Guitar Zero: The Courtney Love Hate Tour!
Smells Like a Courtney Love Lawsuit!
I’ve always liked Courtney Love. She’s a bit of a mess but I was a Hole fan in the 90s. But I have to call shenanigans on the latest Love-related dust-up. Love is now suing Activision, the publishers of the smash-hit Guitar Hero franchise, over the use of Kurt Cobain’s likeness as an avatar in the latest installment of the video game series. She took her frustrations to Twitter, claiming that she never signed off on the use of Cobain’s likeness and that there have been four breaches of a “very strict contract”.
According to her grammatically annoying Tweet (does no one proofread anymore?), when she was approached by Activision, she demanded that they produce another avatar just to “drag [her] heels” even though, apparently, she had no real interest in participating in Guitar Hero. As Angie Tempura would say…bitch, pleeze!
She concludes her ranting by declaring that she is not “Yoko fucking Ono!” I agree. She is not Yoko Ono; she’s Courtney Fucking Love–and right now she’s coming off a lot worse than Ono has lately, at least in my opinion. Ono has never been as beholden to pissed-off Beatles fans as Love has been to Nirvana-worshippers. Plus when it comes time to profit off of her dead husband’s legacy, Ono does so coolly, judiciously and without much noise.
A few other points:
1) If Love was so dead-set against this whole thing, why not just hang up on Activision immediately after inviting them to go fuck themselves? I can only assume that she was offered an ass-load of money that she accepted willingly but is now kicking up an image-conscious ruckus. Love has been a bit of a “sellout” for years. Why doesn’t she just own it already?
2) Am I the only one who’s getting really annoyed by the millionaire musicians who continue to bash Guitar Hero…especially those who do so while licensing their songs to the game (and accepting forklifts of cash in the process)? I understand that many rockers feel that Guitar Hero is bastardizing their craft. That is a very valid and lamentable caveat against GH. But if these guys hate it so much, they should be like Prince and Jimmy Page and refuse to license their songs. The Rolling Stone bassist Bill Wyman has expressed similar sentiments yet his band’s music has appeared in at least two music games (GH and the rival Rock Band). Such ranting just seems disingenuous if these real-life Guitar Heroes aren’t putting their money where their mouths are.
