This list of NPR Music's best songs of 2023 looks unlike any we've ever made before. It's not just the number of songs that has changed. There are no rankings here — in fact, the 123 songs below ...

Seventy-one tracks that asked big questions, found new kinship between genres and helped us see the good in Ken. By Jon Pareles Jon Caramanica and Lindsay Zoladz Jon Pareles The album may be imperiled ...

A side effect of the way we listen to music in the streaming era is that it's harder than ever for new stars to break through. Or it was until 2024, anyway. This year, it felt like a page turned, the ...

It’s been a big year for moody guitar bangers, boundary-pushing Latin pop, dazzling pop spectacle, and uplifting Afropop. The song of the summer sweepstakes are off and running. Superstars like Usher, ...

EDITOR’S NOTE: We wrote this back in 2021, but with the holiday season back once again we felt like it was the perfect time to update it. There's nothing that brings the world together more than ...

From "I Saw Her Standing There" to "Live and Let Die" to "Freedom," EW offers a career-spanning list of Sir Paul's best tunes. Though it was not the first song written by McCartney as a member of the ...

Every week the Stereogum staff chooses the five best new songs of the week (the eligibility period begins and ends Thursdays right before midnight). This week’s countdown is below, and you can listen ...

One of the great joys of listening to music in the ’90s was then being able to curate your own best-ofs. It was the decade of cassette mixtapes, the highly personal, labor-intensive home recording ...

Things are starting to look up for all of us. As we venture out of our homes and (hopefully) to shows for the first time in almost 18 months, we’re reminded of the ways that music served, perhaps more ...

This year, the pop-music world felt more wide open than ever. Our list of 2021’s best songs includes a beautiful indie-pop celebration of queer love, a reggaeton star tucking into some sweet Eighties ...

You know you’ve officially veered into best friend territory with someone when you start making playlists together. And what playlist shared between best buds could be complete without a solid handful ...