All very nice choices, but my fave rave is this little gem by the newly reunited and revitalized Was (Not Was), a Chicago Blues treatment of the Dylan tune, "Dignity," directly available here:

http://simplesites.orcon.net.nz/01%20DIGNITY%203.mp3

or with more info from this site:

http://worldwidewas.com/mp3.php

It seems like this should be the model for music. I generally listen to all the songs that are offered. I like that they are left on the site, since I listen in bunches. I've noticed if you have Quicktime on a computer, you don't get the option to save. If it isn't on a machine, you can download the file and keep it.

You'd like to think this country could support a lot of artists. Not in opulent splendor, perhaps, but enough so it is a real career. So, well, you give the songs away, but I have actually bought a half dozen CD's, some used on Amazon Marketplace. I've downloaded some songs. I've also tried to research music further, ending up on Pitchfork and several other sites. I've downloaded from a Brit outfit, Bleep.com, led there from one of the songs on offer here. Bleep lets you preview the whole song, but only 30 seconds at a time. Quite clever, and much more useful.

These 20 songs really are very good. I'm sort of from the 60's era of rock. You can't get that out of your blood.

The song by Animal Collective is really quite something. Youth, with it's enthusiasm...

Geebo, you have 2 options to download with Quicktime:

1. Once the entire song has downloaded, click the downward-pointing triangle in the bottom far right corner of the Quicktime player. This should bring up a menu and one of the options should be "Save as Source."

or

2. Go back to the link to the song and right click it. That should bring up a menu that includes "save linked file" or something similar.

This is just about my one-year anniversary with Salon downloads, which began the day I hooked my Airport up to my stereo and started listening to music again with greater frequency & more enjoyment than I had since college. I particularly appreciate the range of genres, because my own tastes are so varied. Thanks, Salon!

That was my fave.

The melody for the M. Ward song sounds an awful lot like "Help Me Make It Through the Night." Sammi Smith sang it better, though.

It never ceases to amaze me how Audiofile can mine such a variety of musical genres, the conventional and the experimental, the mainstream and the indie, the inexperienced and the veteran, and day after day fail to produce a single song that I can enjoy listening to.

In my mind I picture a Venn diagram consisting of two circles: "Music Thomas Bartlett Likes" and "Music I Like." Both circles are enormous and overlap with countless musical subsets. Yet never once have they come in contact with each other. How long can the odds be defied?

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