All Songs Considered

All Songs Considered is celebrating its Sweet 16 this month, so to mark the occasion on this week's show we're counting down our favorite songs from each of the past 16 years

At this point, it's basically tradition: The last show of the year is dedicated to the loud, the fast, the heavy, the cosmic and the sublime. A.K.A., when All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen and I talk about metal, punk and a broad definition of experimental music. Maybe you've listened to some of these outliers in my Viking's Choice column or even on the podcast — they definitely stick out like a sore, headbanging thumb.

Every year around this time we like to take a break from our usual musical discoveries and get together with old friends for what we call the All Songs Considered Holiday Spectacular, a seasonal special done in the tradition of old-time radio. After deciding he's had enough of the season, Bob storms out of the studio and finds himself taking a Dickensian journey, with visits from some old friends, including Carrie Brownstein, Dan Auerbach, Aimee Mann, Ben Folds and more. So gather your friends and family around the warm, crackling podcast listening device of your choice and take a journey in sound with us. Just click the audio link at the top of the page. You can also get this episode in the All Songs Considered podcast.

It's long been a dream of David Bowie to make a jazz record with a big band. On Jan. 8, 2016, Bowie's 69th birthday, we'll hear his dream realized. The path to ★ (pronounced "blackstar"), Bowie's 25th album, is filled with chance meetings with all the right people, but the two main characters are his long time friend and producer Tony Visconti and his new found friend/saxophonist and band leader Donny McCaslin.

You never entirely know what you're going to get when you ask listeners to rank their favorite albums of the year. But the results of All Songs Considered's 2015 listener poll may be the most diverse we've seen in ten years of doing these lists. From Kendrick Lamar's hip-hop masterpiece To Pimp A Butterfly and the dense harp-poetry of Joanna Newsom, to the effervescent pop of Carly Rae Jepsen, soul singer Leon Bridges and the immense jazz album The Epic from Kamasi Washington, listeners showed a lot of love for a broad range of sounds.

In this installment of The Martin Atkins Minute, the professor, producer and former Public Image Ltd. drummer wonders what it means to be a rock star in a world flipped on its head. It's a world where Dunkin' Donuts is selling chicken sandwiches, Burger King is peddling glazed donuts, friendship is measured by numbers on a Facebook page and the only thing you can count on is change. Produced by Martin Atkins, Brad Pack and Gabriel Labrador. Mastered by Brad Pack. Foley effects by Gabriel Labrador.

The All Songs Considered crew looks back at the highlights in 2015 with a focus on the music we loved most including Courtney Barnett, Kendrick Lamar, Girlpool, Jason Isbell, Sleater-Kinney, Missy Elliott, Bjork, Joanna Newsom, Joan Shelley and Adele.

On this week's All Songs Considered we share a track from Macklemore and Ryan Lewis featuring Leon Bridges premiered on the All Songs blog. And after a 10-year hiatus from releasing new music, Missy Elliot is back in action with a song that makes us realize just how much we missed her. Hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton play a batch of fun and funky tunes, starting with the glitter-infused queer punk band PWR BTTM. Sylvan Esso's Nick Sanborn flexes his voice as Made of Oak, Public Service Broadcasting return to the Cold War for a follow-up EP to The Race For Space and we hear a song off the debut record from Mothers.

As Adele's 25, finally arrives, we take a look back at the week when anticipation for her third album — which may debut to record-breaking sales — peaked with a mobbed concert in New York. NPR's Saidah Blount describes a scene involving ticket scalping in large cash denominations.

Music can provide a space for healing, feeling and thought. Following the terrorist attacks in Paris, including at a show in that city's Bataclan concert hall, we were compelled to play music with a meditative tone, songs that allow space and time for reflection. A tune Bob Boilen found himself playing all weekend was by Hiya Wal Âalam, a band featuring members from Tunisia, Palestine and Sweden. It's culture-blending music and perfectly pensive. Robin Hilton's choice of a song by pianist Goldmund gave him some space for moments of solace as the news unfolded this weekend.

Brian Burton has good taste. As Danger Mouse, he's won five Grammy Awards and worked with everyone from the Black Keys to Gorillaz to Adele. Now the musician, songwriter and producer is adding another impressive project to his resume: his own record label. Burton's new label, 30th Century Records, is releasing its first album, a compilation of songs by relatively unknown artists, on Dec. 18. On this week's +1 podcast, host Bob Boilen talked to Burton about learning what it takes to make a label great and what made him decide to start a label of his own and then listened to two of the songs from his upcoming compilation, by the artists Sam Cohen and Nine Pound Shadow.

This week's All Songs Considered is an emotional roller coaster. Hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton start off mellow with the sweet, acoustic Many Rooms, only to pull the rug out from under it with a monstrously good tune from Grimes. Then we've got intricate Ethiopian accordion rhythms from Hailu Mergia, a piece full of anguish and beauty from the Manchester band Money and a thick, shoe-gazey song from Shmu to close out the whirlwind of frenzied feelings.

On this week's +1 Podcast, we talk with Carrie Brownstein about her new book, Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl and look back at the highs and lows of her time with Sleater-Kinney, and the talk about the future of the band.

After tricking hosts Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton into abandoning the studio in search of the world's most complicated latte, Los Angeles folk duo The Milk Carton Kids commandeer the mic and take over this week's show. Singers and guitarists Kenneth Pattengale and Joey Ryan have released four albums, the most recent of which, Monterey, came out in May of 2015. On this week's show, The Milk Carton Kids cover all the bases, from Cecile McLorin Salvant's sultry "Look At Me" to Superhumanoids' thrumming electronic, "Anxious and Venice" and Kacy & Clayton's Zeppelin-esque, "Dyin' Bed Maker." Plus an aspirational playlist of great guitar tunes from Jim Campilongo & Honeyfingers, Blake Mills and Julian Lage.

Martin Atkins is trapped inside a nightmare that has claimed the lives and careers of so many musicians who came before him. The temptations, the distractions, the legalese, oh, the terror! And just when he thinks he's finally safe, the torment begins again, stuck in a frightening endless cycle. Atkins, a drummer, producer and professor, weaves the terrifying tale of any musicians' personal horror in this spooky Halloween installment of The Martin Atkins Minute.