I wonder if Courtney consulted Yoko Ono before making this deal.

I smell a lawsuit.

And a PR stunt.

I couldn't care less about Cobain, but this ain't art. "Release Cobain from the media circus" indeed...that's exactly what she's playing to.

WOW, where does time go!

It's a little late for Jon Bon Jovi to start bleating about over commercialization.

These people need to relax. It's a cartoon fer chrissake. If that much money had been offered directly to Kurt, maybe he would have been overjoyed to sing a BonJovi song. He's not here to voice his opinion and nobody else is qualified to speak for him. Especially given the fact that fifteen years distance tends to alter people's recollection of the facts. And that some of these people were out of their heads on heroin when Kurt was alive.

I don't know what Jon Bonjovi's angle is, but I guess he's trying to stick up for his fellow musicians, even if, in Courtney's words, said musicians thought that he was an asshole.

They should be insulted that their hard work learning to master an instrument and figuring out how to put those notes together to create a song has been reduced to pushing a couple of buttons.

Why should that insult them? It's only a game, it's not like you can create original material that way. It doesn't diminish them in any way-- it's an honor that people are willing to play this game to fantasize about playing their music, it's introducing their material to a whole new generation of people, and it may get people thinking about actually learning one of these instruments.

I'm don't even own this game but if it brigns people some small joy in their lives, I think it's a good thing.

OK, fair enough. I felt that making their jobs seem simpler was a bigger insult than having a cartoon character sing an inappropriate song, but I'm not a musician so I'm not qualified to make a judgment.

It is, as you say, just a game. A few days before this thread, I started one about this same complaint by Nirvana fans. I don't see the big deal, and I don't care if they allow the Beatles cartoon characters to sing "Nearer My God To Thee".

Cobain lacked the self-respect to prevent his own suicide, I find it difficult to make the determination that he had too much pride to sing "Bad Medicine"

I'm genuinely unsure how I feel about this, like it's not really that big of a deal in the broad scope of things, although Kurt Cobain would not have liked his image being used as it is in Guitar Hero 5, of that I am sure. The commercialization of someone whom most people believe killed himself because he felt he was being commercialized is just disrespectful, and Activision should have more respect for their artists if they expect to keep them signing on for more games.

The makers of Guitar Hero have a pretty good track record of working with artists, but IMO Cobain would not have signed on for this if he were still alive. It's a shame that his estate (i.e. Courtney Love) placed the almighty dollar above what he very likely would have wanted. See also, the Converse sneaker thing earlier in this thread.

I doubt Kurt Cobain would be the same person now he was 15 years ago and I think he probably would have signed his songs over to Guitar Hero, but not his image.

It's a moot point, and a done deal. This is all great publicity for the game, though, I'm sure.

Well, you may be right, however you never knew Kurt-- Courtney did. You're assuming that you know what he'd want over his wife.

Maybe, but everything we do know about Kurt supports calijawn's point. We also know Courtney is a disfunctional piece of work right?

The whole argument is guess work at any rate. Would John Lennon have liked his image being used for Rock Band?

What do we know about Cobain that support calijawn's point?

And I doubt Lennon would have minded Rock Band Beatles, probably would have felt about the same toward it as the Yellow Submarine movie.