Thanks for the 20-best download list. I always look forward to these great sources of argument and validation. I won't argue about your selections; nobody's list ever exactly matches somebody else's taste. -OK, just one: Clap Your Hands.... belongs there. Great download you gave us, great album.

Most important, though, is the whole concept of free downloads. You have done remarkable work to get record companies to allow sharing. Apparently a large part of the industry fears what you do, but if you ever need arguments or evidence in coercing cooperation, let me share my own experience.

Radio and TV are empty sources of music. The web is the place to find new music and artists. Free downloads make that possible. Then I go out and buy. Yes, executives, I buy. And other people buy as a result of my buying because I share, get excited, proselytize. Specifically, since April, I have bought Bloc Party, Ellis Marsalis, Clap Your Hands, Beck, Devendra Banhart, Antony and the Johnsons, My Morning Jacket, Fionna Apple, and Bonnie Prince Billie. In addition, your downloads have a collateral effect: your mention of other artists, of the relationship of one to another, of contrasts - steers me toward sampling beyond your offerings. As a result of those purchases and your column, I have also somehow bought Ryan Adams, Bright Eyes, Nick Cave, The Eels, Green Day, Matt Pond PA, Postal Service, the Wainwrights, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Jarrett, and Spoon. In short, downloads, contrary to what so many fear, actually encourage buying. Until I found your column, I was in a low-buying mode, bored by contemporary music. Now I am buying as if I were a college student again. I am 60. Thanks.

Quibble: the alphabetical search feature seems no longer to be available. That sometimes helps.

Keep doing this.

Ralph Baldwin

No more Audiophile? I've been away, and this is the news I come home to in Salon.com. Sadness reigns here. This was one of the best things on the Web, and you have trashed it. Sorry to see it go.