"We live in a predatory world. If a buck is to be made, it will be, damn the human consequences."

20 albums from Mars

Where did the authors of this article ("The 20 albums that shaped the future of music," 12/9/99) come up with this stuff? Mars? What happened to, like, THE BEATLES? Steely Dan? Chuck Berry? All the obvious others that come to mind for most of us rockers that have lived through it all? Is this just another pretentious critics' idea of truth coming out of the Weekly? And just when I thought you folks were getting your act together and getting off your critical high horses. . . . Oh well, thanks for Geov Parrish. Tell these so-called music critics to go back to the roots of rock and do their homework!

LON MCKINNEY
SEATTLE

20 albums, joke

"The 20 albums that shaped the future of music" (12/9/99) included the second-best double album (Exile) but left out the best and the most influential album on music in general: The Clash's London Calling. It also left out albums by Husker Du, Minutemen, and the Replacements, three bands that laid the groundwork for the Nirvanas and Pearl Jams of the world. Why isn't Remain In Light by the Talking Heads included—that is far more influential than Black Sabbath or the filth of NWA masquerading as an art form. Where is Never Mind the Bollocks, I guess Thriller is the real template for today's music.

This list is a joke . . . the Beach Boys, failed new wave acts such as Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, and Radiohead. These albums haven't shaped anything. David Bowie shaped more than all of those combined.

JOHN REGAN
BELLEVUE

20 albums, blah, blah

Anyone who would even attempt a list of "The 20 albums that shaped the future of music" (12/9/99) must either be very bright [Thanks!--Eds.] or a glutton for punishment. Your mailbox must be very full!

Although you did show a definite slant toward works from the '80s and '90s, overall not too bad. However, if you truly did base your decisions on "timelessness, influence, and reverberations," you surely must include these two very important works:

1) Are You Experienced?, The Jimi Hendrix Experience: Mr. Hendrix ushered in the era of acid rock, and guitar players today still study his licks.

2) Highway 61 Revisited, Bob Dylan: I was amazed that Dylan did not make the list and was reduced to a footnote in the last sentence. As songwriter and performer, he probably wrote more and influenced more artists than anyone in the business. His first all-electric work was not well-received but did mark a milestone in music history.

Maybe it should have been "the 22 albums that shaped the future of music"?

GALEN WILSON
SEATTLE

Crazy music formats

Here in the Philippines, and I've seen the same thing in Hong Kong, China, and Indonesia, MP3 CDs filled with usually six audio CDs' worth of pirated material are readily available for $2.50 to $3.75. Most are of good quality songs by top-rated artists.

Considering that it costs less to produce an audio CD than a tape cassette, the continued horrendous pricing by the music industry is the main cause of the rise in piracy. It used to be that legal LPs (vinyl) were available here for $2.50. Now, the music industry has phased it out for the super-expensive CDs: $10, with the low-quality cassettes still selling for $3. According to a music executive here, it costs them $.50 to produce a CD, but they charge a lot because "the market will bear it." Well, with the way MP3 pirated CDs are selling, and they'll sell even more with MP3 players (especially the ones that can play from CDs instead of memory cards) starting to become popular, the market is clearly shouting: We can't bear your greed anymore.

VIP MALIXI
VIA E-MAIL

The WTO's day in court

Your article about the WTO prosecutions in Seattle Municipal Court ("Prosecute me, please!" 12/23/99) presented a distorted view of the role of defense attorneys, particularly public defenders.

You quote a California attorney advising the Direct Action Network: "In a normal case, she notes, a defense lawyer's job is to get their clients to rat on everyone else and save their own skin. 'Here we've got all for one and one for all,' she says. The result has been occasional friction between Komisaruk and the public defenders who've been assigned WTO cases."

It certainly is not a defender's goal to get his or her clients to "rat on everyone else." While sometimes a client may decide to provide evidence for the government, it is not a routine event in state courts. All accused persons are presumed innocent, and a significant number are found not guilty. The issue for people accused in many of the WTO prosecutions has more to do whether the actions of the government were lawful than whether one client will "rat" on another. These cases involve serious questions about the lawfulness of the mayoral proclamations, the reasonableness of police orders, and whether people heard orders to disperse.

While Seattle Municipal Court may have some resemblance to the world of a Dumas novel, Three Musketeers slogans do not help to understand this situation. The reality is that the three public defender associations involved have been meeting with a number of the private attorneys who have volunteered for these cases, and the defenders have been coordinating an exchange of ideas. But ultimately, individual clients will make their own decisions.