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Fresh Air's music critic Ken Tucker's picks for the best music of 2009 include songs by Taylor Swift, Billy Currington and Michael Franti as well as albums by Loudon Wainwright III, the Fiery Furnaces, and Bob Dylan.

Downloading popular songs to use as personal cell phone ring tones has turned into a $3 billion global industry. A growing revenue stream for songwriters and publishers, ring tones are now outselling digital downloads of music. NPR's Michele Norris talks to Geoff Mayfield, the director of charts for Billboard Magazine, which has just launched a "Hot Ringtones" chart.

The All Songs Considered host's list includes many records that felt particularly appropriate for such a turbulent year.

Live on YouTube, Bob Boilen and Rita Houston will watch their favorites entries to the 2020 Contest and discuss what made them stand out from the thousands we saw this year.

In terms of pop hits, the shadow of 2013 fell over most of 2014. But for NPR Music's Stephen Thompson, there were plenty of winners this year as well.

These 10 albums plumb emotional depths, deliver powerful messages and, just when you need them most, soothe worried minds in a year when a bit of calm is a priceless commodity.

The co-host of All Songs Considered shares his ten favorite records of 2015.

It's been a year of complacency deferred and sleeping giants roused. So it's only natural that much of 2017's best music would reflect that tumult, albeit in radically different ways.

For many of his fans, Bob James is to jazz what James Brown is to R&B — the music and the musician go hand in hand. Now, with literally dozens of jazz albums under his belt, James is back with a classic piano-bass-drums trio. Hear full-length cuts from his latest CD, plus an extended version of his conversation with NPR's Tavis Smiley.

This year, a youthful strain of techno-Afropop musicians stepped into the spotlight.