When I first saw the Kurt Cobain avatar “featured” on the new Guitar Hero 5, my gut reaction was to pause it after fifteen seconds and to gasp loud enough that it made those around me come running to the rescue. I was found with my hands covering my mouth, paralyzed. I’m not being dramatic, it’s that bad. Go ahead and have a look at the damage:
and please for the love of God, tell me I’m wrong. Tell me Courtney hasn’t completely sold Kurt out while taking boudoir photos with her pet turtles in bed. This is fact and there are TwitPics to prove it. 
In the video, a clip of which has gone viral on YouTube this week, Kurt is a sort of ringmaster/karaoke clown who is lip-singing alongside cartoon skeletons and anime vixens to Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name” and introducing the game with an amped-up homeboy bravado that blurts: “…let’s show them that we can do this…like we always do this…turn it up…Yeah Boyeeeeeee!” a la Vanilla Ice? The image of Kurt is a much loved and familiar one from the “Smells like Teen Spirit” era, showcasing his signature blonde shag and the pilled Seattle weather-worn brown cardigan that spawned a thousand, an image which Tim Riley of Activision, the makers of GH5, told Rolling Stone Courtney styled herself for the game. Despite the virtual likeness, this is a horrifying image of Kurt, one that bears no true resemblance to the artist who spent his entire career combating the media’s misrepresentation of him and Nirvana.
Love has apparently spent the past few days blasting, via Twitter, Activision as well as Novoselic and Grohl for the Avatar fiasco and says that she plans to sue. Activision released a subsequent statement confirming that Guitar Hero did indeed secure the proper rights, signed by Love, to use Cobain’s likeness as a “fully playable character in Guitar Hero 5.”
In a statement made by Grohl and Novoselic, the remaining members of Nirvana assure fans, despite love’s rusty battle-axe, that they didn’t have any hand in creating cartoon Kurt and that they don’t legally control the image of Cobain. “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.”
Novoselic and Grohl are urging Activision to “re-lock” the character so it can only be played with the Nirvana songs that were licensed.
“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.”
Let’s remember the real thing.
Guitar Hero: website
