The singer then brought this up next time he saw Geffen’s art director Robert Fisher who discovered some stock footage of underwater births which was immediately ruled out by the label bosses. On one hand, he sees it as an honour but, on the other, it leaves him feeling strange that millions of people have a picture of his penis on a CD cover.Ĭobain was the mastermind behind the operation and the initial idea came to the late frontman when he was watching a programme about water births.

The child that featured on the record was Spencer Elden, who still has mixed feelings towards his appearance on the sleeve. The group were determined to enact their vision and their somewhat uncompromising position is part of what made Nirvana so adored. Geffen, the band’s first major label, did try their best to change Nirvana’s collective mind but it was to no avail. The band’s decision for the album imagery was one they made without much guidance from their new record label. Here, we unravel the story of one of the most famous album covers of all time. After seeing the album cover so many times you become normalised to its presence but it is absolutely astonishing that the band’s major-label debut was allowed to feature a baby’s penis on the front cover in the social climate of the early nineties. The record’s cover famously shows a naked baby swimming with a dollar bill dangling on a fishing hook ahead of him. Every aspect of the pioneering record was unprecedented, all the way from the challenging themes that the band tackle on the LP to what might be the most controversial facet of the record the album sleeve. Nirvana’s 1991 album Nevermind is a masterpiece that transcended music, becoming a zeitgeist cultural phenomenon, sending shockwaves across the globe in the process.

Nirvana nevermind cover story