The excellent geek forum Arstechnica recently had a post containing some enlightening resources about the RIAA's claims of the damage caused by downloading. Seems the poor fellas have seen a 10% drop in unit sales of records.

Of course, they released 25% fewer individual titles. And let's not forget that the record industry's exploitation of artists has been so consistently unethical for so long that it's driven the artists themselves to organize against them.

As we close in on the end of 2002, everyone else is jumping into the saddle that this site has reserved for itself every Monday. That being the case, it wouldn't be right just to roll out another top albums of 2002 list. Below you'll find the 5 best lists (not necessarily only in the 2002 range) to be found out on the Internet right now.

5. NME's top 100 singles chart
It's always interesting to see what they're spinning on the other side of the pond.

4. Pitchfork media top 50 CD's of 2002
There's something about the hipper-than-thou vibe of Pitchfork that can makes you hate yourself for visiting it so often. But seeing the Liars and ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead in the top ten is gratifying.

3. Elvis Costello's listening list
Not a "top" anything list per se, but this one lets you see what someone who influences others is influenced by. Scroll to the bottom of this now-expired journal that EC maintained last summer to see what was on his stereo back then.

2. Village Voice Pazz and Jop Poll
The Voice is still a great publication, as long as you don't fool yourself that it's to be read for the news. The Pazz and Jop poll is the yearly culmination of their up-to-the-minute and usually dead-on music reporting. It comes out in February for the previous year (hence my link to the 2001 list), perhaps due to the obsessive-level detail they put into it. And the online version actually adds a lot of value over the print edition, allowing you to link from album to critic who voted for it and back. (Here's the 2000 edition too.)

1. Deskscan by Dave Marsh
(Scroll down to the bottom of the article for the list) In late July, Dave Marsh added a list to the bottom of his always excellent American Grandstand column on Starpolish, showing what's playing in his office right now. Considering who we're talking about, that's an opinion to pay attention to.

Buddy and Julie Miller are a pair of married musicians, who made a record together in 2001. It was their first record together, but not their first time working together (Julie had first gained notice upon writing songs for Buddy as far back as 1995, though her first record showed up in 1997.)

You'll thank yourself for getting this one. The album rocks and sighs with equal conviction, and all the songs benefit from subtle and insightful production. Julie, who takes on the lion's share of the songwriting duties, knows how to create the timeless songs you swear you heard sung once by Hank Williams (quite a feat when she wrote 'em last year).

2 More reasons to root for 'em: one of their cats is named Hoboken, and one of the instruments listed on the record is trashcan.

The most recent BMWFilms movie is Beat the Devil. The story is about James Brown trying to get out of his contract with the devil (natch via a car race). The story is thinner than usual even for the BMWFilms standard, but it's a great excuse to throw a bunch of classic JB in the soundtrack. There's also a fun surprise cameo at the end.

Funky funky picture courtesy of Randy's Rodeo, which also has a Christmas gift for you.

Merry Christmas, y'all.

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

London burns a little less brightly tonight.

Every year around this time, a few songs slip quietly back into the rotation on us. They're all extremely familiar to us, but some of them we still can't get enough of. Here are the top 5.

5. Do They Know it's Christmastime - Band Aid
Bob Geldof observes the holiday by getting a bunch of musicians together to raise money to alleviate the Ethiopian famine. Might have gotten a higher rating on this list if only it hadn't ended up spawning the painful copycat, USA for Africa. Owch.

4. James Brown - Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto
Fire up the yule log, roll back the rug, and get ready to pull grandma up out the rocking chair. Christmas is funky, yo.

3. The Pogues with Kirsty McColl - Fairytale of New York
It's not just any Christmas tune that contains the lyrics:
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it's our last

2. The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping
Two great things about this tune: its position in the proud tradition of rapping new wave white chicks of the 80's, and fact that the Christmas cheer comes from flirting with some dude at the grocery store at the end of the song.

1. John Lennon - Happy Xmas (War is Over)
Far from being dated, this one is truer today than it was in 1971. War is over, if you want it. Peace of the season to everyone.

Its name may remind you of a cheesy R&B song by Shalamar, but it's actually one of the most addictive sites to dork around on that I've come across in a while.

The idea is to build a database full of all the cover versions of all the songs you can think of. Then you can surf from one artist to another by clicking on the acts they've covered, or have covered them. Their goal is to see how long a cover "chain" they can create. (Current record: 183, starting with the Cure and ending with Loona)

My favorite game to play with the site is to see how long you could keep it up clicking only artists under the "has covered" links (no "covered by" allowed) until you get back to an artist that never covered anybody. Either one of two things happens: you hit someone who is one of the real forefathers of American pop, or you hit someone who's too damn stubbornly original to cover anyone else.

(Respect to Mojo Nixon on the title) What happened? Sweden's biggest pop act has returned from obscurity with a vengeance. A movie, A Broadway show, a song covered by Luka Bloom, and a pretty snazzy website for a band that hasn't been together for 20 years.

So now NYC has two hip-hop stations. Hot 97 was the only game in town for some time. Then in March 2002 Power 105.1 came on the scene, and set about trying to eat Hot 97's lunch. That's nothing unusual, but this competitive rivalry has gotten tangled in a very public dispute involving Nas and even physical assault.

All of which distracts folks from the facts: Emmis Communications basically held a monopoly on urban radio in NYC until recently, owning Kiss-FM and CD 101.9 along with Hot 97. And Power 105.1, the savior of NYC urban radio? Owned by Clear Channel Entertainment, the world's largest radio conglomerate (thanks relaxed FCC rules!) Hell with it, maybe you should roll your own.

It's not unheard of that a father and son both become well known pop singers, but the story of Jeff and Tim Buckley really makes you wonder about the whole nature / nurture thing.

Introducing a new feature you'll see here every Monday: 100% subjective top 5 lists. All judgements strictly my own opinion. Feel free to tell me yours, though.

5. Violent Femmes, Violent Femmes
Why it is that I needed (not enjoyed, but needed) to chant this song while walking down the street in the grips of hormonal rage I don't quite know. But I think that's pretty much what rock and roll (especially acoustic punk rock) is all about.

4. Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense
Pop music is art, dammit. David Byrne singing Psycho Killer in a big suit is about all that needs to be said about the 80's.

3. REM, Document
I don't know exactly what to say about this one. I couldn't figure out most of what was happening on this album then, and I can't now. Sounded damn cool, though. And what would graduation have been without "End of the World as We Know It"?

2. Lou Reed, New York
Let's not forget the 80's were a time (much like now) of execrable politics. Thank you, Lou, for speaking out for us. There is no Time is still the best marching song for the politically active, and angry, out there.

1. Prince, Sign "O" the Times
I was sure I was going to put Purple Rain down here. I wrote down Purple Rain, agonized over whether I should pick his undisputable biggest hit album over the wrecka that was really was number 1 in my heart. I decided I had to, then sat down and couln't do it. Purple Rain is incredible, but Sign "O" the Times is perfect.

Look at it: Housequake. Funkiest track ever. Ballad of Dorothy Parker. Prince psychedelia at its best. I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man. Best pop / rock and roll tune ever. I could go on, but you get the idea. It's all yours, little man. Prince's Sign "O" the Times, number 1.

Ever wonder what it would sound like if someone took a tinkly MIDI file of your favorite pop tune, dubbed over the lyrics using sound files snagged from an online dictionary website, and turned the whole thing into an MP3?

Well, me neither. But you can go to Dictionaraoke and find out anyway.

Battlesounds is an ongoing project to document the creative, developing (and don't forget bangin) world of turntablism. It's spawned a 60-minute documentary shown at the Whitney, a bunch of turntablist festivals, and hopefully soon, a 5-hour director's cut on DVD (details here, last paragraph). They're even working on a way (so totally cool) to create turntablist sheet music.

My favorite link from the site: a RealVideo clip of Hop-Fu, a gig where 2 turntablists provide a live soundtrack for an old kung-fu movie.

Umm, the new Roots rekkid is extremely dope. Just needed to point that out.

Seriously, this Philly crew is some of the most musically curious people out there right now. On Phrenology, they show off their soul sound on tracks like Complexity, stomp out seriously muscular rock-n-roll jams on "!!!!" and "Rock You", and do about the best hip-hop poetry track I've heard yet, with "Something in the Way of Things" (with the always powerful Amiri Baraka.)

Saw a fun show at CBGB last Friday. Dee Adams is a self-described chick singer from Rochester NY. Rocking runs in the family, possibly the reason Dee has the chops to just have won grand prize in the Songs Inspired By Literature songwriting competition!

There are a few legal downloading services out there now. For my money, the only one close to being worth the money is Emusic.com. You can actually download mp3's, which is something other pay-to-play download services don't support . Pressplay, for example, only has streams or .wma files. Realone is has no way to download files or burn CD's at all.

Interestingly, Emusic is apparently not quite as unlimited as it's made out to be. Read posts here for info about users who get warning emails if they download too many songs. In all honestly though, I haven't bumped against the ceiling, and I download a lot.

Their selection is somewhat erratic, but who needs strictly commercial major label product anyway? I'd rather have the some of the indie gems that Emusic is best for.

Have you tried a dload service that you recommend?

What's the good of a secure homeland with no Slick Rick in it? Slick Rick is facing deportation from the U.S., where he has a wife and family in NYC. For more information, check the articles in the Voice, AllHipHop.com, MTV.com, and Excellent Online.

Sign the petition!

What do you do after you've sung one of the biggest singles of 1967 with the Box Tops? Release a couple of the best records ever with your new band Big Star, and become elusive for a while, eventually showing up at CBGB's with the Talking Heads. And don't forget to rediscover your Memphis soul roots.

Hiphoppass.net is playing a live Roots show to plug the new Phrenology record. It contains a bunch of their hits, including a killer (rockin'!) version of You Got Me and cover of Rick James's Superfreak. (Hey, there's a cool remix here that samples both from MC Hammer's U Can't Touch This and Superfreak.)

Looking for a little streaming hip-hop? Wefunk radio is a favorite of mine. They hail from CKUT in Montreal, where they spin in DJ prime time (that's midnight to 2AM friday night y'all.) If you need a little bump on your portable MP3 rig, they also have downloadable shows in the archive.

Pitchfork Media recently published their list of the top 100 albums of the 80's.

You may commence quibbling. (A prime opportunity to try out the brand-spankin-new Riffs page! -- See link below.)