummer Chad Channing is also named as a defendant, even though he had been replaced by Grohl in 1990, before the album was recorded or the cover photography shot.
Entertainment Weekly reported in 1992 that Elden, at 4 months old, was cast for the shoot along with four other babies. Cobain commissioned the shoot after he had seen a documentary on babies being born underwater and "thought the image would make a cool cover," Fisher told the magazine at the time. "That vision was a bit too graphic, so we went with the swimming baby instead.”
Weddle took the pictures in an Olympic-size pool at the Pasadena aquatic center in California.
"Weddle took a series of sexually graphic nude photographs of Spencer," the suit said. "To ensure the album cover would trigger a visceral sexual response from the viewer, Weddle activated Spencer’s ‘gag reflex’ before throwing him underwater in poses highlighting and emphasizing Spencer’s exposed genitals."
"Weddle produced these sexually graphic images with the goal of enhancing and increasing the commercial success of Nirvana, L.L.C.’s Nevermind album," the suit said.
The album was selling about 300,000 copies a week when it reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 in early 1992. The album, with classics “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Come as You Are,” has spent at least 335 total weeks on the Billboard 200.
The cover image did receive pushback, at which point Cobain agreed to release the album with a sticker over Elden's genitals that said: "If you’re offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile."
"The sticker, however, was never incorporated into the album cover," the lawsuit said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop ... y-n1277578
Man photographed as baby on 'Nevermind' cover sues Nirvana, alleging child pornography
The man who was photographed naked underwater as a baby and later ended up on Nirvana's iconic "Nevermind" album cover filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging he was a victim of child pornography.
The album cover shows Spencer Elden, now 30, in a swimming pool as a then-infant with his penis exposed.
The image used for the cover of Nirvana's sophomore 1991 album includes a digital imposition of a dollar bill on a fishhook that the baby looks like he is trying to grab. The cover was widely considered a rebuke of capitalism.
Nonsexualized nude photos of infants are generally not considered child pornography under law. But Elden's lawyer, Robert Y. Lewis, alleges the inclusion of currency in the shot makes the baby appear "like a sex worker."
Kurt Cobain "chose the image depicting Spencer—like a sex worker— grabbing for a dollar bill that is positioned dangling from a fishhook in front of his nude body with his penis explicitly displayed," the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, stated.
Elden is asking for at least $150,000 from each of the defendants, who include include surviving band members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic; Courtney Love, the executor of Cobain's estate; Guy Oseary and Heather Parry, managers of Cobain's estate; photographer Kirk Weddle; art director Robert Fisher; and a number of existing or defunct record companies that released or distributed the album in the last three decades.
Original Nirvana drummer Chad Channing is also named as a defendant, even though he had been replaced by Grohl in 1990, before the album was recorded or the cover photography shot.
Entertainment Weekly reported in 1992 that Elden, at 4 months old, was cast for the shoot along with four other babies. Cobain commissioned the shoot after he had seen a documentary on babies being born underwater and "thought the image would make a cool cover," Fisher told the magazine at the time. "That vision was a bit too graphic, so we went with the swimming baby instead.”
Weddle took the pictures in an Olympic-size pool at the Pasadena aquatic center in California.
"Weddle took a series of sexually graphic nude photographs of Spencer," the suit said. "To ensure the album cover would trigger a visceral sexual response from the viewer, Weddle activated Spencer’s ‘gag reflex’ before throwing him underwater in poses highlighting and emphasizing Spencer’s exposed genitals."
"Weddle produced these sexually graphic images with the goal of enhancing and increasing the commercial success of Nirvana, L.L.C.’s Nevermind album," the suit said.
The album was selling about 300,000 copies a week when it reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 in early 1992. The album, with classics “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and “Come as You Are,” has spent at least 335 total weeks on the Billboard 200.
The cover image did receive pushback, at which point Cobain agreed to release the album with a sticker over Elden's genitals that said: "If you’re offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile."
"The sticker, however, was never incorporated into the album cover," the lawsuit said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop ... y-n1277578
