Best Music Of 2008 : NPR

Top 10 Great Unknowns, From Second Stage

January 1, 2009 • It was an unusually strong year for great unknown artists. While bigger, more established bands continued to attract the most attention, smaller, lesser-known acts made the most memorable music of 2008. All of the great unknown artists featured here made music that was inspired, original and heartfelt.

Top 10 Great Unknowns, From Second Stage

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Geniuses Collide In 2008's Best Jazz

90.5 WESA

December 31, 2008 • Cross-pollination of excellent musicians made for some amazing jazz in 2008. The year's best CDs feature numerous musicians collaborating with each other on a wide variety of recordings. Hearing the best musicians work with other geniuses is a wonderful thing to witness. Here are 10 of the best jazz CDs of the year.

Hear Shaunna Morrison Machosky Discuss Her Top Pick

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The Year In Music For Kids (And Parents)

XPN

December 30, 2008 • One of the best years for kids' music in recent memory includes releases from artists with feet firmly in both kid-friendly and adult-oriented worlds. Old favorites went in new directions, while emerging artists gave a glimpse of the future of a genre as diverse and unpredictable as kids themselves.

Hear Kathy O'Connell Discuss Her Top Pick

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Viking's Choice: A Year Of Beautiful Noise

Artwork from Earth's The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull. Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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All Songs Considered

Viking's Choice: A Year Of Beautiful Noise

December 29, 2008 • For the past month, NPR Music producer Lars Gotrich laid out multiple strips of paper on his desk, with names like Uncle Owen Aunt Beru, Extra Life and Erykah Badu printed on them.

Viking's Choice: A Year Of Beautiful Noise

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The Best African Music Of 2008

December 29, 2008 • This has been a strong year for African music, with two big trends emerging: the continuing integration of African music into the U.S. and European mainstream, as well as the ongoing unearthing of treasures from Afropop's "golden era," particularly the '70s.

Hear Banning Eyre Discuss His Top Pick

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Review

Songs Of The Year: Best Music Of 2008

December 23, 2008 • Here are the 10 songs that Song of the Day editor Stephen Thompson treasured the most in 2008.

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Take Five's Top 5 Jazz CDs Of 2008

December 22, 2008 • Whether openly or covertly, all music types love this time of year. It's list-making season. Those of us behind the Take Five series wanted to get in on the act, too. So we asked WBGO, WDUQ and Jazz24 to share their top picks of 2008 with a couple more from the series curators.

The New Faces Of Classical Music

91.7 WVXU

December 22, 2008 • From the poetic playing of pianist Ingrid Fliter to the high notes (and high drama) of soprano Anna Netrebko, this group of talented musicians represents the next generation of emerging classical artists, most of whom are still in their 20s and 30s.

Review

The 10 Best Mixtapes Of The Year

December 19, 2008 • In the purely democratic world of hip-hop mixtapes unsigned rappers build a fan base, past-their-prime artists re-connect with an audience, and major-label commodities show their adventurous side on records that overprotective label reps would never authorize and commercial radio could never pick up. Here are some of this year's finest tapes.

WNYC's Genre Mix: Top 10 Albums Of 2008

WNYC Radio

December 18, 2008 • This is a list for the Age of the iPod Shuffle, as more people listen to more types of music than ever before. WNYC's John Schaefer mixes up his favorite CD picks for 2008, offering a wide-reaching smorgasbord of classical, pop, folk and world music.

Review

NPR Listeners Pick The Best Music Of 2008

December 15, 2008 • NPR listeners cast tens of thousands of ballots, but in the end, only a handful of votes separated some of the bands. See and hear what NPR listeners picked as the best albums of 2008.

NPR Listeners Pick The Best Music Of 2008

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Bob Boilen Picks The Year's Best Music

December 13, 2008 • It's been a great year for the quiet and the subtle: The harmonies of Fleet Foxes, the fiery gentleness of Bon Iver and the African kora of Toumani Diabate were all calming company.

Bob Boilen Picks The Year's Best Music

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The 10th Annual CD, Er, MP3 Gift Guide

December 13, 2008 • Today's environmental and global financial crises have Weekend Edition's Ned Wharton abuzz. In presenting his yearly music recommendations, he explains how digital downloads make a perfect holiday gift for these times.

The 10th Annual CD, Er, MP3 Gift Guide

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The Year On Vinyl: Dropping The Needle

WFUV

December 11, 2008 • Now that the MP3 is king, vinyl has become something of an underground revolution. More and more artists have begun to insist on releasing their new albums on vinyl, and music fans who jettisoned their collections in favor of "clear, perfect digital sound CDs" are raiding garage sales and rediscovering analog music all over again. Here are 10 releases from 2008 that are worth the extra effort of vinyl.

Living Your Life With 2008's Best In Jazz

KNKX Public Radio

December 10, 2008 • The year's best jazz albums reach into your world rather than demanding that you reach into theirs, KPLU's Nick Francis says. Here, he picks 10 fun recordings with a contemporary attitude compliant to listeners' daily lives.