VH1 recently broadcast the top 100 songs of the last 25 years. Most importantly, the eternal process of haggling over how wrong, wrong, WRONG! the list is has commenced on the message boards.

Mos Def has hands in a lot of pies. That's good for variety, and his own creative development, but it can be hell on fans. One of his projects, Black Jack Johnson, reads like a who's who of funky hard rock through the ages. Two former members of Living Color, Funkadelic's own Bernie Worrell, and the guitar of Bad Brains: your cup doesn't just runneth over, the sucker blows up. But due to the sucess of Mos Def's acting career, the record release, which was to be in 2002, then spring of 2003, is now (hopefully) in the fall of 2003. Judging from their recent show for 4500 sweat-soaked yuppie freaks though, it'll be worth the wait.

As video games and action movies get harder and harder to distinguish from one another, no doubt there will be other games that do what True Crime: Streets of L.A. is doing: using recognizable songs, or getting original soundtrack music created by musicians.

Note: the writers of the Onion must train in their style (that's saying-stupid-things-with-deadpan-delivery style) by reading press releases.

OK, this isn't exactly music, but it does involve audio. Every once in a while at the movies, if you think the scream that a character lets out after getting popped off sounds familiar, you're probably onto something. As mentioned on NPR and the occasional blog, the Wilhelm Scream.

Electric Six, who brought you the most stunningly warped video in recent memory, provide the soundtrack for this flash movie, of, shall we say, an equivalent degree of sophistication.

Amusing video. It's like watching the Monkees filtered through a dream inspired by spicy chili and a Salvador Dali coffee table book.

You may have followed the link in yesterday's post that mentioned Tegan and Sara. Good pop rock from two Canadian sisters. Check out their audio page, you can hear them covering their influences and get some samples from their latest powerpop opus.

It's time to start the betting pool for when Ryan Adams becomes a Moonie or something. Well-publicized tantrums on one end of the tour, inexplicable dress code on the other. Sounds like the mass recognition is bending the poor boy's brain.

Everyone's favorite Afrobeat collective goes Latin

When you've been together since 1979, and written an anthem about Rock'n'Roll well worthy of the title, you have a lot of stuff for your fans to stick up on your website.

This is one of those little labels that tempts you to just get every damn record they put out.

They got Mr. Lif, El Producto, RJD2, and plenty more. You may or may not have heard of them, but you'll get happy if you do. (And though their ultro-hip flash website precludes a link straight to the music, you can check out a bunch of their stuff if you go there.)

As pointed out in this space previously, Terence Trent D'Arby has returned as the equally difficult to spell Sananda Maitreya. At BB King's, Maitreya put on a show burned the basement down.

His tour features a tight six piece band, two of them quite talented backup singers who were nonetheless deprived of a backup singer's usual chance to show up the voice of the main attraction. Maitreya belted, falsettoed, and soul shouted his way from beginning to end. The repertoire spanned TTD's career, (Supermodel Sandwich, Wishing Well, several from the most recent Wildcard record) as well as a scorching encore rendition of Jumping Jack Flash and an a capella Moon River.

The former TTD exuded pleasire at being on stage, and acknowledged his own foibles by thanking the crowd "for the indulgence". One example of that excess was a sudden stop a few bars into the aforementioned barnburning cover of Jumping Jack Flash. He stopped the band, and gave the crowd a quick impassioned sermon -- he plays this song, he tells us, because it's a common experience, we all know this one, so we all sing along and come together. It's like church, he tells us. Maybe so. Anyway, before the momentum is lost, he starts up the Stones from the top again, and gives the whole tune his whole attention.

His performance was generous, cocky, and immensely satisfying. There's little doubt that he's star of his own movie up there, but the key to it all is that he seems to care quite a bit about making sure the movie is a good one.

Call it Labrador Aid, perhaps? Long Island Labrador Retriever rescue is auctioning off two tickets to see the Boss on July 21. After all, we should always do right by our furry friends.

Great piece in Pitchfork on the perhaps-soon-to-be-forgotten art of record packaging. Calling all Vinylsauruses.

Recipie for an eardrum-ringing good time: The Rapture (previously plugged here) with LCD Sound System opening for them at Irving Plaza.

The DFA Records labelmates both push out a loud, danceable wall of groove that forces even (some) indie rock hipster kids to shake their mess around. LCD Sound System's Losing My Edge is a pretty hilarious paranoia study that asks the musical question: What happens to the ego and attitude of the flavor of the (previous) month? Alas, it ain't online. But, for your pleasure, Beat Connection is.

Maybe you knew this already, but damn WBGO is a good jazz station. Take one look at this calendar of events, and just try to claim you can't find something good to listen to any night of the year (yes, that's one day's gigs). Of course you can listen to their signal online, and they do an impressive job of keeping track of what they've been playing too.

Ta-Nehisi Coates deconstructs the success of 50 Cent in the Village Voice. Read carefully. The genre Coates wants to save may or may not be your own, but no denying it's one of America's biggest cultural exports.

Celebrate Brooklyn is going be a good one this year. Joan Armatrading, Roseanne Cash, Blacklicious, all free as in beer.

Her new album, Soul Journey, came out yesterday. She's been described as new-timey music, and that comes as close as you're going to understanding what her sound is, short of hearing it of course. You should check her out right away, but you have plenty of time. Her music will be getting spins for a very long time to come.

Real networks is jumping into the game now. It costs more than Apple's version($.79 per song to Apple's $.99, but Real adds a $10.00/month fee). However, it has the key make-or-break features (IMHO): the ability to keep the tracks forever, and the ability and play them on your stereo along with your computer. Since Real's service will let you burn to CD, you automatically have a permanent copy that you can use on your stereo.

For a lot of people, the $10.00 monthly fee Real is charging may pay for itself by virtue of the fact that you'd have to buy a Mac to use Apple's service with no monthly charge. Here's to competition. Will Apple get smart and change their service to support non MacOS computers? They do love their closed architecture, after all.

The website that has arrived along with Creem's relaunch is shaping up to have a good combination of the old and the new. Seems like their return (due this summer) has be a good thing. Their review of Iggy and the Stooges from 1970 makes you realize how corporate Rolling Stone et al. have become.