Want to feel old? Aussie cyclist draws Nirvana baby in Strava on streets of Adelaide because Nevermind is 30

Poor Spencer Elden. Not only does the chap have to live with his "unauthorised" baby pic on the cover of Nirvana's breakthrough record Nevermind – the image has now been immortalised on the streets of Adelaide via GPS exercise tracker Strava. In case you missed it, Nevermind, one of the greatest guitar albums ever made, turned …

[phuzz]

The embedded image went really wrong for me here. (Disabling my ad blocker makes no difference)

The text at 45 degrees is a nice touch.

[Excellentsword]

Indeed! Sorry about that.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pay

Shouldn't you help The Register pay its staff by allowing its adverts?

I know I do, and I do it for all my favourite publications. In my opinion it's the least you can do.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Pay

When the adverts don't get in the way of the content, yes.

I have CSS overrides for some sites, but network-level blocking for the most egregious ad networks.

[mhoneywell]

Re: Pay

"... network-level blocking for the most egregious ad networks." Such as?

[W.S.Gosset]

Re: Pay

A few years ago I got sick of my computer getting crunched when I had a lot of browser pages open, grabbed an ad at random, and de-obfuscated its code. Just to see what the hell an average ad was doing.

17,000 lines of javascript. 1 ad.

[Chris G]

I am more bothered by the fact it is an unotified link to Instagram, a child of Feacebook.

Links ought to come with a health warning.

[Androgynous Cupboard]

"compare Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains, for example." - a good suggestion, back in a few hours.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait

First compare Clapton, Van Halen, Ozzy, and Jimi Freakin Hendrix.

[Potemkine!]

Grunge saved music from the deliquescence of the 80s. It opened the door to a resurrection of Rock n' Roll

[ThatOne]

You consider it resurrected?

_{I'm probably an old fogy but I consider its current state as "undead".}

[Sgt_Oddball]

Punk's not dead.

It just smells that way

- Trad.

Beer icon because everyone's been too a gig where you stuck to the floor at least once.

[phuzz]

If kids ever start listening to music that their parents generation approve of, it'll be a sad day.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

30 years ?

It was released in the 90s which as we all know was just 10 years ago, 1970 was 25 years ago

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 30 years ?

Wow.

So that is what passes for "math skills" in the UK nowadays.

The actual date of release is readily available: 1991.

Now, follow me, Bueller. 2021 - 1991 = 30.

What a shame the education system in the UK is so bad that not only did you come up with such drivel, six people upvoted you for it! *LOL*

[dak]

Re: 30 years ?

Whoooosh!!

[fix]

Re: 30 years ?

And such a shame that you have the total inability recognise a joke?

Unfortunately that's not something you get taught at school.

[Sgt_Oddball]

Re: 30 years ?

You must be new here. Please see your local publican for a course in sarcasm. It's the native tongue round these parts...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: 30 years ?

I thought it was what we were using instead of ID cards to discover sceptics lurking amongst us ?

[W.S.Gosset]

Re: 30 years ?

^sceptics^septics

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: 30 years ?

Sorry American phone autocorrect

[batfink]

Pah

This new-fangled music. It'll never catch on. You just mark my words, young'un.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Pah

Guitar groups are on their way out, Mr Epstein

[ShadowSystems]

Want to feel old?

Not particularly. Do I feel old? Like you wouldn't believe. I am, after all, so old I helped cause The Big Bang. *Sigh*

[tfewster]

Re: Want to feel old?

Sound like an upcoming "Who, me?" is needed

[Eclectic Man]

The now adult young gentleman on the cover of 'Nirvana' is rather upset that pretty much the entire population of the Western world has seen his infant willy, and is suing for compensation. Can't say I blame him really, as it must be it embarrassing trying to ask someone out and getting the obvious questions and comments.

[stiine]

The problem is that he's been riding, as it were, that gravy train for at least a decade.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

> as it must be it embarrassing trying to ask someone out

He claims he would go up to women in bars and ask "do you want to see my penis, again ?"

[Fruit and Nutcase]

may be he could sign up with OnlyFans and make some money that way.

Or NFTs of pictures of his todger

[veti]

Well, maybe he should come up with a chat up line that doesn't mention that, then.

[AIBailey]

Cobblers!

He's been dining out on his fame for years, reproducing the album cover on several occasions as he's grown up.

And let's face it, if he stopped "outing" himself, not a single person other than his parents would actually know it was him.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to break it to you, but I consider Nickelback to be considerably better sounding than Nirvana. I never did understand why hearing someone mumble around a mouthful of marbles while the band cranked the distortion to hide their lack of skill was so popular...

[JDPower666]

You forgot the sarcasm tag.

[veti]

I feel like the entire history of music just whooshed past you.

[Kane]

"I hate to break it to you, but I consider Nickelback to be considerably better sounding than Nirvana. I never did understand why hearing someone mumble around a mouthful of marbles while the band cranked the distortion to hide their lack of skill was so popular..."

That's fine, and regarding Nickelback, you're perfectly entitled to your musical opinion, but to claim that Nirvana had no skill is doing a bit of disservice to their and Kurts' songwriting ability.

I'll just leave these videos here so you can educate yourself a bit more regarding the songwriting stuff - these are from Rick Beato, a reasonably respected musician and producer in his own right but also an academic and analyser of songwriting construction and music theory, taken from his series "What Makes This Song Great".

Episode 4 - On A Plain, from Nevermind (but covers a little bit about Heart Shaped Box)

Episode 44 - Heart Shaped Box, from In Utero (but covers some general songwriting stuff as well)

Episode 90 - Smells Like Teen Spirit, from Nevermind

However, I expect that you won't watch these videos because you already have an opinion formed regarding Nirvana.

You could however prove me wrong, if you feel like it?

[James Hughes 1]

Only discovered Rick Beato recently - well worth watching his stuff.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

>hearing someone mumble around a mouthful of marbles while the band cranked the distortion to hide their lack of skill was so popular...

Because he is a genius

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no "fine line" between genius and madness; it is all in the mind of the perceiver.

You say Cobain was a genius; I say he was mad. The way he ended it supports my perspective.

Far more likely, they came out in your formative years, while my tastes had largely been settled by then, though I've come to appreciate a lot of talent over the years beyond that initial repertoire.

On the bright side, pretty much every one of my favorite bands I listen to has been together for more on the order of 35-40 years, if they're still in the business. There is nothing like the recent treat that Iron Maiden's 2021 release was to my ears; over three decades of practice and experience starting out with raw talent.

Now THAT, in my books, constitutes "genius." Anyone can have a brain fart; it takes a whole different level of character to produce and keep producing for an entire lifetime while getting BETTER at ones craft the whole duration...