Recordings by Amy Winehouse, Celine Dion, Elton John & More Selected for National Recording Registry: Full List

Recordings by Amy Winehouse, Celine Dion, Elton John, Mary J. Blige and Tracy Chapman are among this year’s 25 additions to the National Recording Registry, which is administered by the Library of Congress. This year’s selections span 102 years, from 1913 (a recording of “Aloha ‘Oe” by Hawaiian Quintette) to 2015 (the cast album to the Broadway sensation Hamilton: An American Musical).

The list includes three songs that reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” (1972), which gave the women’s liberation movement a theme song; Freddy Fender’s country/pop smash “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” (1975) and Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” the Oscar- and Grammy-winning smash from Titanic (1997).

It also includes two albums that reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 – John’s hit-laden double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973) and Chapman’s eponymous debut album (1988). John and his longtime songwriting partner Bernie Taupin were the 2024 recipients of the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, which is also administered by the Library of Congress.

Tracy Chapman, which spawned the hit “Fast Car” (which was revived by Luke Combs in 2024), was one of three debut albums to be saluted this year. The others are Don Rickles’ comedy album Hello Dummy! (1968) and Chicago’s hit-filled double album Chicago Transit Authority (1969).

Winehouse’s Back to Black, the singer’s second (and, sadly, last) album, was inducted. The 2006 album spawned the smash “Rehab,” which won Grammys for both record and song of the year.

Two double-disk jazz albums – Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew (1970) and Keith Jarrett’s The Kӧln Concert (1975) – were honored. On the jazz fusion classic Bitches Brew, Davis and such musicians as Wayne Shorter and Chick Corea blended jazz with rock elements. It’s Davis’ second album in the Registry, following his 1959 classic Kind of Blue. Davis is the only artist this year to receive a second career induction.

Charley Pride, the first Black superstar in country music, was inducted for his 1971 classic “Kiss an Angel Good Mornin’,” which topped Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart for five weeks. Fender’s aforementioned “Before the Next Teardrop Falls” topped that chart for two weeks.

Blige’s 1994 sophomore album My Life, which topped Billboard’s Top R&B Albums chart for eight weeks, was inducted. The album was highly personal, with songs addressing clinical depression, struggles with drugs and alcohol and being in an abusive relationship.

The Steve Miller Band were honored for their 1976 album Fly Like an Eagle, which spawned three top 20 hits on the Hot 100, including the No. 1 smash “Rock’n Me.”

Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were honored for their 1952 single “Happy Trails,” which Evans wrote. Rogers is the only artist to have been inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame twice – first in 1980 as a member of the Sons of the Pioneers and again in 1988 as a solo artist.

Hamilton (2015) is the first Broadway cast album that was released since Sweeney Todd in 1979 to be selected.

Vicente Fernández’s enduring ranchera classic “El Rey” (1973) joined the roster of Latin recordings in the Registry. See the full list here.

With the aforementioned Rickles album being inducted this year, this is the second year in a row that a comedy album has made the grade. Lily Tomlin’s This Is a Recording was honored last year. Here’s a complete list of the 14 comedy albums in the Registry.

Two left-field selections are Microsoft’s Windows reboot chime (1995), composed by Brian Eno, and David Rosenfeld’s Minecraft: Volume Alpha (2011). Microsoft wanted a brief start-up sound that would play when Windows 95 booted up. They approached Eno, who came up with a sound that Microsoft designers felt conveyed the sense of “welcome, hopefulness and progress” that they desired. Minecraft is the second video game soundtrack to join the Registry, following Koji Kondo’s theme from Super Mario Bros., selected in 2023.

Thelma Houston & Pressure Cooker’s 1975 album I’ve Got the Music in Me is one of this year’s most surprising choices. The album was likely honored because of the unique way it was recorded: live to master disc. Pressure Cooker consisted of top session players of the era, including Michael Omartian, Larry Carlton, Tom Scott and Larry Knechtel. The title track had been a big hit in the fall of 1974 for The Kiki Dee Band. Houston went on to top the Hot 100 in 1977 with “Don’t Leave Me This Way.”

The radio broadcast of the deciding Game 7 of the 1960 World Series, in which the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the New York Yankees, was inducted. Another sports-related entry is Brother Bones & His Shadows’ 1948 recording of the 1925 standard “Sweet Georgia Brown.” The Brother Bones recording was surprise hit in 1949. Three years later, the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team made it their theme song.

Chanticleer’s Our American Journey (2002) saw the acclaimed a cappella choral group taking its listeners on an eclectic musical trip across America, through its history and a variety of musical genres.

This year’s other entries, not already mentioned, are Harry Urata Field Recordings (1960-1980) and Nimrod Workman Collection (1973-1994). Musician and educator Harry Urata, confined to an internment camp after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, encountered Japanese-American workers who had processed sugar cane leaves on Hawaiian plantations since the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Like many immigrant workers, they adapted and sang old folk songs to reflect their daily circumstances. Recognizing the cultural and historical significance of the songs, Urata traveled throughout Hawaii’s islands recording elderly singers who had toiled on sugar plantations. His collection features 20 open-reel tapes recorded from the 1960s to the 1980s.

Born in Inez, Kentucky, in 1895, Nimrod Workman was a folk singer, coal miner and union activist. He began his work in the West Virginian mines at age 14, and he would continue for the next 42 years. After retiring from the mines, he began recording unaccompanied traditional ballads, songs of his own composition and oral history. In 1986, Workman was a recipient of a 1986 National Heritage Fellowship, the U.S. government’s highest honor in the folk arts. Workman died in 1994.

More than 2,600 nominations were made by the public this year. Chicago Transit Authority finished first in the public nominations. Other selected recordings that ranked in the top 10 of public nominations include “Happy Trails,” Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and My Life.

Under the terms of the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, the Librarian of
Congress, with advice from the National Recording Preservation Board, selects 25 titles
each year that are “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” Recordings become eligible for the Registry 10 years after release, compared to 25 years for the Grammy Hall of Fame. (Which means the Hamilton cast album won’t be eligible there for another 15 years.)

“These are the sounds of America – our wide-ranging history and culture,” Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said in a statement. “The Library of Congress is proud and honored to select these audio treasures worthy of preservation.”

Industry veteran Robbin Ahrold serves as chair of the National Recording Preservation Board. “This year’s National Recording Registry list is an honor roll of superb American popular music from the wide-ranging repertoire of our great nation,” he said in a statement.

These 25 recordings bring the number of titles on the Registry to 675. This represents just a tiny fraction of the Library’s vast recorded sound collection of nearly four million items.

NPR’s “1A” will feature selections from this year’s induction class in its series “The Sounds of America,” including interviews with Hayden and several featured artists.

Here’s the complete list of 2025 additions to the National Recording Registry. They are listed in chronological order by release date.