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The NPR Music senior manager shares his favorite albums and songs of 2021.

This review originally aired on Weekend Edition on September 6, 1987. In the ephemeral world of pop music, the five years between Thriller and it's follow-up, add up to light years. The musical question is whether Michael Jackson's star still shines. Is Bad the new album, bad or good? Milwaukee, Wisc. high school student and music reviewer Geylin Polivka says the album suffers from overproduction and an overuse of synthesizers.

After a short vacation from the pinnacle of the albums chart, Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poets Department reclaims the throne in a week filled with names and sounds that are awfully familiar.

Ten songs to help you get down whenever you're feeling down.

The best new and rediscovered jazz recordings that lit up the dark and unsettling year that just ended, as voted on by 148 jazz critics.

When artists die, it can feel impossible to imagine a world without their musical guidance. Yet it's also a moment to celebrate — not just their impact on culture but also inside ourselves.

Known primarily for his southern-flavored operas, Floyd helped create an American opera vernacular. His 1955 hit Susannah won the New York Music Critics Circle Award and helped launch his career.

It was a bad night for Beethoven, but a compelling event in the history of music. His 5th and 6th Symphonies and 4th Piano Concerto saw shaky premieres in a freezing theatre in 1808. Conductor Louis Langree reproduces Beethoven's inauspicious concert at this year's Mostly Mozart Festival.

The Pitch Perfect star started acting when she was 6. Back then, she says, she likely just did it for the attention. "Then it sort of transformed into something that was really meaningful for me."

The Pulitzer-winning composer began her career with a creative blank check, but she's spent much of the past decade moving sideways. Her latest trick: reinventing as a songwriter.