I left a comment about this on Gametrailer's video review of GH5.
I said something along the lines of that I found it a bit weird that Johnny Cash and Kurt Cobain are "playable" characters in GH5 because they, and Cobain especially seemed to shun the whole idea of "rock stars." I don't know about Cash, but Cobain for sure seemed to find the whole thing a farce and it seems to just go against everything he believed in to have him in a game.
I'm not even a Cobain fanboy but it's a matter of principle, it just seems sort of tasteless to put a guy like him in a fucking video game.
And on the Dimebag thing, that character was just a likeness. Before Activision took over making the GH games (GH3 onwards) Harmonix didn't include any celebrity characters, just ones that sorta payed homage to certain rockstars. It's a thin line to toe, sure, but as much as GH1 and 2 were still video games that obviously were money making machines above all else, it still felt like Harmonix had their integrity and respect for the source material. I don't buy GH games anymore for that exact reason. There's that and the fact that Guitar Hero and Rock Band need to start switching track lists. GH5 is literally nearly all stuff that doesn't really qualify as guitar HERO sort of stuff, to me that implies stuff that would be technical, virtuostic, challenging, blah blah, not Blur and Kings of Leon, while Rock Band implies that Blur and Kings of Leon would be a much better fit there, but instead you get awesome shit for the last half of the track list anyway. Prequel To The Sequel? Fuck yeah.
. Dunno, Not disagreeing with you, might just be the youtube video or that particular song, but I've managed to memories some of the GH 1's songs and have done well without looking at the screen. I've learned it because of figuring out the timing of the song. It's why I assumed they gave you the frets before any notes come on the screen.
