NPR Music's 50 Favorite Albums Of 2011

"Given that it was compiled by a score of NPR Music staffers and public radio DJs, and that it spans more than a dozen genres and embraces artists both well-known and brand-new, one might reasonably wonder what principle ties together this list of our favorite albums of 2011. How about this: They’re the albums that opened our ears to something new, ones that we enjoyed from beginning to end, ones that challenged us, ones we fought over and treasured quietly. Most of all, they're the albums that made us hand our headphones over a cubicle wall and say, 'You have to listen to this."" From NPR Music

Here's the Spotify playlist: NPR Music's 50 Favorite Albums Of 2011 (562 tracks, 46 out of 50 albums) Ctrl (CMD)+G to browse in album view. See complete list of albums here (it left out Watch The Throne). Their classical choices are excellent (Alexandre Tharaud's Scarlatti sonatas is one of the favourite albums of all time) and look forward to catch up with some music made by people of my age.

And you can sample the unavailable albums on BandCamp: Dwellings by Cormorant, Chancletas y Camisetas Bordada by Los Rakas

NPR 50 Great Voices on Spotify

The human voice is the most expressive instrument in the world, and the one with the most universal appeal. I've seen people who hates the sound of the violin or piano, but I guess everyone has a soft spot for a particular singer, or at least a loving grandparent or lifelong friend's voice. No you are not tone-deaf, otherwise, congratulations! You won't be able to tell the nagging of your wife from the tender moment when she said "I will".

On January 18th last year, NPR launched a series called 50 Great Voices. "Over the next year, we'll hear profiles of 50 singers who've made their mark internationally and across recorded history." And today this series is finally completed. Amazingly all 50 vocalists but one (Radmilla Cody) is available on Spotify. I collected them in one playlist. To round up 50, and to make up for the absent of East Asia in NPR's world map, I put in my favourite, and arguably the greatest Chinese pop singer Teresa Teng. Her core repertoire including Mandarin, Japanese and Southern Min songs. Since I don't think the western audience could understand the full meaning of Chinese songs without knowing the language, I put in a Japanese song. I don't know the meaning of the lyrics either, but though her voice I hear the perpetual longing for all the things that most of us mortals cease to dream of after we, supposedly, grow up.

Here's the Spotify playlist: NPR 50 Great Voices (50 tracks,total time: 3 hours) I tried to use the NPR picked tracks, if unavailable, then I put in the vocalist's most popular or representative song. Read more on NPR's series portal, and A-Z list of the greats.

NPR Classical 50 on Spotify

Here's the Spotify playlist: NPR Classical 50

Please check out NPR's wonderful site for introduction to each recording.



For the recordings that are not currently avaialbe on Spotify, I have substituted them with the best different recordings of the same composition I can find.

Off every recording I chose the same track that NPR sampled on their site to add to the playlist, like most playlists on this blog, it should just function as an index, you are advised to click the album title in the playlist and listen to the full composition.

Kudos to NPR, and enjoy the music:)

Here's the playlist NPR Classical 50.