Αυστραλία, 1992. Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl. Φωτ. Shelli Hyrkas.
Ο Kurt Cobain στο Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver, 1991.Φωτ. Charles Peterson.
Οι Nirvana στα γυρίσματα του βίντεο για το σιγκλ.
Smells Like Teen Spirit, το βίντεο του 1991. Geffen Records.
Οι "anarchists cheerleaders" στο βίντεο του 1991. Φωτ. Shelli Hyrkas.
Η "φεμινιστική κληρονομιά" των Nirvana, και ιδίως του Kurt Cobain, αναφέρεται από την Amanda Marcotte στο The Educated Imagination :
Nirvana’s opening salvo in its assault on mainstream rock, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” did more than just wash away any musical relevance of bands like Poison and Winger, but it also laid waste to the sexism that fueled so much hair metal and other dude-centric hard rock. The first human faces you see in the video for “Smells Like Teen Spirit” belong not to the band members, but to a group of heavily tattooed women dressed like anarchist cheerleaders, a swift but brutal rebuttal to all the images of acceptable femininity that your average suburban teenager lived with at the time. Forget the hair metal groupies or the bubbly beauty queen cheerleaders. For girls watching this video, it was a revelation: You could instead choose to be a badass.
The cheerleaders were just a taste of what Kurt Cobain had up his sleeve when it came to subverting traditional gender roles. It wasn’t just the kick-ass women in this one video. Nirvana baked feminist ideas right into their lyrics and image. Nirvana had songs like “Polly,” “Pennyroyal Tea,” and “Breed,” which dealt directly with gender issues from a pro-feminist perspective, and songs like “About a Girl” and “All Apologies,” which employed a layered, nuanced understanding of love and gender. Alison, 31, who reached out through Twitter, marveled at the gap between Nirvana and the bands like Warrant that came before it, saying, “So much of the music made by men at the time that was popular was all about how women were basically just holes to fuck,” adding that Cobain, “felt like a guy who viewed women as people.”
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Nirvana’s feminism stemmed directly from the Northwest rock scene that birthed the band. Even though they were associated with Seattle, NPR’s music critic Ann Powers noted, “They came out of Olympia, a much different scene, more female-dominated.” Riot grrrl—a subgenre of punk rock that focused on empowering girls to speak out on feminist topics such as reproductive rights and sexual violence—sprang from the same circles as Nirvana, and Cobain made friends with famous riot grrrls Tobi Vail and Kathleen Hanna, who inadvertently gave Cobain the title idea for "Smells Like Teen Spirit". “From the very beginning, he was aware of the gender issue,” Powers said, arguing that the riot grrrls “were important to him.” Fans of both Nirvana and riot grrrl agree. Kate described Nirvana as “a riot grrrl band, basically.” Tara, who was living in Alabama when she discovered Nirvana, particularly admired the riot grrrl connection, saying, “The thing I really loved about that was it didn’t seem like a stunt. They ran with the riot grrrl crowd out of genuine admiration for them and what they stood for.”
Εις ανάμνηση των "anarchists cheerleaders" των Nirvana στο αφιέρωμα του περιοδικού Spin. Φωτ. Steven Brahms .
Περιοδικό Spin : Τι σημαίνει το Nevermind είκοσι χρόνια μετά.
East Ballroom, Husky Union Building, University of Washington, Seattle. Φωτ. Tracy Marander.
Reading Festival, Αγγλία (23-08-1991).
Kurt Cobain, Raji's, Los Angeles, 1990. Φωτ. Charles Peterson.
Raji's, Los Angeles, 1990. Φωτ. Charles Peterson.
Βίντεο κλιπ των Nirvana στο Bloom, 1992. Geffen Records.
Φωτ. Charles Peterson.
Τα φωτογραφικά βιβλία του Charles Peterson.
Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love και Frances Bean. Οι ασπρόμαυρες φωτογραφίες της Frances Bean είναι του σχεδιαστή Hedi Slimane.
"Smells Like Teen Spirit", εντιτόριαλ μόδας του Carter Smith για το περιοδικό Elle.
Εντιτόριαλ μόδας “Grunge & Glory” του Steven Meisel για τη Vogue (1992).
Nadja Auermann και Naomi Campbell.
Live των Nirvana το 1988 στο σπίτι της μητέρας του Krist Novoselic (Aberdeen, Washington). Πίσω από την κάμερα ο Robert Novoselic.
Φωτ. (αριστ.) : Mark Seliger.
In the summer of 1991, DGC Records hired Kirk Weddle, an advertising photographer specializing in underwater work, to shoot the cover of the much-anticipated album by recent signees, Nirvana. He borrowed Spencer Elden, the toddler son of some friends, and decamped to a local Los Angeles pool for the now-iconic shot. But somewhere out there, unbeknownst to her, there's a nearly 21-year-old girl who was this close to being the Nevermind baby. (If you're her, give us a call!)
Kirk Weddle (photographer):
At the time, I was mostly shooting cars -- brochures and stuff. I didn't even know Nirvana. Kurt originally wanted a shot of a kid being born underwater, but Geffen thought that was a little extreme. I can't say for sure if the chasing the dollar bill was a dig at the label, but that's how it looks.
We originally shot Spencer -- one dunk, give him a little shove, bang bang bang -- and that was it, a half a roll of film. But that's a difficult thing to deliver to a client, like, "Here's your one frame, gimme my check," and it was such a dick shot. So I went to this school where they teach babies to swim and offered $50 to bring their kids to try out and $200 if we picked them as a model. This one girl was like a machine -- couldn't walk, couldn't talk, but she would just motor around underwater. The labels saw the photos and were like, "We want the dick, we want the dick." It was bizarre. I have no idea at all who the girl was or where she is now. I'd like to know what happened to that chick.
After the shoot, they were like, "Hey, here's a bunch of tickets, come to the show." I've had people love the photo, I've had people give me grief about it, but it held up and it's a cool image. But I don't want that defining my life.
Now that Spencer's old enough, I'd like to shoot him swimming nude again. Would you guys do full-frontal adult male nudity?
As told to Steve Kandell.
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