One place above "sex" and four above "Pokemon", the term which is typed most often in internet searches is "MP3". It's also the term which most terrifies the record industry - one place above "cocaine shortage" and four above "totally original band". But for those of you who don't know your email from your elbow, an MP3 is a digital music file. That is, it's the format used to download a song from the internet to your computer.
Until recently, this was an an off-putting process, involving long, often fruitless trawls through dozens of websites. With the arrival of Napster, that's all changed. A revolutionary piece of "shareware" created by a teenage student in Boston, Napster allows subscribers to pool their MP3s, but it's best to see it as a well-catalogued and well-stocked music library. By taking the hassles out of MP3-chasing, Napster at last makes the format a viable alternative to the CD.
For a start, Napster is as easy to find as a high street record store (they're the big, glass-fronted buildings filled with Buffy The Vampire Slayer videos). Just type in www.napster.com or, if you own a Mac, www.macster.com, and in a matter of seconds you'll be at a neatly laid-out, friendly website. Ignore the odd outbreak of jargon - "We have been porting Macster to carbon, and have a screenshot available" - and click on encouraging pieces of highlighted text like "Getting Started" and "Download". Almost immediately, you'll be plugged into the Napster network, "the fastest and largest growing on-line community ever". You can also get a free MP3 player while you're at it. How long this takes depends on the time of day and the power of your computer, but I was ready to download MP3 files from Napster within half an hour of logging on.
From that point, getting hold of the music you're after is even more of a doddle. Type in the name of an artist and/or song, and a list of tracks to choose from will appear on your screen a minute later. Click on your preference and the downloading begins. Wait another 10 minutes and your favourite Westlife tune will be pouring from your computer's speakers. It's simple. No need to ferret around different websites. No need to pay. No wonder the record industry is nervous.
Law-abiding pop stars from Elton John to Eminem have been fuming about piracy, and Madonna is particularly miffed. It seems that Guy Ritchie's gal has found time in between film premieres to complete a new single, Music, but it's not due for release until the autumn. Two weeks ago someone leaked it to Napster. Madonna's manager has threatened legal action, so it would be wrong of me to encourage anyone to log on to Napster and type in the words "Madonna" and "Music".
There's plenty of other material up for grabs, anyway. Having acquired tracks by the Beatles and the Velvet Underground, I thought I should be more adventurous. The beauty of Napster is that every MP3 which its several million users might have decided to upload from their own collections is there for the taking. Type in Simpsons, South Park, Star Trek or Star Wars and you'll soon have a bumper stock of annoying soundbites for your anwerphone - the "Yoda drunk on set" MP3 being especially popular.
If you fancy listening to some Woody Allen or Jerry Seinfeld stand-up, they're there on Napster. If you're curious to hear Radiohead covering Wonderwall or Travis covering Baby One More Time, they're right there in the index. You can find the Coronation Street theme and you can find a stack of Beethoven pieces, including Fur Elise (The Techno Remix). Mind you, my request for Noel Coward numbers was rewarded with little more than Monty Python's Penis Song (Not The Noel Coward One).
Napstering is an addictive pastime. I can testify that, however many records you own, you'll soon be intoxicated by a feeling not dissimilar to the one you got when you first attended a party with a free bar. True, there is the small matter of breach of copyright, but let's be honest - when you were first told about the internet, isn't this exactly the sort of thing you imagined you'd be able to do? Thanks to Napster, as long as one person can get hold of a song, it can be heard almost immediately and almost gratis by anyone in the world with a computer and a modem. Even the brand new service extended by some record stores, whereby you can "burn" your own personal compilation CD, becomes redundant - because, well, who needs CDs anyway?
And in case you're wondering, the Madonna single is, true to recent form, a toe-tapping slice of robotic pop with risible lyrics. "Hey, Mr DJ, put a record on, I wanna dance with my baby", hoots Maddy, giving herself away as a child of the 20th century. Instead, she should have sung: "Hey, Mr DJ, click an MP3 file".
