Sunday, April 09, 2006
Kurt Cobain must be rolling around in his grave
Nirvana fans got a jolt recently when Courtney Love announced that she had sold a quarter of her large share of the band's publishing rights. Across the Internet, nails were collectively bitten: What would become of Nirvana's music, largely untouched by television commercials and movies? Would "Smells Like Teen Spirit" finally suffer the insult of being used to promote the deodorant it once mocked? Ms. Love, the widow of Kurt Cobain, promised restraint. "We're going to remain very tasteful," she told Rolling Stone, adding enigmatically that the deal would "take Nirvana places it's never been before."
One place Cobain has surely never been before is the action-figure section of your local comic book or toy shop. But just as Ms. Love made her announcement, news was spreading around the Web that a plastic figurine, designed to resemble a slouching Cobain, complete with blue, left-handed Fender, had been created by a New Jersey company called the National Entertainment Collectibles Association, and would go on sale in June.
Taste is a strange thing to bring up when marketing the Nirvana legacy. Since Cobain killed himself 12 years ago, the band's vaults have been plundered relentlessly, leaving me feeling less like a fan than a mere bundle of dollar bills in the eyes of Nirvana's record company and Cobain's estate.
Cobain's journal doodlings were published as a weighty coffee-table book; I bought it, shrugged and promptly shelved it. Then came the compilation albums, sprinkled with just enough rarities to entice a collector, and released with unjoyful regularity in the holiday shopping seasons of 2002, 2004 and 2005. Now comes Cobain the doll. And more than the box sets, more than the innumerable T-shirts and posters, a seven-inch statuette is the ultimate commodification.
Would it have made Cobain scream? I can't be so sure. It's tempting to remember Cobain as an anticommerical scourge, ridiculing the music business by giving one song the sarcastic title "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter." But he did sign a contract with a major record label, and, as Ms. Love knows, he also kept a close watch on his publishing royalties. For a band that seemed to break all the rules while still profiting from the game, it might never be possible to have a "tasteful" legacy.
And the doll? It looks remarkably lifelike. Joel Weinshanker, the president of National Entertainment Collectibles Association, said that his company had the full cooperation of the Cobain estate, and that at one point he received a photograph of Cobain's daughter, Frances Bean, with an instruction: "She has Kurt's chin. Make the chin like hers."
From the NY Times
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: 8:09 PM 
The series will be shown again on Aug. 8th @ 3pm and on Aug 10th at 2:30 am.
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