While playing the new Guitar Hero 5, you might come away disturbed like you've seen a ghost. Well that's because that is indeed Kurt Cobain on the latest installment of the multi-instrumental console game. While some fans enjoy Kurt's debut to Guitar Hero franchise, Courtney Love, widow of the famous grunge star finds the Kurt's presence in the game "vile."While the game is already available in stores, Courtney is beginning to taking action against Activision, the makers of the game by threatening to take them to court.
Activision told Rolling Stone Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl and Primary Wave Publishing had signed off on the agreement to use Kurt's image as a "fully playable" character in the game.
For now, the public waits until more information arises.
Until then, read the full story here.
UPDATE (9/10/09):
Message from Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl:
We want people to know that we are dismayed and very disappointed in the way a facsimile of Kurt is used in the Guitar Hero game. The name and likeness of Kurt Cobain are the sole property of his estate - we have no control whatsoever in that area.
While we were aware of Kurt's image being used with two Nirvana songs, we didn't know players have the ability to unlock the character. This feature allows the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants. We urge Activision to do the right thing in "re-locking" Kurt's character so that this won't continue in the future.
It's hard to watch an image of Kurt pantomiming other artists' music alongside cartoon characters. Kurt Cobain wrote songs that hold a lot of meaning to people all over the world. We feel he deserves better.
Watch Kurt Cobain rock out on Guitar Hero 5!
1 comment:
I have to agree, it is somewhat sad to see a lot of bands somewhat "selling-out" to big brands or pop-culture influences. Although Kurt kept everything grunge and on the ground - out of mainstream media influence, that is - by the end of the nineties, everyone knew his songs and who he was...somewhat. It is disappointing, but don't people in the business expect these sorts of outcomes? Especially after tragic death and news coverage for the past decade? Maybe I'm being smug, but I did think he was an alright musician and that he didn't want to go mainstream, but at some point, you have to realize that fame comes with many, many things...especially those unwanted.
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