When Alterna-rock godfather and all-around masochistic pacifist Kurt D. Cobain coined the phrase "I think I'm dumb" back in 1993, he apparently had NOOOOOOO idea just how right he would come to be once this ruthless 21st century got its money-grubbing hands on him.
We're only in the year 2007, for god's sake, and the poor guy has already had his private journals published, his back-catalog pillaged for some pretty piss-poor best-ofs and box sets, his publishing rights sliced up and passed around like delicious prime rib, and his angst-ridden music reduced to kindergarten sing-a-longs by the likes of The Polyphonic Spree. Why, it seems like only yesterday that we here at TMT reported that the Nirvana song "Breed" had been egregiously licensed for a telecom ad, an upcoming action movie, and the videogame Major League Baseball 2K7 (TMT News).
And NOW, as if his legacy hadn't been turned into ENOUGH of a joke, Primary Wave (the music publishing company that first heard the lyrics "I don't even care/ We don't have to breed" and saw dollar signs) has apparently decided to create a monument to their own indecency by issuing one of the most cartoonishly outlandish bits of Nirvana miscellanea ever created: the solid wood "Heart Shaped Box-set" music box.
Shhhhh... listen...
Did you hear him rolling over in that grave yet again? This is getting old, isn’t it?
Yes, you heard right, folks. Apparently, these Primary Wave dudes must have played hooky on the day their junior high English classes learned about metaphor, cuz this thing is an honest-to-goodness piece of wood that has been hand-treated and shaped like a heart symbol (as opposed to the actual organ) and contains not four chambers, but a set of five CDs of classic Cobainality. Believe it or not, 500 of these musical monstrosities were legitimately created by degree-holding business-men as a giveaway for the kinds of high-rolling music supervisors and ring-wearing advertising execs who may actually have the power and budget to license one of Cobain's rarified tracks. You know, like Frankie Sharp from Wayne’s World or something.
But wait! You haven’t even heard the most ludicrous parts yet: The hard-wood cover has the Nirvana logo burned onto its top, and the whole caboodle comes packaged in a white cake-box with the Nirvana smiley-face printed on it. Aaaaaaaaaand of course, there’s the pièce de résistance: when you open this little beauty, a small speaker proceeds to serenade you with none other than the classic HSB itself! Right now you’re probably asking yourself, “So wait, the whole thing also functions like some sort of giant, grotesque music box?” The answer is yes.
As for the more practical side (if there is one) of this whole affair, the music encased inside this literal heart-shaped box includes three discs of 50 songs performed by Nirvana, plus another two discs of cover songs, including stirring renditions of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Paul Anka, Scala, Tori Amos, Patti Smith, and Desmond Williams; tracks by Charlie Hunter Trio, Steve Earle, Herbie Hancock, Sinead O'Connor, and Stereophonics; and multi-song sets of Nirvana songs done as lullabies (!) and orchestral scores. Can you say “Volkswagen ad?”
So, what's an item like this worth, considering that it’s EXTREMELY rare, and yet EXTREMELY unpalatable to most legitimate Nirvana fans at the same time? Well, I guess we’ll find out together, dear readers. The market will soon set its price, as one lucky recipient in Detroit (Ford Motor Company, perhaps?) recently put #64/500 up on eBay. Unfortunately, the bidding seems to have ended for this particular item, so only time will tell how much the world’s wealthiest and most uninformed Nirvana fans are willing to shell-out in order to compensate for not being able to play music themselves. I don’t know about you, but if I were Kurt Cobain's ghost, I’d be screaming “Hey, wait, I’ve got a new complaint” right about now.
