Courtney Love Sells Chunk Of Nirvana Publishing Catalogue

Courtney Love has sold 25 per cent of her share of Nirvana's publishing catalogue, which she inherited in 1994 after her late husband Kurt Cobain committed suicide, to Larry Mestel of Primary Wave Music Publishing.

"I took a strategic partner, Larry Mestel, to help me co-manage the estate because it was overwhelming," Love told RollingStone.com. "The affairs of Nirvana are so massive and so huge, and they've all fallen on my lap."

Love was left with 98 per cent of Nirvana's publishing rights following Cobain's death, while his bandmates Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic split the remaining two per cent.

"I own almost all of [the publishing] and it proved to be too much for me. I needed a partner to take Kurt Cobain's songs and bring them into the future and into the next generation. And this guy's the guy to do it."

It's speculated that Mestel paid more than $50 million U.S. for the rights, which should pay off any expenses Love will have for her upcoming album.

"The appeal to me is that [Kurt was] one of the most important songwriters of his time," said Mestel, the former COO/GM of Virgin Records. "Kurt was an incredible songwriter and Courtney is an exceptionally talented person herself.

"So I felt the combination of Courtney's creativity and the things I can add can really help in creating more value for these copyrights."

Love emphasized that she and Mestel won't spread Nirvana music around aimlessly to exploit Cobain's legacy. "We're going to remain very tasteful and we're going to [retain] the spirit of Nirvana and take Nirvana places it's never been before."

When talk of the catalogue sale arose earlier this year, U2 frontman Bono was rumoured to be interested, but nothing materialized.