Courtney Love sells Nirvana
03-31-06, 08:50 AM
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Courtney Love sells Nirvana
from NME.com:
Courtney Love sells Nirvana
New deal means Kurt's songs will be heard in 'places it's never been before'
Courtney Love has sold 25% share of Nirvana's publishing catalogue.
The singer, who was married to Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain prior to his suicide in 1994, has said she's sold the share to Larry Mestel of Primary Wave Music Publishing.
"I took on a strategic partner, Larry Mestel, to help me co-manage the estate because it was overwhelming," Love said. "The affairs of Nirvana are so massive and so huge, and they've all fallen on my lap. I own almost all of [the publishing] and it proved to be too much for me. I needed a partner to take Kurt Cobain's songs and bring them into the future and into the next generation. And this guy's the guy to do it."
Mestel told Rolling Stone: "The appeal to me is that Kurt was one of the most important songwriters of his time. Kurt was an incredible songwriter, and Courtney is an exceptionally talented person herself. So I felt the combination of Courtney's creativity and the things I can add can really help in creating more value for these copyrights."
When the sale was rumoured earlier this year, U2 singer Bono was in the frame. However, it appeals that early meetings between the pair came to nothing.
Now, with the new partner, Love has to decide how to use the catalogue. She added: "We're going to remain very tasteful, and we're going to (retain) the spirit of Nirvana and take Nirvana places it's never been before."
Love is also working on a new record, the follow-up to 2004's 'America's Sweetheart'.
How do you think the Nirvana back catalogue will be used?
Deodorant adverts? Soundtracking American Pie 5? The new Labour Party anthem?
In other great news from pitchforkmedia.com:
Kurt Cobain Immortalized/Desecrated as Action Figure
Matthew Solarski reports:
What's that, coming down the conveyer belt en masse, amid the hordes of hobbits, Hellraisers, and Jack Sparrows?? It couldn't be...good god, it is! It's Kurt Cobain, resurrected in stunning action figure format!
Once merely a household name, Cobain will become a household item this June when National Entertainment Collectibles Association (NECA) unleashes the very first KC action figure. This charming piece of plastic resin captures the late Nirvana frontman mid-power chord, donning the very get-up he made famous in the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video. Dude even comes with a chunk of high-school-gym-floor as a base; skanked-out cheerleaders sold separately.
Ex-grungers-turned-office-stiffs of the world, rejoice! Now this titan of alternative music can duke it out with Ghostface and that Borg chick atop your monitor. Oh yes.
And if that isn't enough to make you cry, ugly rumors are swirling about of late, rumors that Cobain's widow Courtney Love is attempting to sell a 25% stake in Nirvana's catalog for $100,000,000 to...drumroll please...a "private equity firm" partnered with U2's Bono! Please let that not be true. Please, lord, please.
Wouldn't Kurt be proud?
Courtney Love sells Nirvana
New deal means Kurt's songs will be heard in 'places it's never been before'
Courtney Love has sold 25% share of Nirvana's publishing catalogue.
The singer, who was married to Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain prior to his suicide in 1994, has said she's sold the share to Larry Mestel of Primary Wave Music Publishing.
"I took on a strategic partner, Larry Mestel, to help me co-manage the estate because it was overwhelming," Love said. "The affairs of Nirvana are so massive and so huge, and they've all fallen on my lap. I own almost all of [the publishing] and it proved to be too much for me. I needed a partner to take Kurt Cobain's songs and bring them into the future and into the next generation. And this guy's the guy to do it."
Mestel told Rolling Stone: "The appeal to me is that Kurt was one of the most important songwriters of his time. Kurt was an incredible songwriter, and Courtney is an exceptionally talented person herself. So I felt the combination of Courtney's creativity and the things I can add can really help in creating more value for these copyrights."
When the sale was rumoured earlier this year, U2 singer Bono was in the frame. However, it appeals that early meetings between the pair came to nothing.
Now, with the new partner, Love has to decide how to use the catalogue. She added: "We're going to remain very tasteful, and we're going to (retain) the spirit of Nirvana and take Nirvana places it's never been before."
Love is also working on a new record, the follow-up to 2004's 'America's Sweetheart'.
How do you think the Nirvana back catalogue will be used?
Deodorant adverts? Soundtracking American Pie 5? The new Labour Party anthem?
In other great news from pitchforkmedia.com:
Kurt Cobain Immortalized/Desecrated as Action Figure
Matthew Solarski reports:
What's that, coming down the conveyer belt en masse, amid the hordes of hobbits, Hellraisers, and Jack Sparrows?? It couldn't be...good god, it is! It's Kurt Cobain, resurrected in stunning action figure format!
Once merely a household name, Cobain will become a household item this June when National Entertainment Collectibles Association (NECA) unleashes the very first KC action figure. This charming piece of plastic resin captures the late Nirvana frontman mid-power chord, donning the very get-up he made famous in the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video. Dude even comes with a chunk of high-school-gym-floor as a base; skanked-out cheerleaders sold separately.
Ex-grungers-turned-office-stiffs of the world, rejoice! Now this titan of alternative music can duke it out with Ghostface and that Borg chick atop your monitor. Oh yes.
And if that isn't enough to make you cry, ugly rumors are swirling about of late, rumors that Cobain's widow Courtney Love is attempting to sell a 25% stake in Nirvana's catalog for $100,000,000 to...drumroll please...a "private equity firm" partnered with U2's Bono! Please let that not be true. Please, lord, please.
Wouldn't Kurt be proud?
03-31-06, 09:38 AM
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Originally Posted by auto
Now, with the new partner, Love has to decide how to use the catalogue. She added: "We're going to remain very tasteful, and we're going to (retain) the spirit of Nirvana and take Nirvana places it's never been before."
03-31-06, 09:50 AM
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Originally Posted by SeekOnce
What does that mean exactly? "Take Nirvana places it's never been before"?
03-31-06, 10:39 AM
#6
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Originally Posted by auto
from NME.com:
Courtney Love is attempting to sell a 25% stake in Nirvana's catalog for $100,000,000
Courtney Love is attempting to sell a 25% stake in Nirvana's catalog for $100,000,000
03-31-06, 12:40 PM
#8
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Originally Posted by nodeerforamonth
There's plenty of live shows they have done that were professionally recorded. Be nice to see a bunch of those be released.
I also have (had?) a bootleg of them playing in Vienna post-Bleach. I believe it's a soundboard recording, or a very good mic'd one. You can hear old, drunk European men heckle Kurt, telling him to cut his hair because he looks like a woman.
03-31-06, 02:06 PM
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Courtney & Nirvana: Smells Like a Sellout By Gina Serpe
2 hours, 10 minutes ago
Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"--coming soon to a soap ad near you?
So far Courtney Love is ruling that out, but chances are we'll be hearing more of the seminal grunge band's music in unexpected places now that Kurt Cobain's cash-strapped widow has agreed to sell off a 25 percent stake in the Nirvana song catalog in a deal valued at $50 million, per Rolling Stone.
On the other end of the deal is Larry Mestel, the former COO of Virgin Records and current head of Primary Wave Music Publishing.
To preemptively squelch backlash from fans worried about the over-commercialization of a decidedly anticorporate band, Love sought to assure the Nirvana faithful that the music won't simply be licensed to the highest bidder.
"We're going to remain very tasteful, and we're going to [retain] the spirit of Nirvana and take Nirvana places it's never been before," Love told the magazine.
"I took on a strategic partner, Larry Mestel, to help me comanage the estate because it was overwhelming," Love said. "The affairs of Nirvana are so massive and so huge, and they've all fallen on my lap.
"I own almost all of [the publishing]...and it proved to be too much for me. I needed a partner to take Kurt Cobain's songs and bring them into the future and into the next generation. And this guy's the guy to do it," she said.
Following her husband's 1994 suicide, Love became the primary benefactor of Cobain's estate, which included ownership rights of more than 98 percent of Nirvana's song catalog. The other two former members, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, own the remainder--slightly less than 2 percent split between them. The new deal does not affect their portion.
Mestel, too, is quick to quell rumors that he's just another suit out to profit on Cobain's legacy.
"My goal is to keep the music very true to who the songwriter was and what his passions and tastes would be and to work through Courtney to figure out exactly the best way to go about exposing his music to a new youth culture to a new generation," Mestel said.
He also told Rolling Stone that he was thrilled to have been able to buy into the Nirvana catalog and become, with his three-year-old company, a part of music history.
"The appeal to me is that [Cobain was] one of the most important songwriters of his time," Mestel said. "Kurt was an incredible songwriter, and Courtney is an exceptionally talented person herself. So I felt the combination of Courtney's creativity and the things I can add can really help in creating more value for these copyrights."
Novoselic and Grohl, long-time adversaries of Love, have yet to comment on the new deal. But we're guessing they're none too pleased.
When rumors first swirled that Love was looking to unload a stake in the lucrative catalog, it was expected that the duo may have first dibs, but, based on their troubled history with Love, it's doubtful they were ever offered the chance.
In 2001, Love filed suit against Grohl and Novoselic in an attempt to gain sole custody of the Nirvana songbook, calling the duo merely "sidemen" in the band, which she equated as a one-man show--the man of course being her late husband. The same year, Grohl and Novoselic struck back, filing their own suit alleging Love was using Cobain's music to "further her own career goals," calling her a "greedy prima donna" with a "waning recording and acting career."
Love also filed suit against Grohl and Novoselic and Nirvana's label, Universal Music Group, to block the release of a Nirvana box set, The Heart-Shaped Box. The suit was eventually settled and the album released.
In an interview with Blender magazine last year, Love claimed that "$40 million has been stolen from me and Frances by a fiduciary institution." In July, she blamed former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl for her financial woes, telling Spin magazine that Grohl had been "taking money from my child for years."
Aside from the wrangling over Nirvana, Love's once considerable fortune has been sapped by lawsuits, liens and numerous drug-related charges. In January, a mortgage company took possession of a Seattle-area house owned by Love (and the former residence of Cobain's sister), after the singer-actress failed to make payments. Last August, a Manhattan financial firm moved to foreclose on her pricey New York condo, claiming she had not made a mortgage payment in months.
But things are looking up. Aside from the Mestel deal, Love was given a good report card in February by a Los Angeles judge in her last remaining drug case. For her part, Love told the judge she had put her "very gnarly drug problem" behind her.
She's also resuming her own music career. Love is in the studio recording a follow-up to her 2004 solo album, America's Sweetheart. Linda Perry, Moby and Billy Corgan are pitching in, with the latter joining Love for a track called, aptly enough, "How Dirty Girls Get Clean."
2 hours, 10 minutes ago
Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit"--coming soon to a soap ad near you?
So far Courtney Love is ruling that out, but chances are we'll be hearing more of the seminal grunge band's music in unexpected places now that Kurt Cobain's cash-strapped widow has agreed to sell off a 25 percent stake in the Nirvana song catalog in a deal valued at $50 million, per Rolling Stone.
On the other end of the deal is Larry Mestel, the former COO of Virgin Records and current head of Primary Wave Music Publishing.
To preemptively squelch backlash from fans worried about the over-commercialization of a decidedly anticorporate band, Love sought to assure the Nirvana faithful that the music won't simply be licensed to the highest bidder.
"We're going to remain very tasteful, and we're going to [retain] the spirit of Nirvana and take Nirvana places it's never been before," Love told the magazine.
"I took on a strategic partner, Larry Mestel, to help me comanage the estate because it was overwhelming," Love said. "The affairs of Nirvana are so massive and so huge, and they've all fallen on my lap.
"I own almost all of [the publishing]...and it proved to be too much for me. I needed a partner to take Kurt Cobain's songs and bring them into the future and into the next generation. And this guy's the guy to do it," she said.
Following her husband's 1994 suicide, Love became the primary benefactor of Cobain's estate, which included ownership rights of more than 98 percent of Nirvana's song catalog. The other two former members, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, own the remainder--slightly less than 2 percent split between them. The new deal does not affect their portion.
Mestel, too, is quick to quell rumors that he's just another suit out to profit on Cobain's legacy.
"My goal is to keep the music very true to who the songwriter was and what his passions and tastes would be and to work through Courtney to figure out exactly the best way to go about exposing his music to a new youth culture to a new generation," Mestel said.
He also told Rolling Stone that he was thrilled to have been able to buy into the Nirvana catalog and become, with his three-year-old company, a part of music history.
"The appeal to me is that [Cobain was] one of the most important songwriters of his time," Mestel said. "Kurt was an incredible songwriter, and Courtney is an exceptionally talented person herself. So I felt the combination of Courtney's creativity and the things I can add can really help in creating more value for these copyrights."
Novoselic and Grohl, long-time adversaries of Love, have yet to comment on the new deal. But we're guessing they're none too pleased.
When rumors first swirled that Love was looking to unload a stake in the lucrative catalog, it was expected that the duo may have first dibs, but, based on their troubled history with Love, it's doubtful they were ever offered the chance.
In 2001, Love filed suit against Grohl and Novoselic in an attempt to gain sole custody of the Nirvana songbook, calling the duo merely "sidemen" in the band, which she equated as a one-man show--the man of course being her late husband. The same year, Grohl and Novoselic struck back, filing their own suit alleging Love was using Cobain's music to "further her own career goals," calling her a "greedy prima donna" with a "waning recording and acting career."
Love also filed suit against Grohl and Novoselic and Nirvana's label, Universal Music Group, to block the release of a Nirvana box set, The Heart-Shaped Box. The suit was eventually settled and the album released.
In an interview with Blender magazine last year, Love claimed that "$40 million has been stolen from me and Frances by a fiduciary institution." In July, she blamed former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl for her financial woes, telling Spin magazine that Grohl had been "taking money from my child for years."
Aside from the wrangling over Nirvana, Love's once considerable fortune has been sapped by lawsuits, liens and numerous drug-related charges. In January, a mortgage company took possession of a Seattle-area house owned by Love (and the former residence of Cobain's sister), after the singer-actress failed to make payments. Last August, a Manhattan financial firm moved to foreclose on her pricey New York condo, claiming she had not made a mortgage payment in months.
But things are looking up. Aside from the Mestel deal, Love was given a good report card in February by a Los Angeles judge in her last remaining drug case. For her part, Love told the judge she had put her "very gnarly drug problem" behind her.
She's also resuming her own music career. Love is in the studio recording a follow-up to her 2004 solo album, America's Sweetheart. Linda Perry, Moby and Billy Corgan are pitching in, with the latter joining Love for a track called, aptly enough, "How Dirty Girls Get Clean."
03-31-06, 03:24 PM
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I Kurt cared what happened to his music, He could have prevented himself from eating that buckshot, now couldnt he?
03-31-06, 03:34 PM
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Originally Posted by Tommy Ceez
I Kurt cared what happened to his music, He could have prevented himself from eating that buckshot, now couldnt he?
03-31-06, 05:18 PM
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Originally Posted by Tommy Ceez
I Kurt cared what happened to his music, He could have prevented himself from eating that buckshot, now couldnt he?
03-31-06, 05:19 PM
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Originally Posted by zombiezilla
Oh god, not again with the conspiracy crap...
I don't know all the facts obviously, but I remember seeing an interview where it was stated that given the amount of heroin (I think) in his system, he would have not been consious to do what needs to be done to shoot yourself in that manner. And I think I'd be only offering a conspiracy if I in fact stated a conspiracy story, which I have not. Believe what you like, as will I.
03-31-06, 05:25 PM
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Originally Posted by saoirse
Thanks for the insult, but frankly I never believed he killed himself.
I don't know all the facts obviously, but I remember seeing an interview where it was stated that given the amount of heroin (I think) in his system, he would have not been consious to do what needs to be done to shoot yourself in that manner. And I think I'd be only offering a conspiracy if I in fact stated a conspiracy story, which I have not. Believe what you like, as will I.
I don't know all the facts obviously, but I remember seeing an interview where it was stated that given the amount of heroin (I think) in his system, he would have not been consious to do what needs to be done to shoot yourself in that manner. And I think I'd be only offering a conspiracy if I in fact stated a conspiracy story, which I have not. Believe what you like, as will I.
03-31-06, 05:35 PM
#17
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Originally Posted by auto
Could this "interview" have been in the esteemed documentary, "Kurt & Courtney" directed by the always reliable filmmaker, Nick Broomfield (Biggie & Tupac).
In his defense there have been a few documentaries and books about this conspiracy theory. However, its a conspiracy which means theres a lot of circumstantial evidence and no hard proof. I just say let the man rest in peace, its not like the police are revisiting this case ever again anyway.
03-31-06, 06:27 PM
#18
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Kurt was an addict. He could tolerate an extreme amount of heroin.
I lived in LA at the time and met Kurt many times. Trust me, it was no surprise when it happened. In fact when a friend called me to tell me Kurts body was found, she said "He did it." She didn't say "who" or what "it" was, but I immediately knew it was Kurt and that he had killed himself.
I remember Kevin & Bean on their radio show days before Kurt's body was found. Someone had called in and asked if Nirvana had cancelled being on Lalapalooza because they had broken up. Kevin & Bean said "We know Courtney. We are close to her. Right now no one cares if Nirvana is still together right now. Everyone in that camp right now is just trying to make sure that Kurt is alive." Two days later his body was found.
There is no conspiracy. None.
I lived in LA at the time and met Kurt many times. Trust me, it was no surprise when it happened. In fact when a friend called me to tell me Kurts body was found, she said "He did it." She didn't say "who" or what "it" was, but I immediately knew it was Kurt and that he had killed himself.
I remember Kevin & Bean on their radio show days before Kurt's body was found. Someone had called in and asked if Nirvana had cancelled being on Lalapalooza because they had broken up. Kevin & Bean said "We know Courtney. We are close to her. Right now no one cares if Nirvana is still together right now. Everyone in that camp right now is just trying to make sure that Kurt is alive." Two days later his body was found.
There is no conspiracy. None.
04-01-06, 11:47 PM
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Originally Posted by auto
I hardly think that Kurt was concerned with the future of his music when he chose to end his life.
04-02-06, 03:30 AM
#24
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I really have to wonder if putting Nirvana's music in a car ad will change how people already feel about this band. If these people can survive Courtney Love raping the name, they can handle "Rape Me" being played during a Trojan commercial.