Interesting that Cobain has beaten out Elvis... and Einstein making the list is a bit of a surprise to me... ___________ Cobain tops list of richest dead celebs Associated Press Oct. 25, 2006 02:48 PM NEW YORK - Twelve years after his death, Kurt Cobain is making millions upon millions. He's even richer than the King. Cobain, who raked in an estimated $50 million between October 2005 and October of this year, has edged Elvis Presley from the No. 1 spot on Forbes.com's list of "Top-Earning Dead Celebrities." Presley, who sat atop the list each year since its debut in 2001, ranks second with earnings of $42 million. Presley died in 1977. He's followed by Charles M. Schulz, John Lennon, Albert Einstein, Andy Warhol, Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel), Ray Charles, Marilyn Monroe, Johnny Cash, J.R.R. Tolkien, George Harrison and Bob Marley. Cobain, lead singer of grunge-rock band Nirvana, committed suicide in 1994. In March, his widow, rocker Courtney Love, sold 25 percent of Nirvana's song catalog to Primary Wave Music Publishing. Thanks to the deal, Cobain's music will be heard on CBS' "CSI: Miami," Forbes said, and could also be used in commercials for eco-friendly products. Forbes said the celebrities on the list collectively earned $247 million in the past year. The list was posted on the Web site Tuesday. http://www.azcentral.com/ent/celeb/articles/1025cobain.html
Knowing how dismayed Cobain was by the commercial success of Nirvana, he must be doing somersaults in his grave at breakneck speed.
He shouldn't have taken the cowards way out then, should he? He could be controlling all his music....but..... DD
I totally agree, DD. He could have done like Springsteen and make sure that his songs are never used for advertising. If you've never seen the documentary "Kurt and Courtney" by all means do so. I walked away from that movie feeling that if Courtney Love didn't have Kurt Cobain killed, then he killed himself because the beeyotch drove him f*cking crazy.
Are Dave Grohl and Chris Novacelik aren't getting ANY Nirvana royalties? I know that people are still buying Nirvana records, and they released a greatest hits album.
the songs are owned by the songwriter, not the band that played them. cobain was the sole writer of nirvana's songs (maybe the other 2 had a couple b-sides?) and when he died his widow got control. often, when it comes to getting paid the other members of the band are not regarded as much more than session players. im not exactly sure how it works, but i think they get a percentage of royalties for their performance, but it is nowhere near what the owner of the songs gets. i remember reading an interview with matt sharp of weezer a few years ago and he broke down how that band worked - rivers (the singer) got 1/3 for writing the music, rivers got 1/3 for writing the lyrics and the band (rivers included) split the remaining 1/3 for the performance. needless to say, sharp was a little bitter. rivers got about 74% and the other 3 guys each got 8.33%.
me too - even her dad is in the movie saying "i think she did it". it just seems really, really suspicious - maybe he was going to leave her and she had him killed? the way she has totally whored out his work, public and private, makes her seem all the more like a money grubber who would do anything. he seems like he would have been one of the absolute last people to want his private journals turned into a coffee table book. however, he did make an obvious suicide attempt in the final months of his life. about 2 months before he did it he wound up in a hospital in rome after taking a bunch of pills and wine. and the fact that the last song he recorded was called "i hate myself and i want to die".
True true true. One of the things that has kept REM together was that when Bill Berry was still the drummer, they split songwriting credit and publishing evenly - 25% for everyone. Stipe always writes all of the lyrics, while the others hash out the melody.
If I knew I was making 50 million a year, there's no way I would have ever thought about "killing myself."
Apparently he gets royalties from the Little Einstein educational toy series. I guess his estate must have negotiated some really good deal.
Well... first you'd have to be Cobain (self serving revisionist devoted to sincerity and heartfelt commitment who never forgave his parents for divorcing, have so MANY issues with sex yet immensely crave it, contemplate homosexuality but have a fixed intimate affinity for women, private narssasist and public introvert, actually see worth in music beyond commercial success, find beauty and art in neglected oddities, declare importance in your own message, but notoriously promote unknowns and their's, criticise your contemporaries musical intentions and then criticise your own, be/feel distant from love and acceptence all the while being the center of attention, mix in a truck load of heroin, a house load of Courtney, and 50 million a year ain't gonna amount to a hill of beans to ya.
I think this is the first explanation I've ever seen that fully explains why anyone would touch Courtney Love with anything shorter than a 10 foot pole. Brilliant!
