Calm Down

To no one's surprise, Kurt Cobain has finally made his way into a guitar/band simulation game. Activision's Guitar Hero 5 to be exact. To everyone's even less surprise, Courtney Love has opened her ghoulish, no-longer-relevant mouth. Complained through her oftentimes completely unreadable, run-on tweeting to be exact. And let's be honest, her upcoming suit against Activision will likely be dismissed after she wakes up from some months-long, drug-induced haze to find her copy of the contract she personally signed and kissed with two sticks worth of smeared fire engine red lip liner.

The remaining two members of Nirvana had this to say about his inclusion in the game...

While we were aware of Kurt's image being used with two Nirvana songs, we didn't know players have the ability to unlock the character. This feature allows the character to be used with any kind of song the player wants. We urge Activision to do the right thing in "re-locking" Kurt's character so that this won't continue in the future... It's hard to watch an image of Kurt pantomiming other artists' music alongside cartoon characters. Kurt Cobain wrote songs that hold a lot of meaning to people all over the world. We feel he deserves better.

Now, I like Dave Grohl. Alright, I love Dave Grohl. A great frontman, songwriter, drummer, good guitarist, and a dude with a great sense of humor who seems genuinely likable. But enough with the retarded joint statements with Krist Novoselic. They've made quite a habit of them, and this one is too infuriating to ignore. (Though, it's easy to see why they all just ooze politician...)


Get a fucking grip. Of course Cobain wouldn't be into that shit if he were still alive, but the guy's been dead for 15 years. It's not tarnishing any image or perception of him and his music. It's an animated image of him as an homage to his influence on rock. It's not like they're dragging his rotted corpse onto a real stage and having him sing and dance his way through "Love Shack", marionette-style. Yeah, we know he "wrote songs that hold a lot of meaning to people all over the world". So did every other artist in the game. Do they all "deserve better", too? And what exactly would be "better" for him? Having him front only serious punk songs and downer grunge tracks, then blow his head off after the game's final performance? OMFG, it's so realistic!!1!!one!

Celebrity Friends Update

Move over, Adamo Ruggiero.

You just lost the role to Alberto Contador. In a big, big way.

What has three balls and a John Arena look-alike in a speed suit? Why, this picture of course...


Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all night, folks!



And it looks like George/Rob is still giving Joey Fatone/Ron Livingston a run for his money...

Boogie On, MJ...

UPDATE: Aaaand, I'm over it. A lil' refresher course on the details of the allegations and the $20 million dollar hush-money check, and right on back to being the creepy fucking ghoul of a pedophile he was on June 24th.


There's no possible way you can be hearing this for the first time here, but Michael Jackson is dead at 50 today, due to suspected cardiac arrest. The King of Pop, (not so) arguably the greatest solo artist of all time, a living legend of an entertainer and musical genius, is gone.

I didn't think it possible to see the allegations of child molestation pushed into the back of my mind so easily to make room for a huge sense of loss and sadness. I'm sure it's a much easier task to not lose any sleep over this loss for the families of the alleged victims. And let's be honest, the dude was absolutely batshit in his last 15 years, and it's hard to deny that he did some despicable things to little boys, but man I am bummed out. And I was just a little shit at the height of his career. Aren't pedophiles supposed to be the most reviled form of scum in the eyes of the public and even other criminals?

But how many good times have we all experienced with Jackson's music as the damn soundtrack? Countless, I'm certain. How often has he moved us, physically and emotionally, with his songwriting, emotionally charges vocals, and unprecedented dancing talents? Very often, I'm positive. He changed pop culture--music, video, live entertainment--in a way that no one had before him. His catalog of smash hits is longer than I care list, but I'll certainly be spending some time with them the next few days.

Now if you don't mind, I'm gonna go choke the hell up over "She's Out Of My Life", then dance myself back into a man with "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and plenty of Jesus Juice.

Quickies Are Fun: How Is This Guy Famous? Edition

Kevin Rudolf Is A Looker

I'm glad to see Jay Sherman is making a comeback. I always thought The Critic was underappreciated.



Is This A Joke?

How is Soulja Boy a legitimate musical act and Wesley Willis died in relative obscurity? Is this a big joke on the general "Top 40"-listening public?




Introducing SMAP

Ok, actually this guy definitely deserves to be famous. SMAP is holding his ass back, figurately and literally, apparently. Tsuyoshi Kusanagi is a goddamn rockstar, not boyband material.

Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, a member of the Japanese pop music group SMAP, was arrested Thursday for public indecency after stripping naked while under the influence of alcohol at a Tokyo park, causing ripples not only in the nation but in South Korea, where the singer, who is fluent in Korean, is also popular. After arresting the 34-year-old Kusanagi, police searched his home in Tokyo's Minato Ward, spurring numerous telephone calls from his fans in protest. The suspect admitted to stripping naked and told investigators, ''I regret what I did. I don't remember how I went to the park, and why I became naked,'' according to the police.

Oh, and in related news...tasered wizard micropenis.

Oh Man, This Is Good

"Chris Cornell Is Twitted Upon" UPDATE:

April Fools' Day taught us two things, at least. Trent Reznor enjoys electronically tea-bagging Chris Cornell in his sleep, and Chris Cornell loves slippin his online pubes into Trent's sandwiches when he's not looking. Then complimenting him, apparently. And Twitter. He loves Twitter.

Quickies Are Fun: This Sounds Familiar Edition

Pearly Jams

In celebration of Pearl Jam's re-issue of their badass debut album Ten, MTV asked a few artists to cover some album tracks for their program no one's heard of called Rock The Deuce. Below is a cool one of "Why Go", by P.O.S. Here's a link to some other covers and clips, because I know you're all clamoring to hear The Academy Is... cover "Jeremy" or learn whether or not Hoobastank really think they sound like Pearl Jam.

Also, I can't resist the terrible and obvious lyrical-pun-doubling-as-name-dropping-of-my-own-blog here, so here goes...Gives new meaning to "scratches a letter", doesn't it?! Eh? No? Aw, c'mon...

Chickenfoot Has Arrived...


...and it's sounding tasty.

Super Wayne's World

Has anyone noticed that Dr. Carter samples Super Mario World's castle theme? Does Weezy give credit in the liners? Hip Hop needs more Nintendo.

Chris Cornell Is Twitted Upon

Chris Cornell's awkward new album Scream has already, at its best, received mixed reviews and, at its worst, has been castigated by a number of critics and fans (Check out Greg Howe's review on his new blog. He's not this Greg Howe, but goshdarnit, he's just as cute). The Timbaland collaboration, however, somehow landed at number 10 on last week's Billboard 200, but at least one of Cornell's peers shares the "What the fuck?" sentiment echoed by so many music lovers and went public with it. And by "went public with it," I mean he posted some shit on Twitter.

Basically, Trent Reznor said he was embarrassed for Cornell after listening to the record, and Cornell responded by calling him Judas and gave him the ol' "Let he who is without sin..." bit. In subsequent twits (twats?), he got weird and continued taking the biblical references in non-Reznor-related directions. I think. I don't know. I can't even believe I'm posting about this. This shit is boring, and I feel like a little gossip queen. The only thing I got out of this is confirmation that I'm still on the fence about Twitter (celebrity twittering, especially) and the knowledge from Chris that Ben Stiller unsuccessfully tried to remake Jesus Christ Superstar and thought Cornell should play Jesus. That would still be less awkward than Scream.