The Top 10 Everything of 2009

What's a musician to do when he finds out that his music may have been used to torture people? Well, in the case of Nine Inch Nail's Trent Reznor and Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello, the answer is easy: go after the government. After learning that their music was used to interrogate Guantánamo Bay prisoners — by being played at loud volumes for weeks at a time until inmates couldn't take it anymore — Reznor and Morello petitioned the U.S. government for information about how their music was used and on whom. They also joined forces with the likes of R.E.M., Pearl Jam and the Roots to form a rock-star coalition of musicians fighting against the use of their music in interrogations. "Just as we wouldn't be caught dead allowing Dick Cheney to use our music for his campaigns," said the Roots in a statement, "you can be damn sure we wouldn't allow him to use it to torture other human beings."