With all the breathless jizzing that The Beatles: Rock Band has inspired, it’s easy to forget that Guitar Hero 5 is out too.
And that’s a shame. Because in Guitar Hero 5, for the first time ever, you can play songs as Kurt Cobain. Which presumably means that if you complete a song well and become successful, you get depressed and shoot your face off. And yet Guitar Hero is still playing second fiddle to Rock Band. If only there was some way to draw attention to it.
What’s that? Courtney Love has gone on a berserk Twitter curse-rampage about it? Perfect.
It’s difficult to maintain the estate of dead singers, because you constantly have to put yourself in their position. “Would they approve?” quickly becomes your mantra. For instance, it seems likely that John Lennon would have approved of the latest CD remastering of all The Beatles albums, especially the early ones where his primal roar on songs like Twist And Shout sounds more ferocious than ever before.
Similarly, when Courtney Love allowed Activision to create a brand new videogame character version of her dead husband Kurt Cobain for Guitar Hero 5 – who not only plays his own songs but songs by Bon Jovi and Duran Duran – she knew in his heart of hearts that he would have definitely approved. After all, Kurt Cobain wrote Radio Friendly Unit Shifter, a song about his desire to get played on the radio and sell lots of records; and Rape Me, a song directly ordering his loved ones to posthumously exploit his image for capital gain at every opportunity. Talk about a no-brainer.
But – and you might want to brace yourselves for this next bit, because it’s completely unprecedented – Courtney Love has decided to throw a gigantic, near-illegible internet tantrum about it. We know. She’s usually the model of grammatically-perfect restraint, isn’t she?
Apparently Courtney Love is angry at Guitar Hero 5 for creating a Kurt Cobain avatar without her permission. Which is fair enough. Except, you know, for the teensy fact that she did give Guitar Hero 5 permission. And that she signed something to make it legally binding. And that she seems to be aware? that she signed it. But hey, why are we explaining this to you in stupid old-fashioned English that’s relatively easy to understand? Why don’t we just plug you into the direct, endlessly confusing, source of the outburst – Courtney Love’s Twitter feed:
“Have fun with your avatars you slimebags. i rant? Fuck off i have proof youve simply never bothred to look. so fucking play your videogame… we have NOTHING to do with this. it was presented to me and oi said ‘show me a better avataR’ TO DRAG MY HEELS., never did i intend on allowing GUITARHERO for me or for Kurt i am NOT yoko fucking Ono no ofense to her, but i am a different person entirely and this is insane…. i was pleasnat to work with? HA i wouldnt show up i made them change all sorts of shit, and even then i had no intention of doing his.“
So that’s that cleared up, then. However, following this rant Courtney Love took her Twitter feed private. Which is a shame, because where are we going to get our legitimately unreadable celebrity garble from now? What? Kirstie Alley? Ah, OK.
Anyway, we hope that Courtney Love and Guitar Hero can find a painless solution to their conflict. Here’s an idea – why don’t Activision release Guitar Hero: Courtney Love? It’d be great, just like a normal Guitar Hero game, except you’re rewarded for thrashing about aimlessly on your guitar, squandering what little promise you once showed and and generally singing like a donkey has just kicked you in the windpipe.
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shooty* says
The other awesome mantra:
“It’s what Jade would have wanted”.
Now covers forced spitroasting!
JoeMomma says
Serious moment here: I think it was totally Courtney’s fault Cobain killed himself. She’s the one that kept dragging him back into the smack.
DD says
you are an idiot Stuart Heritage. obviously you have no real understanding of Kurt or his music/lyrics.. rape me is actually an anti rape song, and radio friendly unit shifter is a dismissal of all things to do with the commercial music industry.
Angele Martin says
There are very few things in life as rewarding as learning to play a musical instrument, and there are even fewer things as beautiful as an electric guitar. However, learning to play the guitar takes a lot of patience and can be very frustrating at times. While it’s very important that you stick to some sort of structure if you want to make good progress, it’s just as important that you learn an easy song every now and then so you don’t feel like you’re going nowhere slowly.