Senseless Pursuit In Grunge:
An Analysis of Nirvana’s Nevermind (1991) Cover
(nirvana_nevermind_cover.jpg, 2011)
The popularization and distribution of music during the second half of the twentieth century came to include visual images as cover art, offering recording artists a venue beyond lyrics in which to complement persuasive and political statements. Many cite the Beatles' complex efforts of collage and photography in 1967 as defining a work of music's packaging as a work of art itself, the result being Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (1973) displayed a prism and the separation of white light into a spectrum of color, serving as a metaphor for the work of music enclosed. In 1991, at the time of the release of Nirvana's Nevermind album, images artists chose as cover art were displayed on cardboard sleeves for vinyl records, on paper labels for cassette tapes, and on square booklets enclosed in compact disc cases[1]. In order to understand Nirvana's choice of cover art, it is necessary to understand the genre of the band's music and the genesis of the band itself.
Nirvana—Kurt Cobain, Kris Novaselic and Dave Grohl—formed in the late 1980s in Washington state. Many music critics since have used Nirvana to define the genre of “grunge,” a genre of rock that gained popularity in the 1990s, drawing on traditions of punk, rock, and heavy metal music while adding a new element of psychological self-critique, and, at times, outright self-loathing. The depiction of an infant in pursuit of a hook baited with a dollar underwater serves as the cover for Nirvana's most successful album, Nevermind (1991), and this image complements the album's bleak lyrics. The infant, with arms outstretched and in pursuit of a trivial amount of money, might define Cobain's nirvana itself, as his moment of enlightenment came before the dollar was caught; for millions who purchased Nevermind (1991), and likely identified with the infant's intention and circumstances as depicted on the cover art, quests for trivial wealth continue.
Innocence and Attainment in the Deep: Visual Analysis of the Nevermind (1991) Cover
Five elements comprise the cover of Nevermind (1991) and four are built within one photograph: water, an infant, a dollar bill, and a hook on a string. The fifth element is the black text that identifies the album itself: in the lower left corner, the band’s name is written in its trademark font and underlined. Beneath that line is the name of the album, appearing almost immersed itself, in its own distinct and wavy font, restrained by the weight of the tall capital letters above. The bottom quarter of the image is a solid blue, the darkest depths of the swimming pool; this region is further weighted by the heavy rectangular imprint of the band’s name and the album’s title. All else is above; this may signify that, for all the dramatic action happening above, the material enclosed, Nevermind (1991) by Nirvana, resides below, in a darker place.
The cover is predominantly blue; the child's features are appropriately a flesh tone, and a pale light green tints the dollar bill. The hook, barely visible against the background of the surface of the water, is dragged by a visible white string that points towards the upper right corner of the image. Lights above the surface of the swimming pool set an ominous background for the infant’s pose, as the surface of the water appears to stretch limitlessly behind the baby's reaching arms. Unknown and dark markings stretch above the surface of water, almost parallel to the edge of the frame along its left side; this establishes some foreboding element in the environment above the water, as if to imply that should the infant resurface, other circumstance may be rediscovered above.
The infant floats with arms outstretched, fingers spread, and legs folded back, about to grasp the dollar with both hands. His eyes are open as he looks to the dollar. His mouth is also open, and few air bubbles emerge from his mouth or nostrils--few enough that one may wonder if the infant is breathing. His facial expression may be difficult to define, for he is perceiving the dollar and does not appear frantic about his underwater circumstance. The infant's penis is clearly visible, pointing almost directly at the last letter in the band's name. The brightest areas of the cover are in areas of visible light across the infant's arms and lower legs; the child is luminous, and provides the viewer a dramatic context for one individual's quest.
Cobain’s choice for the cover of Nevermind (1991) was an image of an infant underwater chasing a dollar bill on a hook: a lone individual, of an unsuspecting age, is caught in useless and deadly pursuit, and is rapt in unconquerable circumstance. The photograph was taken by Michael Lavine, of his son, Spencer Elden (Lehner, 2007, para. 5); the album credits Robert Fisher with “artwork, art direction, design, cover design,” Lavine is credited with “photography,” and Spencer Elden is listed as the “infant in the cover photo” (Nirvana, 1991).The scene established by these elements is one of tragic and dramatic action. At its heart, the innocence of the infant chases the new challenging stimulus of the representation of wealth. Temporarily suspending the fiction of the photograph, whoever baits a hook to lure an infant might be called an unsurpassed destructive force. This entity is not depicted, but is presumably above the surface of the water, the inventor of the drama; without the dollar dragging along and moving from left to right across the frame, only a sad drowning would be shown. The infant’s eyes look toward the bait with expectation, leaving the viewer to wonder how aware the infant may be, of the role he is playing in someone else’s larger scheme.
Trivial Pursuits: Lyrical Context for the Nevermind (1991) Cover
One voice sings on Nevermind (1991), and it is Cobain’s own, though it may as well have been the dying voice of the underwater infant depicted on the album's cover. Cobain's obituary in the New York Times identified him as being amongst a group of “grunge” musicians whose financial success was based on giving artistic embodiment to a generation's “rootless anger and dysfunction” (Ali, 1994, as cited by Kahn, 1999, para. 19). Elements of anger and dysfunction characterize the lyrics of the songs found on Nevermind (1991), as Cobain discussed themes of pursuit, failure, and innocence.
Nevermind (1991)'s first hit single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” was widely received and popular; many critics have acknowledged its importance as an example of grunge and as a historical artifact that identifies a philosophical, if not social movement. Its chorus was, at the time of its release, a lyrical call to unification of grunge music: “I feel stupid and contagious/here we are now/entertain us” (Nirvana, 1991). Technology, new media, and a massive economy surrounding arts and entertainment had, in Cobain's view, reached a tipping point: as a consumer and participant in society, he felt incapable and tragic, in need of external stimulation like the infant on the cover. Other lyrics on Nevermind (1991) identify similar themes of inability and anger:
he’s the one/who likes all the pretty songs/and he likes to sing along/and he likes to shoot his gun/but he knows not what it mean (Nirvana, 1991, Nevermind, “In Bloom”)
come as you are/as you were/as I want you to be/as a friend/as a friend/as an old enemy (Nirvana, 1991, “Come as You Are”).
I’m so happy/cause today I found my friends/they’re in my head/I’m so ugly/that’s OK, cause so are you (Nirvana, 1991, “Lithium”).
Each song on Nevermind (1991) identifies a world in which individuals are unable to adequately meet societal and personal expectations, and Cobain's lyrics shift from first to second to third person to accomplish this argument. “Come as you are” is especially significant in this, as listeners are encouraged to redefine themselves in whatever form is most apt to create community. “I'm so ugly/that's OK cause so are you” is an especially humbling call to commonality by Cobain; friends, identity, and public and private self-image is important to Cobain throughout the lyrics on Nevermind (1991).
The infant on the cover of Nevermind (1991) embodies Cobain's lyrical attitude: one of cynicism, that an individual may decay into mental illness (“I found my friends/they're in my head”) or self-destructive behavior, in their seeking to make sense of their world, and before any enlightenment may truly occur. Many of the lyrics on Nevermind (1991) reflect brutal and tireless self-evaluation, creating a world in which personal discovery and accomplishment may result only in revelations of emptiness and inability: not chasing a thousand or even hundred, but a one dollar bill alone.
A Rhetoric for Grunge: Implications of the Nevermind (1991) Cover
The cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind (1991) tried to capture the existential struggle of an innocent generation, lured by money that moves on a stringed hook, pulled by another. Cobain’s original title for Nevermind was “Sheep,” but he accepted Nevermind for its poor syntax as well as the creed it implies: lazy abandonment of a task at-hand, as in the pursuit of the dollar underwater—Nevermind, for such pursuit puts one’s very life at stake, a fact his own suicide may have sought to prove. To what extent did the ‘grunge’ movement, if not wider society, abandon its deadly ‘underwater’ pursuits of wealth?
Cobain’s attitude regarding the nudity on the cover held little regard for widespread public appeal; perhaps he was aware to what extent the production and success of Nevermind (1991) would be baiting a major monetary hook; perhaps Cobain's disdain for existing frameworks for profit in the music industry drove his choice of a naked infant for the cover. The prominence of the infant’s penis, against the deepest blue of the background, pointed downward toward the last letter in the band’s name. Cobain answered Geffen Records’ concerns about this nudity, by the concession that the genitals be covered by a sticker that sought to be more offensive than the image itself, reading: “if you’re offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile” (Wikipedia, 2011, para. 24). Cobain's solution proved more offensive to Geffen, and its marketing executives; in this, Cobain's attitude triumphed, and the cover was published as fully displaying the child's penis.
The metaphor of the hook baited with money may have become less of a metaphor since this image was first publicized. The infant, at age seventeen, was offered $1,000 by a photographer to recreate the image (Patterson, 2008, para. 4), and CNN's headline “Naked “Nirvana” baby still chasing dollars” (2008) noted the bitter irony. Twenty years after the release of Nevermind (1991) most of Cobain's generation, and the generation that has followed still values generating income and wealth, swimming, often at great peril, to obtain such. In the process, many have risked or lost innocence and humility in the process. Some may have come to seek to identify with the unseen force that drags the hook, and some have followed the bait itself blindly.
Twenty Years Underwater: Legacy of the Nevermind (1991) Cover
Against the grain of larger-than-life musical performers of the 1980s, Nirvana front man and songwriter Kurt Cobain helped establish categories of “grunge” and “alternative” in the 1990s. The cover of Nevermind (1991), conceived by Cobain himself while watching a documentary on water births with bassist Novaselic (“Nevermind”, n.d., para. 24), initiates a viewer’s thinking about the juxtaposition of innocence and a simultaneous struggle for wealth-- and not much. Interpretation of this image remains salient and political, for the pursuit of wealth alongside loss of innocence may continue to characterize an American dream.
Works Cited
Benjamin, W. (1936). The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. In Marxists.org. Retrieved from http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm
Harris, C. (2008). Nirvana baby—all grown up—re-creates classic Nevermind cover image. In MTV News. Retrieved from http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1598985/nirvana-baby-recreates-classic-nevermind-cover-image.jhtml#more
Kahn, S. (1999). Kurt Cobain, martyrdom, and the problem of agency. In Studies in Popular Culture. Retrieved from http://pcasacas.org/SiPC/22.3/kahn.html
Lehner, M. (2007). Nirvana baby talks about the famous album cover. In People. Retrieved from http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20051839,00.html
Nevermind. (n.d.). Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevermind
Nirvana. (1991). Nevermind. [compact disc]. New York, NY: Geffen.
nirvana_nevermind_cover.jpg. [Image file]. Retrieved from http://sleevage.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/nirvana_nevermind_cover.jpg
Patterson, T. (2008). Naked ‘Nirvana baby’ still chasing dollars. In CNN Entertainment. Retrieved from http://articles.cnn.com/2008-12-11/entertainment/nirvana.baby_1_nirvana-grunge-album-marks?_s=PM:SHOWBIZ
Weinstein, D. (1995). Alternative youth: The ironies of recapturing youth culture. Young, 3, 2-12. doi: 10.1177/110330889500300106
List of number-one albums of 1992 (U.S.). (n.d.). Retrieved from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_number-one_albums_of_1992_%28U.S.%29
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Tragic Infotainment: The Death of Kurt Cobain
“Infotainment” is form of journalism that has developed alongside new communication technologies within the public sphere; as a form of media, infotainment is often sensational, the portrayl of individuals' irrational or unexpected behavior. Three examples from the media, two published recently after Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain’s suicide, and one from a 2004 Dateline feature on conspiracy theories regarding Cobain’s death, make specific journalistic use of celebrities’ personal tragedy. The evolving definition of infotainment is important to an understanding of a modern conception of the public sphere, as an abundance of major media promotes the actions of celebrities as news. Three examples of how journalists seek to manufacture consensus using Kurt Cobain's legacy and importance a musician and pop icon help identify how infotainment may be transforming the public sphere.
Infotainment and the Public Sphere
The public sphere has come to include television, print media, and a host of evolving electronic sources, including archives of previously published material. As defined by Jurgen Habermas in “The Public Sphere: An Encyclopedia Article” (1964), the public sphere “mediates between society and state, in which the public organizes itself as the bearer of public opinion” (p. 102). Rooted in the democratic notion that the public may seek new knowledge, Habermas' definition views the public sphere as performing mediation between two entities; the relationship is symbiotic, as the public develops opinions that in turn inform the media's choices in presentation. While communication technologies have grown in popularity, establishing additional realms in which the public is to construct and disseminate its popular opinion, the relationships of power established by Habermas (1964) are salient to an understanding of how infotainment is created and disseminated, and why its popularity continues.
Infotainment is a term often used to describe a form of journalism available across print, television, and electronic media. “The label “infotainment” is emblematic of concern and criticism that journalism is devolving from a medium which conveys serious information about issues affecting public interest, into a form of entertainment which happens to have fresh “facts” in the mix” (“Infotainment,” 2011, para. 2). Definitions vary, though themes of media, celebrity, entertainment, and information are common. Some scholars cite the rise of cable television networks in the 1980s and 1990s as providing a framework for new tides of programs that blend information and entertainment: emerging from a wealth of new and technological opportunities for producers, networks, and advertisers to connect with their audience, infotainment may represent a devolution in this communicative relationship.
Infotainment and the Propaganda Model
To what extent does a focus on infotainment release reporters and networks from journalistic responsibilities? Reporting the news of celebrities, however tragic, may involve less risk to reporters, networks, and advertisers than other forms of journalism: the rise of reporter personalities during the 1980s included Oprah Winfrey, Phil Donahue, and Geraldo Rivera. Each made a shift from traditional journalism into hosting programs that focused on personalities. While the transformation of these hosts' early talk shows into modern forms of infotainment warrants separate study, these changes are important to an understanding of modern infotainment.
The extent to which television news coverage became focused on the actions of individuals-- often celebrities-- may provide an example of the Propaganda Model, a widely-regarded framework that identifies relationships of power and hegemony in media coverage, established by scholars Herman and Chomsky (1988). Television as a key component of the Propaganda Model, which is based on the “systematic and highly political dichotomization in news coverage based on serviceability to domestic power interests” (Herman and Chomsky, 1988, para. 93). The Propaganda Model views the consolidation of media corporations as problematic, as economic opportunities drive choices in what the media actually covers.
The public's complicity in the low journalistic standards of infotainment is essential. In a May 2000 USA Today article, social critic Michael Medved (2000) cited television audiences as the primary reason for the rise in infotainment in the media: “we allow television to be our main source of news, and this leads to three critical distortions in our lives: self-pity, a shortened attention span, and superficiality and subjectivity” (para. 5). Medved (2000) defined exact “distortions” that come as the result of the public's widespread acceptance and lack of criticism of the television news. These “distortions” are applicable to the new forms of media that have become widespread during the twenty-first century; much scholarship regarding the relationship between attention span and cable television has determined a specific and detrimental relationship.
Complications arose following the publication of Medved’s article in 2000, not only in an increase in electronic forms of media, but in the events of September 11, 2001 in New York City. “The attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001,” wrote Owen Pikkert (2007) in “Function after Form: The Democratic Detriment of Episodic Television News,” “have greatly increased American interest in the news” (p. 55). While interest in the news increased following a national tragedy, to what extent was this interest answered by the system identified by Herman and Chomsky (1988)? “Serviceability to important domestic power interests” (Herman and Chomsky, 1988, para. 93) remains a characteristic of across genres of media. Infotainment—keeping celebrities newsworthy—may not only aid in distorting our understanding of “superficiality and subjectivity” (Medved, 2000, para. 5), but may be a way for media corporations and their advertisers to maintain existing relationships of power and economy.
Rock and Roll Suicide: An Example of Infotainment
Media coverage regarding the death of Kurt Cobain serves as an example of infotainment. Kurt Cobain’s body was discovered by a workman installing a security system on the morning of April 8, 1994 in the greenhouse attached to his suburban Seattle home. Across three chronological examples, the drift from the facts of a rock celebrity’s suicide to infotainment on speculation regarding Cobain’s choices, and the choices of his widowed wife, Courtney Love, is apparent.
April 9, 1994: Seattle Post-Intelligencer
This article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on the day following the discovery of Cobain’s body is interesting for its corporate authorship—three reporters were credited in the byline—and the structure of the article reflects perhaps what was a hasty entry into the public sphere. The article’s lengthy headline, “Cobain’s Suicide Note Ended With ‘I Love You’; Gunshot Death Shocks Nirvana Fans, But Some Say They Saw It Coming” (Goldsmith, Raley and Hadley, 1994) seeks to include information that both releases the knowledge of Cobain’s suicide only after his portrayal as a loving individual, before including fans’ opposing reactions. The article’s opening line is laden with descriptors of Cobain himself: “Rock superstar Kurt Cobain, the scruffy kid from small-town Washington who swept to fame singing of youthful alienation, was found dead yesterday of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head” (Goldsmith, Raley and Hadley, 1994). A comma separates the Seattle paper’s glowing description of Cobain from the facts of his tragic death.
The organization of the article is unique in how it makes use of Cobain’s background, as well as the first source cited, Gary Smith, the electrical contractor who found Cobain’s body (para. 5-6). Details regarding the suicide note and speculation regarding its contents are then revealed, as the article’s focus shifts to Cobain’s personal relationships and history: “In the note, according to a source close to the investigation, Cobain said he loved his wife and daughter. The last two lines said, “I love you. I love you.” Cobain wrote that he did not want the life of his 14-month-old daughter Frances to turn out like his own. Cobain’s boyhood in the timber town of Aberdeen had been disrupted by his parents’ divorce when he was 10” (para. 8-9). Compassion and empathy for Cobain is established in the description of these parts of his life.
The article proceeds to describe how “three […] guns had been take from Cobain by police at a different home last summer and later returned to him” (para. 13), and that his mother’s missing persons report, filed a week prior, was acted on by police: “[Police Capt.] Wingstrand said he wasn’t convinced Cobain was actually missing. “It was something I felt was not unusual that he would disappear like that,” he said. “I thought he may not have been truly a missing person but a person who didn’t want to be found””(para. 21). The article allows for readers’ speculation as to Cobain’s motives and intentions during his last days and hours, and provides a spectacle by which one may compare one’s own behavior: neighbors’ observations include that “the singer didn’t look well and was seen last week wearing a heavy coat on a warm day” (para. 24). The coat Cobain was seen wearing, the repetition in the suicide note, the attitudes of the police: these details may be of interest to fans of Cobain, but may also establish a vouyeristic account of a personal and individual tragedy.
April 22, 1994: Entertainment Weekly
Weeks after the discovery of Cobain’s body, Entertainment Weekly ran a photograph of Cobain on their cover, and an extensive and challenging feature article (April 22, 2004). After lengthy description of the crowd that gathered at Cobain’s Seattle home during his funeral, reporter Dana Kennedy organizes research regarding Cobain’s death around answering these questions: “What led Cobain to take his own life at a time when his careers as a musician and father were supposedly on track? Why didn’t anyone stop him?” (para. 6). Kennedy (1994) recounted Cobain’s last month, including the details of his drug overdose in Italy during Nirvana’s European tour, before refocusing her driving question: “Did anyone try to come to his aid? Or was he such a valuable franchise that those who profited from his career were reluctant to take a stand?” (para. 14).
Cobain’s relationships, to his record producers, managers and band mates is discussed, before Kennedy (1994) identifies how Cobain’s wife, Courtney Love “is taking some of the blame in her very public mourning over Cobain’s death, she has always been a lightning rod for controversy. She cemented her out-of-control, wild-babe image with her emotional, pretaped reading of portions of Cobain’s suicide note at his vigil, sometimes crying while she spoke his words, sometimes swearing at him. By all accounts, Love is a dangerous combination of flamboyant instability and focused ambition” (para. 23). Kennedy (1997) uses her description of Cobain’s funeral to establish Love as a celebrity herself, responding with her own unique rhetoric to the suicide of her husband.
Kennedy (1994) concluded by refocusing on Cobain himself, and his choices: “Cobain had talked about death like some people chat about the weather. In the end, he may have been so determined to die that no one could stop him” (para. 28). Entertainment Weekly, as a magazine focused on the nature of celebrity in the public sphere, discussed the suicide of Cobain as an event that involved professional and personal relationships, and one that involved choices and elements (including guns and drugs) unfamiliar to a general audience. This obituary provides ample context regarding an individual's tragic choices, citing far more details than initial media coverage of Cobain's suicide.
April 2, 2004: Dateline MSNBC
Ten years after the suicide of Cobain, authors Ian Halperin and Max Wallace released Love & Death: The Murder of Kurt Cobain, a biography of Cobain that asserted incorrect conclusions regarding Cobain’s death had been made, by the police, his family, and the medical examiner’s official report (“Justice for Kurt Cobain,” n.d., para. 4). Reception of Halperin and Wallace (2004) was rarely critical; this discussion will briefly examine Dateline MSNBC’s article from April 5, 2004, as a further entry of infotainment into the public sphere regarding the death of Kurt Cobain. Halperin and Wallace (2004) executed a media tour during the week of April 8, 2004, to promote their book; this tour included a variety of entries into the public sphere, including national television broadcasts (Dateline MSNBC, NBC Today, CourtTV, and CNN), syndicated radio programs, and print media, including articles in the New York Daily News, Newsday, and a number of independent media outlets (“Justice for Kurt Cobain,” n.d., para. 6-8).
MSNBC’s article is credited to Matt Lauer (2004), and its introduction makes little modern reference regarding Cobain’s death; its relevance ten years later is assumed to still be considered “news” in the public sphere:
It ended and began with his death. Ten years ago, on April 8, 1994, the spokesman for an angst-ridden generation, rock singer Kurt Cobain, was found dead in his house in Seattle. It was an apparent suicide. Brilliant and fatalistic, the lead singer of Nirvana helped popularize grunge, underground rock music which his band brought into the mainstream. Journalists Max Wallace and Ian Halperin have written extensively about Kurt Cobain (Lauer, 2004, para. 1-2).
Lauer (2004) elevated Cobain’s legacy to one of a pioneer both in a genre of music (“grunge”) as well as one who aided in the popularization of a previously “underground” music. Wallace and Halperin’s research identified the role of drugs in the lives of Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain, and sought to detail their relationship. Lauer (2004) uses clips from his interview with the authors to complement his own characterization of a personal relationship: “They had the perfect outsider credentials. He came from a broken blue-collar home in rural Washington. She’s the daughter of an heiress and a hippie writer, manager of a band that became The Grateful Dead. She had a troubled childhood, spending time at juvenile hall. At 16, she was a stripper. For both, music was their gateway” (para. 4). The MSNBC article devoted attention to Love, including an October 2003 fiasco involving painkillers and the police (2004, para. 20). As the focus shifted to current and living celebrities including Love and her daughter, Lauer’s (2004) embrace of sensationalism is blatant; while a new book monopolizes on conspiracy theories regarding Cobain’s death, Lauer’s attention turned to Courtney Love: “Then last month, there was a raunchy rampage. In one wild night, she seemed to unravel. First there was an impromptu peep show on David Letterman, and later that evening, performing at a concert, Love allegedly threw a microphone stand into the audience. One man’s head was gashed open. There was another arrest, another charge” (para. 22).
Infotainment and the Construction of Twenty-first Century Celebrity
Sensationalism in reporting the news of celebrities continues to be lucrative; as part of Herman and Chomsky’s (1988) system of constructing public opinion, infotainment as provided by the examples above represent the continued glorification of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, as “news” built of the exposure of individuals’ poor choices. In this, the viewers of television and the readers of the news take part in a relationship of power, receivers of a complete media product built of others’ personal trials and challenges, one that seeks to render public opinion regarding the importance of celebrities like Kurt Cobain.
Works Cited
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Chomsky, N., & Herman, E. (1988). In Manufacturing Consent. Retrieved from http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Herman%20/Manufac_Consent_Prop_Model.html
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Goldsmith, S., Raley, D. & Hadley, J. (1994, 9 April). Cobain’s suicide note ended with ‘I love you’; Gunshot death shocks Nirvana fans, but some say they saw it coming. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Retrieved from http://www.btinternet.com/~teppic2000/KurtCobainCase/Article9th.htm
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“Infotainment.” (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infotainment
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[1] An abundance of unique products of media existed at the time of the release of Nevermind (1991); theorist Walter Benjamin (1936) provided salient discussion on how, through replication, images may gain persuasive and political power, in his essay “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction.”
