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Thursday, July 16, 2009

Another One Bites the Dust: Nirvana Sells Out to Guitar Hero


You can now add Nirvana to the pantheon of music artists who have sold out to Guitar Hero. Wow! I need a minute with this one. This one stings a bit more than the others because not only was Nirvana one of my favorite groups of the 90's, the aura surrounding Nirvana had always been one of musical integrity over commercialism. Didn't Kurt pose on the cover of Rolling Stone with a t-shirt that read "Corporate Magazines Still Suck" in protest to being on the cover in the first place? And didn't a good chunk of Kurt's suicide note address the dangers of selling out and end with him quoting Neil Young in that it was "better to burn out than fade away"? I recall the court battles between Cobain's widow Courtney Love, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic over Nirvana's legacy, which was a basically a fight over the soul of the group. Novoselic and Grohl, in addition to fighting for their piece of the royalties pie, wanted to protect their music from corporate music manipulators while Mrs. Love-Cobain wanted her royalties slice and to share her husband's music with anyone with a check book. Alas, Love, Grohl, and Novoselic reached an agreement that will allow each party to get a cut of all future Nirvana earnings but at what cost to the group's artistic integrity? Apparently, the folks at Guitar Hero know.

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