Kurt Cobain's soaring posthumous legacy hit turbulence in 2006 when eccentric widow Courtney Love formed a business partnership with music publisher Larry Mestel to co-manage her deceased husband's legendary Nirvana estate.

While Love asserted that Mestel was the right partner to take Cobain's music to the next generation, fans worried that the former Virgin exec's 25 percent stake in the publishing catalog might land Nirvana's generation-defining songs in deodorant ads and action-movie soundtracks. While anthemic Cobain songs like "Smells Like Teen Spirit" famously mocked crass commercialism, many Nirvana tunes may, themselves, become grist for the jingle mill. To one music critic, unrelated news about the summer release of a slouching Cobain doll--complete with left-handed Fender guitar--served as a bad omen.

Although Kurt Cobain stood against the oft-inane marketing schemes of major record companies, fans have thus far been treated to interesting treasures from the Nirvana vault. Perhaps for Nirvana fans, it's more about honoring Cobain's integrity than tuning out entirely. As music observer Ben Sisario writes, "It's tempting to remember Cobain as an anticommerical scourge, ridiculing the music business by giving one song the sarcastic title 'Radio Friendly Unit Shifter….but he did sign a contract with a major record label." Sisario adds, "For a band that seemed to break all the rules while still profiting from the game, it might never be possible to have a 'tasteful' legacy."