Seriously, This is Just Wrong

When I first heard that the new Guitar Hero 5 game would feature a Kurt Cobain avatar, I figured he'd be playing a left-handed Jagstang guitar and it would be a little weird but ultimately OK. As the video capture above shows, what actually happened is just gross. 

Once you unlock the KC avatar, you find out he's the lead singer and not the guitarist. He's wearing the fuzzy sweater and singing songs by Billy Idol, Bon Jovi, Stevie Wonder and (worst of all) Bush. No matter what you think about Gavin Rossdale's career, does anyone seriously think Bush's first album would've had a chance if radio didn't need to fill the playlist void created by Kurt's death? Bush: slightly creepy then, incredibly creepy here in Guitar Hero.

I'm not sure how much control the Cobain Estate gave up when they made what now seems like an ill-advised deal with Primary Wave Music Publishing in 2006, but Karaoke Kurt tears down an icon instead of teaching a young audience why they should care about Nirvana.

I've got some history here: I've worked with the Cobain Estate on the catalog and know (and respect) many of the principals over at Primary Wave. I'm sympathetic to the problems that come with making money from Nirvana, because Kurt's rebellion was far more than a pose and that anarchic spirit always shows through in the end. But still, really bad choice here.

Real Life First-Person Shooter (Minus the Actual Shooting)

The Military Channel brings video games to life with its new series Special Ops Mission, starring Wil Willis ("over 15 years in special operations with both the U.S. Army Rangers and the U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen"). 

Over the show's six-episodes, Willis takes on challenges designed to simulate the intensity of real-life operations but with the safety of special fake bullets called Simunition. 

Special Ops Mission will show on Thursday nights on The Military Channel. Check out this clip where Willis demonstrates weapons maintenance.

More details and video clips available at The Military Channel website.

Living with First-Person Shooter Disease

via IGN

The Beatles Finally Give In to Technology

The Beatles have been notoriously slow to adopt new technology and they've never upgraded the first-generation CDs they reluctantly issued in 1987. 

That all changes September 9 with the release of the Beatles Rock Band game, which comes with 45 Beatles songs and new animation supervised by George Harrison's son Dhani. Also on that date will be two new CD box sets that remaster the band's catalog, one box in stereo and the other finally releasing the original UK mono mixes taken from original master tapes.

There's still no word on a digital release through iTunes.

Read more about the video game and CD reissues at Rolling Stone.

Army Developers Obsessed With "Star Wars"

The Soldier of the Future will also be taking more Performance Enhancing Drugs than A-Rod and Lance Armstrong combined. Read about the Natick Soldier Systems Center's plans for the year 2030 at the New York Post. (via Kotaku)

Intruder Alert!

Back in the '80s, you actually had to leave the house to play the best video games. There are lots of pictures of thirty great arcade games over at AMOG.

Begin Here

Ward Carroll (your editor here at Military.com) and I have talked about this blog for a long time. 

With "Hearts and Minds," we’re going to write about entertainment and culture, giving special attention to how the military is portrayed in music, film, TV, books and video games. With the help of Valerie Gorchinski and others, we’ll be keeping you up-to-date with things you might need to know about when it’s time to kick back in the FOB or anywhere else you might get some down time.

I’ve known Ward for twenty years from my early days as manager of Southern rock kingpins Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ and Ward’s as a Navy flier with ambitions to be a rock journalist. We’ve stayed in touch over the years, talking about bands and movies and how the entertainment business works.

Things come around: I’m in the studio with Drivin’ N’ Cryin’ as they make their first new album in twelve years and Ward and I are now sharing that long-running conversation with you on "Hearts and Minds."

If we’re going to succeed, we need feedback and direction from you. We want your comments on the posts, emails that suggest things we should write about and (especially) links to our posts on your blogs, MySpace,Twitter, or Facebook.

We look forward to hearing from you.

James Barber has written about music and movies for Slate, Blender, Good and AlltheMusicNews.com. He is also a record producer, band manager, music business technology consultant and was an A&R guy at Geffen/DGC Records (back in the 90s when that meant something). He has never been a celebrity chef in Canada, even though he gets a lot of internet fan mail for that guy.