Previously unseen Kurt Cobain and Nirvana photos being released as NFTs on Open Sea digital marketplace
NEVER-before-seen photos of Nirvana, featuring Kurt Cobain and Dave Grohl, have been listed as NFTs on the digital marketplace Open Sea.
Snapped in 1992 at the Hordern Pavilion in Sydney, Australia as part of the Big Day Out Festival, the photos were lost until this year.
The photos – all taken by a Nikon FM2 on black and white film – were accidentally found after the owner’s mother forced him to clean out his bedroom.
Images have been sorted into two different collections: “This is how it looked” and “This is how it felt.”
The former features individual photos meant to invoke nostalgia and reflection.
“Moments trapped by celluloid and now permanently enshrined on the Ethereum network never to be lost again,” the photographer shared.
Meanwhile, “This is how it felt” has superimpositions and collages designed by the photographs’ owners.
It’s “a frenzied visual and sonic assault that is Nirvana, live,” the photographer explained.
With the collages, the owners aimed to describe the feelings associated with the moments captured, including rawness, power, and chaos.
The NFTs are available for auction on Open Sea, a platform that allows the direct sale of the tokens at a fixed price.
WHAT ARE NFTS
Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. But what are they?
- Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are assets – often pictures – that have been turned into unique ID codes via a blockchain.
- While the non-replicable tokens are stored on the blockchain, the assets are kept in other places.
- They can be traded and exchanged for real money, cryptocurrencies, or other NFTs.
- NFTs represent either digital or real-world items such as artworks or even real estate.
- “Tokenizing” tangible assets means they can be bought, sold, and traded more efficiently with less chance of fraud.
- They can represent individuals’ identities, property rights, and more.
- The popularity of NFTs has waned in recent years.
COBAIN’S LEGACY
April 8, 2024, marked 30 years since Nirvana frontman Cobain’s death.
He was found dead from a gunshot wound to the head in his Seattle home.
Cobain was 27 years old at the time of his death.
He and his wife, Courtney Love, had recently become parents to his 1-year-old daughter, Frances Bean Cobain.
“I remember the day after, that I woke up and I was heartbroken that he was gone,” Grohl, who joined Nirvana as a replacement drummer, said of Cobain’s death.
“I just felt like, ‘OK, so I get to wake up today and have another day and he doesn’t.'”
Nirvana did not continue after Cobain’s tragic death.
Grohl, 55, went on to front the Foo Fighters, releasing nearly a dozen studio albums and touring the world with hits like Best of You and The Pretender.
This isn’t the first time images of Nirvana have been turned into NFTs.
In 2022, pictures from one of the iconic band’s early shows in Philadelphia were sold as non-fungible tokens.
The photos, taken during the band’s October 1, 1991 show at the intimate JC Dobbs venue, showed the trio on stage just six days after the release of their major label debut, Nevermind.
Taken by photographer Faith West, the images were made available as NFTs on February 20, 2022, to mark what would have been Cobain’s 55th birthday, by Pop Legendz, a company West founded.