Keith Harris
Chicago, Illinois

So many of us tomboys who grew up in the middle of some bumfuck town didn't know dick about punk rock or anarchy. But we did know that we were naturally tough, loud, and awkward, a rumple in the fine fabric of femininity. Avril's detractors slag her for being manufactured, for not being a "real" punk. Give the kid a break.

Jeanne Fury
Brooklyn, New York

That's all I know about Justin and Britney, can't tell you no more 'cause I'm coked up like Whitney, and here we are waving Justin and Britney goodbye, whoa oh, whoa oh, whoa oh oh oh oh oh: Christina.

Rob Sheffield
Brooklyn, New York

Did we miss the stage where Christina steals her father's car keys for a midnight joyride? In a video full of lascivious moments, the most inspiring is when she deep-knee-bends her way out of an invisible skirt and we get to see her no-underwear ass. Then she turns around and we see underneath the skirt's rape-shredded front. No, she is wearing 'em: little red ones triangularly cropping her crotch and screaming, "Devil's Pie!"

Joseph Patel
Manhattan

Kelly Osbourne keeps her clothes on and is quite possibly the only entertainer to lie down with her feet up on Jay Leno's couch. She makes Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears look like porn stars.

Heidi Siegmund Cuda
Sherman Oaks, California

Close your eyes and think of Brooklyn: Ashanti.

Rob Sheffield
Brooklyn, New York

Whenever Pink's "Family Portrait" comes on, I can't believe how pragmatic its melancholy is. "In our family portrait we look pretty happy," she reassures herself over that reconstructed Whitesnake bounce. "Pretty happy" she'd be happy with. She just doesn't want two addresses, or a stepbrother, or a mom who's changed her last name.

Mikael Wood
Manhattan

Justin Timberlake can sniff my hair any day.

Hillary Rea
Brooklyn, New York

"Like I Love You" was, among other things, a triumph of syntactic ambiguity: Does Justin, like, love her? Does he feel something approximating love? Is he just being sarcastic? The song's a perfect textual depiction of the Neptunes' indecisive Sweet Tart shuffle: Is it pop? Is it r&b? Is it just being sarcastic?

Mikael Wood
Manhattan

I saw Justin backstage in L.A. He was out to support N.E.R.D. and he looked so tired. Just completely beaten down. He was wearing a "Work Sucks" hat. True dat.

Heidi Siegmund Cuda
Sherman Oaks, California

8 Mile is this year's Purple Rain, another classic wishful psychobiography. Rabbit doesn't pimp himself to Dr. Dre, I mean his gangster wannabe friend. He burns down an abandoned house for fun, I mean to protect little girls like his daughter, I mean sister. He gets beat up by bullies, I mean gangsters, I mean he beats up the gangsters and then gets beat up himself. He hates gay men, I mean he defends a gay man. So "Lose Yourself" is his "Flashdance," I mean "Eye of the Tiger," I mean "Baby I'm a Star."

Peter S. Scholtes
Minneapolis, Minnesota

In a less dismal time for boy-girl solidarity, Eminem would be a voice in the dialogue—one voice, like Beck's or Sarah McLachlan's or Ice Cube's or Scott Weiland's. But these days Em has the podium all to himself, and there is no dialogue, only a consensus that sucks even worse than consensus usually does. He gets a free ride, for the excellent reason that he's the only interesting pop star around. But consensus isn't very becoming to him; in '94, he would have made a great delinquent sweathog at Rock & Roll High School, but in 2002 he just sounded like the principal. None of this is his fault. But it is his problem, life being unfair and all.

Rob Sheffield
Brooklyn, New York

"Without Me" was perfect cruising music when I was vacationing in L.A.: bouncy house beats, bratty, braggy lyrics. But it was a little weird to drive down Sunset Strip with "Cleaning Out My Closet" booming from my system. It's so not L.A.—so deep, so personal, so chilling.

Tricia Romano
Manhattan

"Lose Yourself" and Eminem's other 8 Mile songs are absolutely expert and all, but it perplexes me that so many people think they're the best things he's ever done. They've got so little of his personality in them. It will of course be interesting to watch him mature. But if Slim Shady is in retirement, I doubt I'll care all that much.

Chuck Eddy
Brooklyn, New York

Talk-radio pundit Don Imus: "If we're talking about Eminem, isn't he over?"

David Menconi
Raleigh, North Carolina

Eminem gets more mileage out of being poor than being white. Pink cleans her own closet with a "Family Portrait." Justin chats up his modest background. J.Lo is still Jenny from the block. And young white rock stars everywhere say they're just trying to get by. Growing up lower-middle class is the new suburban street cred.

Bret McCabe
Baltimore, Maryland

Millionaire emcee/r&b singers, witness Hammer and ponder your fate: shilling an auto-loan dotcom, an old website with broken links and no hits, and a buttload of debt to a major label.

Darrell McNeill
Brooklyn, New York

Forget about the bling, Nas made me want to be a B-boy again. While all you knuckleheads are flashing ice, I'm pulling up my sweat socks after spinning in Rock Steady Park.

Michael Gonzales
Brooklyn, New York

God's Son is a return to form for the artform and not just Nas, the first hardcore hiphop album in years that bleeds from the heart and the metaphor and maintains musical invention track after track. Nas is as up close and personal, as philosophical, as delusional, paranoid and narcissistic, and as nice with the concrete-jungle lingo as we've heard any hiphop artist be since Ready to Die.

Greg Tate
Manhattan

Is Ja Rule still alive? Doesn't calling DMX a bitch on the radio precipitate some kind of ensanguined death by pit bull in the Streets of Harlem? I mean, who's going to back Ja up? Ashanti? Mary J. Blige? Charli Baltimore? Steven Segal?

Joseph Patel
Manhattan

Mr. Rakim Allah's verse on "Addictive" was far and away the most bracing moment on hip-hop radio, a total rebirth for a guy who for years has been trying to rejigger his one-time dominance. Rak's thug can't get out from under no matter how much his home life is demanding that he drop it and no matter how cool he sounds trying to justify his actions. He knows his gal's been loyal but he can't help but keep on playin'. Wicked.

Joe Gross
Austin, Texas

Cee-Lo and Common both wore their religion on their sleeves, but Cee-Lo's the one I'd invite to say grace at my house, because he'd keep it short and enjoy the grub.

Tom Hull
Wichita, Kansas

I know the pendulum in African-American culture swings between the raw and the cooked, the spiritual and the secular, the gully and the divine. In some remarkable moments they co-exist within the same music and artist, and perhaps that's what vintage sports jerseys and iced-out crosses represent. Still, I do yearn for more secular salvation than I'm getting.

Nelson George
Brooklyn, New York

America is no longer shocked by Eminem's lyrics, yet Michael Jackson doesn't say a word and he continues to scare the pants off people of every age, race, class, and gender. That's power.

Jeanne Fury
Brooklyn, New York

Wait a second. Are both of Michael Jackson's sons really named Prince? What happened to Your Butt Is Mine and I'm Bad?

Franklin Paul
Yonkers, New York

The most fascinating thing about Michael Jackson is his faculty for outsizing his own irony, on levels of disbelief Voltaire, Swift, or Thompson would be hard-pressed to suspend. The plot twists are too bizarre to be calculated and at the same time too peculiar to be mere happenstance. The tragic thing is the attention this draws from media cynics and a populace with a predilection for red meat. After all, it's not like Jackson is evil, a bin Laden or a Papa Doc or a Ferdinand Marcos or the cowards who shot Jam Master Jay or a Henry Kissinger or a Sotheby's/Tyco/ Enron/Adelphia/WorldCom/ImClone CEO or a Clear Channel or a Newt Gingrich or a Dick Cheney or a Strom Thurmond. This is Shakespearean tragedy cloaked as Twainian farce directed by Spike Jonze.

Darrell McNeil
Brooklyn, New York

I had no problem with Springsteen's media blitz, because he figured he had nothing to lose and that's why he always played it. He didn't sell "The Rising" as a Wonder Bread commercial or "You're Missing" as the theme song for Without a Trace, and went without sponsorship for the tour. He didn't capitalize on a tragedy. He responded to it.

Ken Capobianco
Brighton, Massachusetts

Visible from a backstage vantage point was Springsteen's meticulous pre-slide prep: While his band downshifted into an attention-distracting vamp, he'd retreat to the side of Max Weinberg's drum kit to catch his breath, thrust an oversized sponge into a bin of water, and then carefully soak down his pants for maximum viscosity.

Brett Sokol
Miami, Florida

Who crowned Springsteen 9/11 misery king? I voted for Samuel Barber! Oh that's right, kings aren't elected. They take their thrones by force in a fiery display of ego and manifest destiny.

Scott Seward
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Bruce Springsteen, please break up.

Douglas Wolk
Long Island City, New York

While the industry took a beating, the only people able to score significant success in 2002 were Eminem and a cast of dinosaur rockers: Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Bruce Springsteen, Carlos Santana.

Kevin O'Hare
Springfield, Massachusetts

I'm sorry John Entwistle died, though probably not as sorry as his cocaine supplier(s).

Arsenio Orteza
Opelousas, Louisiana

When I first got wind Axl was reforming Guns N' Roses with all new players, I told Ice T. He said and I quote: "That's like day-old McDonald's."

Heidi Siegmund Cuda
Sherman Oaks, California

At the Graham Nash show I saw in Atlantic City, he ignored the ironic setting of the Taj Mahal Xanadu and quite rightly dedicated "Take the Money and Run" to all the Bush cronies and other corrupt CEOs, then threw in "Military Madness" to boot!

Jack Rabid
Manhattan

Lemmy might have fixed his teeth and removed (and sold!) his wart, but Motšrhead are as vital and nasty as ever.

A.S. Van Dorston
Chicago, Illinois

Johnny Cash's Rick Rubin CDs are no different than the early stuff, especially after he left Sun for Columbia. Throw a lot of songs against the wall and see what sticks. There's always one or two in there—"Delia's Gone," "Personal Jesus"—that take your damn breath away. Keep that up for 40 years or so and you're a legend.

Werner Trieschmann
Little Rock, Arkansas