Of the 100 most-played records on college radio, only four were hip-hop. And the three that weren't Dizzee Rascal were overrated and/or funkless outings from once-interesting white people— RJD2, Beasties, Streets. How come Madvillain, Murs, the Alchemist, or Ghostface can't crack the radio's supposed underground—but pseudo-indie pap like Phantom Planet and Snow Patrol can?

Christopher Weingarten
Manhattan

I love pulling into the Whole Foods parking lots with "Stop Fucking Wit' Me" blasting out of my '98 Saturn with the 10-inch rims, freaking out the hippies with metal madness and rap frenzy at the same time.

Matt Cibula
Madison, Wisconsin

In May, I started DJ'ing a Friday-night party called Boys Gone Wild at a trashy gay bar on Avenue A. The concept is simple—a gay frat party, basically—and all the promoter wants me to play is crunk and dirty hip-hop. Theme song: over the beats of "Get Low," a posse of deep-throated gay boys chants, "Take off your shirt/and take off your pants/now whip out that dick/give me a lap dance!"

Smith Galtney
Manhattan

Lil Jon did sell crunk out! OK, not really, but we already had rap-rock, so why did he invent it again? Why can't everyone stay bored with guitars?

Sterling Clover
Dorchester, Massachusetts

I hate all kinds of music, regardless of the genre. Ashlee Simpson bores me as much as Usher or any of the artists on the Vote for Change tour. Does this make me a rockist, a popist, or just a grump?

Sara Sherr
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The Jay-Z-Linkin Park mash-up album was better than it had any right to be—especially since Chester Bennington has 9,999 problems and a bitch is at least 9,987 of them.

Jonah Weiner
Brooklyn, New York

Franz Ferdinand set out to make the indie kids dance, which is hard but not impossible. Getting 'em to dance like nobody's looking—that's some Glasgow moxie right there.

Nate Chinen
Manhattan

One of the many reasons I related to grunge is that those guys dressed as sloppily as I did. Nowadays, every buzz band looks like it's auditioning for some fashion award.

Tim Grierson
Los Angeles, California

Kanye's red bear sweater is from the Ralph Lauren 2001 Christmas collection—2001!

Nick Sylvester
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Complaints about Kanye's "arrogance" are an insecure hip-hop audience's way of saying, "Rappers are supposed to project self-important, manly aggression. If we want nerdy defensive boasts, we've already got the Internet."

Keith Harris
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

TV on the Radio is like a get-out-of-jail-free card. Happen upon a heated debate on the virtues of Television and stick your foot in it by asking if Tom Verlaine was the guy from Picket Fences? Name-drop Tunde Adebimpe and all is forgiven.

Rachel Devitt
Seattle, Washington

Maybe bowing to hip-hop's youth grip, indie-minded rock got boomer-friendly. Arcade Fire, Rilo Kiley, the entire nu-/psych-/weirdo-folk movement, and Wilco, who coined the approach—it was all so musical, so literate, and so charmingly retro, it even seduced the gatekeepers at NPR.

Will Hermes
Saugerties, New York

The glorious glossolalia, the surreal wordplay, and the ridiculous grabs at being realer than "Kumbaya" of Harlem's Cam'ron were every bit as freak-folk as Devendra or anyone else in Brooklyn.

Andy Beta
Brooklyn, New York

Fuck Madvillainy. Joanna Newsom spit the hottest fire of the year: "And the hexes heat covertly/like a slow low-flying turkey/like a Texan drying jerky/but his meaty mitts can't hurt me."

Christopher Weingarten
Manhattan

Animal Collective and Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom made records that were timeless, even if they could have come from seven year olds. Freak-folk, at its core, was textbook punk rock: self-contained and communal, more Dischord than Donovan.

Trevor Kelley
Brooklyn, New York

Maybe Arcade Fire are part of a secret Bush administration plot to lure deep-feeling indie-kid malcontents to Quebec. In which case—bon riddance!

Keith Harris
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Heard on Chicago's black music station WGCI: "The Barack Obama event was so crunk!"

Jill Blardinelli
Chicago, Illinois

To me, the Dirty South rappers are movie monsters who deserve equal billing. David Banner. Roar! Bonecrusher. Grrrr. Ying Yang Twins. Slash! Lil' Flip. (Cue evil Lex Luther laugh.) These guys should form a Superfriends organization and release an album under one name. Call 'em the Anger League or something.

Christopher O'Connor
Syracuse, New York

Snoop's "Drop It Like It's Hot" slings silly straws, slide whistles, a breakfast of snizzap-crackle-and-pizzop, T-Mobile sidekicks, and a keyboard setting John Tesh wouldn't fuck wit' with Mike Post's dick. Pharell shouts out suicide like he's the next Ozzy.

Andy Beta
Brooklyn, New York

Gretchen Wilson is just like the gangsta rappers: still proud of her roots. Even if she isn't what she sings of anymore, she can still strike a nerve.

Jason Gross
Manhattan

In his "Freak Parade" muscle tee, Big Kenny and his partner (euphemism or no), erstwhile disgraced Nashville clone John Rich, made some of the most arresting, complicated, and fun music of the year, empowering poor white women via Gretchen Wilson as well as probing Music Row's asshole, clenched against the merest funk of twangy Negritude.

Kandia Crazy Horse
Springfield, Missouri

Big & Rich make all these lavender-lunged young metrosexuals seem as bloated as Bono. The way Big Kenny pulls one over on his constituency would make Freddie Mercury and the Village People take notice.

Chuck Eddy
Sunnyside, New York

Scissor Sisters are gayer than Elton John's bathroom. Franz Ferdinand would take it in the ass for a song as good as the staggering Elton ripoff "Take Your Mama."

Rob Tannenbaum
Manhattan

"Run" got Internet larfs for its near homoerotic exchange with Jadakiss, but Ghostface just wants to teach the children, hit platinum pussy, go on Jerry, drink Banana Nutriment, and re-enact the bathtub scene from Superfly, not necessarily in that order.

Andy Beta
Brooklyn, New York

Ever since Jay-Z called him out and awoke Nasir Jones from a lucrative but sound sleep, the man has been on fire. While still peddling thug staples, Nas has grown enough to embrace mature love, the power of grief, and the relevance of the blues, to read some books and acknowledge that AIDS is the self-genocide of the sexually undisciplined. Mr. Jones has recognized that there is no greater subject than the psyche of a man at the moment he realizes he is one.

Nelson George
Brooklyn, New York

In a year when the stylized profanity of crunk and the overworked come-ons of video vixens commanded the youth market, Eminem came across like a pop-chart Voltaire.

Carol Cooper
Manhattan

When an accused pubephile/ Internet-porn trafficker/amateur bootleg-porn director/ r&b demigod joined forces with a convicted knife wielder/ex-drug dealer/rap demi-god, it seemed like a match made in thug heaven. Only when their egos collided and the r&b demigod started "hatin' " on the rap demigod did the ire of Generation Beats get raised. You can commit statutory. You can stab a rival producer in a club. But God forbid you publicly criticize a nigga.

Darrell McNeill
Brooklyn, New York

If a writer is going to hide behind cultural relativism and accept that it's OK not to press too hard because he doesn't come from where Cam'ron comes from, he toes the party line that it's OK for people to advocate violence toward women, to follow the blow-me-or-I-slap-you party line, as long as it is happening in "their" world. It says black men, their art, the women in their communities, are not worth holding up to the same standards as white artists.

Jessica Hopper
Chicago, Illinois

Iggy & the Stooges' workout of Junior Kimbrough's "You Better Run" is a vicious and hilarious tale of rape delivered as only Mr. Iggy Pop can.

Brian Bowe
Holland, Michigan

Best major rock tour to feature a female musician: the Pixies, and just for fun, try to think of another one in less than a minute.

Rob Sheffield
Brooklyn, New York

As a longtime Paxil addict, I felt "Float On" was totally my jam. It's "Don't Worry, Be Happy" for the antidepressant generation. Crashed my car? Eh. Lost all my money? Big deal. Favorite indie band now attracting fans who would have beat me up in high school? Whatever.

Amy Phillips
Brooklyn, New York

There are two kinds of pop fans: those for whom Pulp's Different Class is the most important thing that ever happened, and everybody else—who for lack of a better collective noun I will deem "normal people." I have no idea why so many of you normal people like Franz Ferdinand, but thanks. You make it more fun for us. We promise not to overrate Art Brut, Kaiser Chiefs, and the Rakes next year. Psych!

Rob Sheffield
Brooklyn, New York

The Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, and Franz Ferdinand all put out albums that make me nostalgic for a time I never had. The kind of songs that elicit memories from nothing. They're good enough to build their own imagined landscape of dialogue and fluttering scenery that matches a thickly layered feeling of something undefinable but recognizable. Like you heard it before.

Jaime Lowe
Manhattan