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So many of 2024's big music stories were about freshly minted stars reaping the benefits of the long game.

After a decade of unbridled innovation, 2019 felt like a tightening of the reins in hip-hop, delivering stellar albums where artists rapped with back-to-basics clarity and precision.

Twenty-five years after its first album, the New Jersey band is still selling out Madison Square Garden and putting out chart-topping singles. But these days, its sound is a little more country, and it's recording in Nashville. That may be because pop and rock songs have left behind the working-class, everyday guy, while country music sings straight to him.

The pop duo Wham! was only around for four years, but its songs have lasted decades. Chris Smith's Netflix documentary tells its history from the viewpoints of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley.

Canon-making is a core part of rap fandom, the subject of endless barbershop parleys and message-board battles. But something curdles when the companies that control the music business enter the chat.

At Sunday night's Grammys, will Beyoncé finally win album of the year? Will Taylor Swift take that prize for the fifth time? Or will a new generation of pop stars claim the moment?

Fiery singer-songwriter Sinéad O'Connor became a star in the MTV era, rewriting the rules while courting controversy. Now, she reclaims an influential legacy with a new memoir, Rememberings.

In a year of particularly wide-ranging nominees and competitive fields, bandleader Jon Batiste and the duo Silk Sonic came away with big prizes. Ukrainian president Zelenskyy also made an appearance.

Many younger artists are making a strong case to be the future of the genre — and the future looks bright. All but three musicians on Shaunna Morrison Machosky's Top 10 list are under the age of 40, and they all brush aside any notion of jazz being in a rut.

In the 1950s, the brilliant young drummer Ron Free quickly found himself playing with his New York jazz heroes. His career later derailed due to personal problems. But a previously unheard stash of home recordings has allowed him to review his own rise and fall.