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Suicide, especially when a celebrity is involved, is inevitably viewed by pundits as a cop-out--an ungrateful denial of the human covenant. Unlike the rest of us, say, who still nobly scrape by with so little, the deceased quit cold, despite having had so much.This rather ungenerous piety was heard years ago when Kurt Cobain ended his stint as generational seraph.

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Courtney Love is no healer -- of herself or anyone else. And that’s why, despite the nose job, boob lift, designer gowns, and kissy-poo swanning down red carpets, she’s no pop star. She’s incapable of telling us that everything’s gonna be all right. But when it comes to testifying to how everything’s totally, unbearably, exhilaratingly fucked-up beyond despair, she has few peers.

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Near the midpoint of this follow-up to Nappy Roots’ 2002 surprise hit, Watermelon, Chicken & Gritz, the group’s B. Stille drawls perhaps the most outlandish pop-music statement of 2003. Over a doleful, Geto Boyish funk stroll--scruffy snare, bluesy guitar, piano, flute--he proclaims:“Even when I’m rich / I’ma pretend to be poor.”

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There are a handful of legendary groups--the Ramones, the Velvet Underground—who never sold mega-millions of records, but who famously inspired an unusually huge number of kids to start their own bands. The elemental ferocity of songs like “Teenage Lobotomy” and “Sister Ray” seemed to scream out,“See?