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Guitar Hero CEO On Cobain Controversy: “The Check Has Been Cashed”

Posted by Bram Teitelman on Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 1:14 pm

Video Games

YouTube Preview ImageBy now, everyone knows that Kurt Cobain is an unlockable character in Guitar Hero 5, which has led to some pretty ridiculous videos, and probably a couple of sprained fingers for Courtney Love due to her Twitter barrage. Remaining Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic even got in on the action, asking Activision Blizzard to limit Cobain’s character to only the two Nirvana songs, saying they didn’t know he would be able to played on all 85 songs, which includes Attack Attack!, Vampire Weekend and “Play That Funky Music.” Dan Rosensweig, CEO of the Guitar Hero franchise, tells NME.com that isn’t going to happen.

“I do know that there’s absolutely a contract and we know that the cheque has been cashed,” he told NME.com. “I can only deal with the facts. It’s very clear what the terms are.”

“We care about the artists more than anyone else and we would like to make artists happy in every circumstance,” he said. “I’m disappointed in this case that there seems to be confusion between the band and the estate. I can’t speak for everybody being happy, [but] it gets done with complete consent from artists. These are the artists who fans love. We hope over time that the estate will appreciate that.”

Grohl, Novoselic and Love have an ally in Jon Bon Jovi, whose “You Give Love  A Bad Name” has probably gotten a spike in downloads after the above video took the internet by storm. “To hear someone else’s voice coming out of a cartoon version of me?” he said recently. “I don’t know. It sounds a little forced.”

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2 Comments For This Post

  1. Dan Contogiannis Says:

    In the game, you can have Johnny Cash do all the same things Cobain can do…

  2. bram Says:

    True, but June Carter Cash isn’t around to Tweet about how they’re raping his legacy.

1 Trackbacks For This Post

  1. The day in music news: New Thom Yorke video, Sonic Youth defines grunge, Weezer unleashes Raditude tracklist and more | The Volume | Time Out New York Says:

    [...] After fans and former band members aired their disappointment with the Kurt Cobain Guitar Hero 5 avatar, CEO Dan Rosensweig responded: “The check has been cashed.” [Metal Insider] [...]



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