Gen X Buries Pre-Boomer Icon: The Changing of the (Dead) Guard

Kurt Cobain surpasses Elvis Presley as most-moneymakin' corpse; however, it was due mostly to an unrepeatable one-year blip caused by Courtney Love, aka the Widow Cobain, selling off 25 percent of his song publishing last year. The only person on Forbes' top 10 of the dividend-delivering dead who wasn't officially a professional entertainer in his former life is Albert Einstein, at no. 5 with $20 million earned last year.

Comments

Alan Vanneman | October 25, 2006, 11:42am | #

Are you suggesting that Alberto was an "unofficial" professional entertainer? Yeah, he could definitely work a crowd, but I never thought that the Big E was in the relativity business for the cash.

ChrisO | October 25, 2006, 12:01pm | #

Elvis was an icon of the '50s generation, not the boomers.

Brian Doherty | October 25, 2006, 12:25pm | #

[[Previous comments from me deleted, condensed]] ChrisO---while I'm conifdent a substantial amount of Elvis mania, and Elvis income, from 1959 to now was indeed from Boomers, who started becoming teens in that year, it is certainly true that the most iconic of this icons fans were the pre-boomer waves of screamin' girls and envious boys, and vice versa, of 56-59, so I've amended the hed accordingly.

mediageek | October 25, 2006, 12:37pm | #

Does this mean that the "modern rock" station in my city is still going to play Smells Like Teen Spirit eighteen times a day for the next four decades?

Postmodern Sleaze | October 25, 2006, 12:41pm | #

Kurt Cobain was just a money-making corpse when he was still among the living.

Fuck Nirvana and the horse it rode in on.

Jeff P, | October 25, 2006, 12:50pm | #

Wake me when couples line up to be married by a Cobain impersonator.
Or when there's a Klingon Cobain:

http://www.romm.org/mars05/77.html

J sub D | October 25, 2006, 2:45pm | #

Two record executives talking:

1st exec - I've got good news and bad news.
2nd exec - What's the good news?
1st exec - Elvis is dead and his records are selling like hotcakes.
2nd exec - What's the bad news?
1st exec - Glenn Miller just turned up and is demanding all his royalties.

Son of a! | October 25, 2006, 3:31pm | #

Or when there's a Klingon Cobain

No photos handy so I can't prove it, but I swear that's not the same K'Elvis I met three years ago.

The Wine Commonsewer | October 25, 2006, 10:38pm | #

As my good buddy Col Hogan once said, and I quote:

Curt, you shot the wrong Cobain.