What sparked a blind man to tour the country and play his mountain music?

How did Justin Vernon convince his former guitar student to drop out of school and start a band?

How did an African lawyer become a legendary guitarist?

Was Randy Newman's love for music and film the result of nature or nurture?

Which artist loves both Scritti Politti and folksinger Anne Briggs?

What inspires Thom Yorke's musical ideas?

Those are some of my favorite interviews of 2008. And here are a few concerts that are worth the time:

Jim James in a church at the SXSW music festival was magic.

Lightspeed Champion on a lawn in Austin, which was absolutely charming (scroll down this page to watch the video).

Dr. Dog, a six-piece band, playing at my tiny desk.

Sam Phillips, also at my desk.

Nellie McKay, creating a song before our eyes.

Tom Waits, on stage in Atlanta.

And, of course, Radiohead at the Santa Barbara Bowl, the absolute musical highlight of the year and one of the best in my life.

But what gets me smiling every day are your email messages, the blog posts, Facebook messages and tweets.

From the hell and praise you tossed our way for our '80s show to the list you compiled for the year's best music, you are the best audience.

This week, we start our 10th year. When I started this show in 2000, it was a miracle for a small team of us to put out one show every three weeks. The original shows were multimedia; every song was accompanied by a slide show with a story about the artist that included pictures. Often, our overly enthused ideas choked the bandwidth of a mostly 28k audience, but the notes of encouragement kept us going.

This year, Robin Hilton and I put together roughly 50 All Songs Considered regular shows; about 50 concerts for streaming and/or podcast, including the launch of video with theTiny Desk Concerts series; and about 40 interviews, including DJ shows by Randy Newman, Thom Yorke and Portishead. There is also Second Stage, our show for great unknown, often times unsigned musicians and there were more than 200 new songs from on Second Stage.

We also launched a new series aimed at letting you hear entire new albums before their release. We started with Bob Dylan, then Neil Young and then Paul McCartney; early in 2009, we'll preview new albums from Andrew Bird, M. Ward, Animal Collective and Bruce Springsteen.

For each, we're going to try having a Listening Party with a chat room, and maybe even get some of the artists to join us for those discussions. It's all a work in progress, and it'll take shape with ideas that come from all of us; it'll get better with your feedback. If you've never written to us before, join the community. It's a pretty great bunch of music lovers.

Thank you, and happy new year.

Each December, Bob and I begin our annual debate over which is better: a Top 10 list of the year's best songs, or a Top 10 list of the year's best albums.

I've always argued that we should focus more on albums. A list of songs just doesn't seem as substantive; besides, the standard for most year-end lists has long been albums. Just look at all the other music sites and magazines out there. But for the past eight years, Bob has argued that the growing popularity of digital music, which allows people to buy specific songs instead of whole albums, makes individual songs more relevant. (For the record, I've always won this debate.)

This year, for the first time in our eight-year-long debate, I agree with him. For the past month and a half, I've been trying to finalize my personal list of the year's Top 10 albums, and I just can't do it. I just can't come up with 10 albums I felt that strongly about in 2008. "Iamundernodisguise" by School of Seven Bells is an amazing cut, but I wouldn't say the album it's from, Alpinisms, belongs among the year's most revered CDs. The Canadian trio Plants & Animals put out one of the year's most astonishing songs, "Bye Bye Bye," but the rest of the band's album, Parc Avenue, was largely forgettable.

Bon Iver aside, none of the following albums, as a whole, would end up on a Top 10 list for me. But I spent more time listening to, loving, crying and laughing over these songs than any others:

1. "Time to Pretend" by MGMT, from Oracular Spectacular: This is, by far, my favorite song of the year. The lyrics are such a wrenching mix of hope and grief. "Time to Pretend" may sound like a simple techno-electro dance track to some people, but it really touched me, deeply.

2. "The Wolves (Act I and II)" by Bon Iver, from For Emma, Forever Ago: We've exhausted even ourselves talking about how beautiful and perfect the Bon Iver record is. If I did come up with a list of the Top 10 albums of 2008, it'd be No. 1. It's hard to pick the best cut from it, but "The Wolves" always stood out for me.

3. "Business Time" by Flight of the Conchords, from Flight of the Conchords: This was a viral hit on YouTube long before it was released on CD, so it might feel a little tired to some people. But I've never laughed so hard as when I first heard it, and it can still make me smile. If I'm judging songs based on their ability to make me feel something, anything, then this track needs to be near the top of the list.

4. "Black Fur" by Fredrik, from Na Na Ni: This is essentially a hymn, and a truly gorgeous and infectious one. The band is from Sweden. I featured it on Second Stage earlier this year and found myself returning to this specific song over and over.

5. "Bye Bye Bye" by Plants and Animals, from Parc Avenue: This is simply an incredible, powerful and evocative song. Plants and Animals is a very talented group of musicians, and I believe it'll do great things in the future.

6. "White Winter Hymnal" by Fleet Foxes, from Fleet Foxes: A lot of people loved this whole album. But apart from this song, it never really got its claws in me.

7. "My" by Okay, from Huggable Dust: If I did do a Top 10 list of albums, I'd probably squeeze this one on there somewhere. But I don't have to give a second thought to picking this song as one of the year's best.

8. "Furr" by Blitzen Trapper, from Furr: I was pretty impressed with this whole album. Blitzen Trapper has really evolved and grown in a very short time, so I expect more great things. But this song is the only one from the CD that I'm sure I'll still be spinning 10 years from now.

9. "Grounds for Divorce" by Elbow, from The Seldom Seen Kid: Whenever this Manchester band puts out a new record, there's a song or two on it that just blows me away, even if I don't spend much time with the rest of the album. This time, it was "Grounds for Divorce" -- a great example of how huge this band can sound.

10. "Nothing Would Matter At All" by Jeff Hanson, from Madam Owl: Man, do I ever love this song. The opening line just slays me: "I wonder what I can do for a living, something that makes you all proud, but won't keep me up at night." It's just a gorgeous, thoughtful and inspiring song.

If we were allowed to count reissues among the year's best releases (I think we should; what do you think?), then "Soul and Fire" by Sebadoh, from the band's 15th-anniversary edition of Bubble and Scrape, would be, by far, my No. 1 song of the year.

What do you think? Did songs stand out more for you than albums? If so, why do you think that is? And what were some of your favorite songs of 2008?

I hear an awful lot of people saying that despite the economic woes, these are exciting times. I want to see if we can capture this historic mood in music.

Here's the challenge.
Write a song that reflects your feelings about the change that's coming.
Record it.
Send it to us on a CD by January 15th.

We will post our favorites online around the time of the inauguration. Think of it as the home edition of Project Song, only you get more time and no one is watching.

Please include contact information with your submissions.
send it to:

NPR
All Songs Considered "Project Song"
635 Massachusetts Ave NW
Washington DC 20001

I got to shake the hand of Paul McCartney.

NPR's Linda Wertheimer and I went to New York City to meet the guy who made and influenced so much of the music that I love. The story we were doing was about his new project The Fireman, an inspired collaboration between McCartney and musician Martin Glover, a.k.a Youth. The CD they've put out, Electric Arguments, is worth hearing: It's 13 songs recorded in 13 days over the course of a year.

I'm not usually eager to meet the musicians I love; the music is fine enough for me. My gut attitude is not to be intrusive, but that sort of goes against the fact that I'm also a music journalist. Also, the prospect of putting together a story about this record for Morning Edition -- a story that would hopefully have Paul McCartney describing the process of putting The Fireman's record together -- had me overlooking my more considerate side.

Linda was going to do the interview and I was the producer/engineer, which means that I came up with ideas for the conversation and later would cut that interview and mix it with the music. You can hear the results here. As a producer, I'm very comfortable -- I did that for 19 years at All Things Considered -- and as an engineer, I'm somewhat at ease, having played around in studios long before my radio days. I've had my own home studio for plenty of years.
This was different, however: It's one thing to accidentally forget to record that guitar part on a song, but you don't want to forget to hit the record button when you're sitting with Paul McCartney.

We were to meet McCartney at Radio City Music Hall sometime early Saturday evening. He was in New York City for the holidays to see family, and to see a show at Radio City Music Hall, but he was also squeezing in three interviews between the show and his dinner plans. Linda and I arrived at Radio City, went in the back entrance and rode up a freight elevator filled with Rockettes and little people and other theater mavens.

We were escorted to a room to wait, since we were the last of three interviews; Stephen Colbert and ABC News were ahead of us. The room we had was something like a big boardroom, with fluorescent lights, a brown table and unremarkable furniture -- not the atmosphere I'd have chosen, but it would do.

As a producer, it's important that I make Linda as informed and comfortable as possible. Not that she couldn't do that on her own, but you just do your best to make everything work. Unfortunately, I wasn't really happy with the room: The refrigerator hummed and the string quartet in the next room was distracting, so I began to scout for other spaces. And, with the help of a gracious Radio City escort, I found the Roxy Room. The atmosphere was a knockout, with great lighting, Christmas decorations and original Art Deco decor. It was perfect.

I found a few comfy chairs and set them up by the Christmas tree, and hooked up my Flash recorder. Once the microphones were set up, Linda and I were ready. Linda had been sick with a cough now settling nicely in her chest; she only hoped to curb the cough long enough to do the interview.

I wondered what McCartney would be like. With four gazillion interviews behind him, how could this possibly be fresh? Just before he walked in, I found out that he was running late for dinner plans and that we needed to be quick -- maybe 15 minutes tops. Hardly time to make friends.

McCartney walked into the the flatteringly lit room looking great for a 66-year-old guy. When introduced to Linda, he offered his hand and a friendly smile. Linda turned his hand away, telling him that she had a disease he wouldn't want; he said not to worry and extended his hand a second time. She refused, at which point he put out his paw as a compromise.

"Gracious," is how I'd describe Paul McCartney; as for me, I was a bit scared of mucking up the recording. I held a fish-pole (a pole with a microphone at one end) in my hands, my recorder around my neck. I must have looked down at the digital display a dozen times to make sure it was counting up; in the land of digital, that's your only reassurance.

The conversation was going well: Paul was telling good stories about working with his collaborator, about digging into poetry books for lyrics, about coming to the studio with a blank slate and walking out at the end of the day with a song. Then, somewhere about 12 minutes into the conversation, Steve Martin (the publicist who arranged this meeting) pointed to his wrist. I signaled to Linda as best I could -- using gestures with my head, since my hands were full -- that we were short on time. Then, I signaled to Steve that I had a camera on my bag behind me on the floor, and to get a shot of all this. (My sister told me that if I didn't get a picture with McCartney, she'd disown me.)

When the interview was done, despite his time crunch, Paul McCartney gathered for the picture you see here.

We quickly left Radio City for the train home, and in the middle of Rockefeller Center, while the skaters did their thing and the tree sparkled with crystal and lights, I pulled out my Flash recorder. Amid a thousand people trying to relish their Christmas moment in the New York streets, I hit play and heard the interview. Whew! I spent my time on the train home transcribing the interview -- and then, a few days later, cutting 15 minutes to about four minutes of conversation and three minutes of music. It's how we make radio, and an utter pleasure.

Yesterday, I posted my 10 favorite musical treats of 2008 online. It's one of so many great lists sprouting daily on the NPR Music site -- one every weekday for the past few weeks. You should take a peek. I thought I'd put a link to my top ten here, as well, since it quickly got buried by John Schaefer's brilliant list.

I was attracted to the quiet and the subtle in 2008: The harmonies of Fleet Foxes, the fiery gentleness of Bon Iver and the African kora of Toumani Diabate held me together and kept me company. We all need and want different things from music at different times, and gentility won out for me this year.

So take a look here, and either on the blog or as a comment on the page where my list is, leave your Top 10. And, if there's music you think I might love based on my list, drop me a note, as well. Thanks, and enjoy!

NPR listeners cast tens of thousands of votes in the All Songs Considered music poll. You nominated 100 albums, and we've added up the votes.

You can listen to songs from the Top 25 CDs of the year by going here or subscribing to the podcast.
We will have a live chat about the poll December 16th at 2pm EST. Check here for more information on Tuesday.

What do you think of this list? Add your comments to the blog.

I also wondered where the bands nominated in our poll came from. I put this together, so feel free to comment or correct me on this. You can also go to our archive of any band on the map.
It's fun, but Montana, Idaho, Utah and Nevada didn't produce a single band on the map. Let's make this a priority for 2009! Anyone know a world-class band from that region?

View Larger Map

Yesterday, Bob Boilen and I, along with Song of the Day editor Stephen Thompson and Monitor Mix blogger Carrie Brownstein, got together to talk about the year in music. We shared our picks for the best new artists of 2008, the best songs, the biggest surprises and much more. We recorded that discussion, and will post it on All Songs Considered for you to hear on Monday, Dec. 8.

Though we talked for more than two hours -- I know, we're dorks -- we didn't have enough time to cover everything. We had planned to talk about the trends we saw emerging this year, but never got to it. I know that Stephen saw 2008 as a year of getting back to basics. He saw less innovation and more tradition: music crafted with classic building blocks, like solid harmonies, simple guitar and drum lines, and so on. Bob saw it as a year in which the lines between artist and audience became more blurred than ever. He points to Brian Eno's "Bloom" application for the iPhone and iPod that allows you to collaborate virtually with Eno to create dreamy ambient music.

For me, 2008 was the year of vinyl. I recently asked you to send in photos of your own vinyl collections, and we got some great pics. We've created a group on Flickr where you can view those photos and add your own.

All Songs Considered listener Robert Clark poses with part of his impressive vinyl collection.

I've mentioned before that reports show sales of vinyl rising dramatically, but anecdotally I can say that record labels sent us more promo copies of new albums on vinyl this year than any year before (in recent history). I'm certain that we're bound to see more and more vinyl arriving in the mail.

Feel free to post your own photos to the All Songs Flickr page (you can also email them to us if you prefer), and check back on Monday the 8th to hear our (highly pared down) discussion of the year in music. Also, don't forget to vote for your Top 10 albums in our annual listener poll. Results of that poll will go up Dec. 15.

I'm not one to dress up. I wear the same clothes to work as I did to the Emmy awards.
My clothes are mostly dark, no patterns. My only accessories are hats and my glasses. I don't like Halloween and never go to costume parties.

But thanks to a new app for my iPod touch, I'm decked out like Lil' Wayne:

The program is called, appropriately enough, Be Like Lil' Wayne. It just makes me laugh out loud.

Here's how you can be like Lil' Wayne too: If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, just go the App Store and download the program. Take a picture of yourself, or use one you already have, then drag all the Lil' Wayne accessories onto the photo. There's all the necessary bling, along with tattoos and dreadlocks. (I went with the tear tattoos). You can also resize all the accessories and adjust them to fit the photo.

Now I've got serious street cred.

Be like Lil' Wayne and send us your photos. We've just created a new photo blog at Flickr where you can upload the pics for everyone to see:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/allsongsphotoblog

I never thought of my Top 10 list as an obsession, but I need to rethink that.

For the last bunch of weeks, I've been taking the music I liked this year and blindly listening and rating each song as they randomly play. Then I've been going into a playlist I created in iTunes and pruning, little by little, albums with songs rated with two stars. I figure that any record that has a two-star song can't be a "best of the year." Albums are falling fast, with contenders like Beck, Of Montreal and TV on the Radio falling off my Top 10, while surprises by MGMT, Max Richter and Blitzen Trapper are holding strong.

How do you make your Top 10?

My deskmate and NPR Music producer Lars Gotrich printed his Top 30 and then cut each album title, artist name and record label into strips of paper and laid them on his desk. Every so often, he rearranges their order.

Robin Hilton, who produces All Songs Considered, is a bit more methodical. He's listening to every album on our list of 100 nominees and slowly working his way through each CD, start to finish. If he finds himself wanting to go back to an album, he sets it aside as a finalist.

Do you post your list anywhere? If so, put the link in a comment and share it with the rest of us. And DON'T FORGET TO VOTE for your favorite music of 2008.

We'll post the results here and on the All Songs Considered site. We've extended the voting until the 14th. on Dec. 15 around noon east coast time we will announce the results here on the blog.

Wolf Parade is playing; I gotta go rate it.

I am now officially obsessed.

I recently did something I haven't done in more than 20 years: I put on a record -- an actual vinyl LP -- and just listened to it. The album was Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago. I had mail-ordered the record, and when I found it waiting for me on my front porch one evening after work, I decided to make it the night's entertainment.

With no television and no other distractions, I just sat there and listened. But while I listened, I held the dust jacket and used the time to really consider and appreciate the artwork. I studied the lyrics and read all the liner notes. What a novelty.

A while back on the blog, I mentioned that I had gotten rid of all my CDs because I thought the compact disc was a dying format. It's so much easier to access everything from a hard drive. When I asked listeners what they thought would be the music format to replace CDs, a handful of people said "vinyl." I thought it was funny, but I've come to realize that they may be right.

I've read a number of reports that sales of vinyl LPs and turntables are way up. Retailers speculate the obvious: Vinyl turns music into a tangible work of art, allowing a deeper connection between listener and artist. And many vinyl LPs now come with a code to download a free MP3 version of the album, giving listeners both the convenience of digital audio and the beauty of art you can hold in your hand.

Vinyl could save not only music as high art, but also the music industry itself. Labels and music retailers, reeling from years of plummeting sales, have been trying to lure buyers into purchasing physical CDs instead of downloads. Some have included videos or bonus tracks with the discs. But vinyl is a perfect excuse for returning to an actual, physical record store, where you can lay down some money and walk out with something real. I'd love to see local record stores come back.

Some bands see the potential, too. This fall, Of Montreal released multiple versions of its latest album on vinyl (with the free download code). The different versions include extra treats like wall art, buttons, a T-shirt and a paper lantern. The artwork on both the cover and album folds is simply stunning. It would seem almost criminal to shrink it down to the size of a CD booklet or to turn it into a tiny icon for a computer.

Of Montreal's irresistible vinyl release finally convinced me to start collecting physical LPs. I dusted off my turntable and started hunting down some of my favorite recordings on vinyl. So far, I've acquired a total of... eight records.

I asked around the office. All of the NPR Music producers copped to owning hundreds of LPs, but only one of them (Lars Gotrich) still actively buys vinyl.

What does your vinyl collection look like? E-mail us a photo of it; we'll post some of them here on the site.

The other night, I went to hear Brian Wilson perform his new work, That Lucky Old Sun, at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C. We hope to webcast a recording of part of that show soon.

I was in my seat for no more than five minutes when a Brian Wilson fan spotted my "all access" stage pass. A man named John held in his hands a book on surfing -- one he obviously treasured, wrapped in protective plastic. He showed it to me the way a proud parent would show baby pictures; the book was filled with autographs from famous surf-rock stars, including guitar king Dick Dale.

On a page filled with autographs, I saw a blank white area, and that's when John said something like, "I need to have Brian sign his autograph right here. I have a pen, and if you could just please go backstage and have him write 'To John' and then sign his name, it would mean so much to me."

I hesitated. I have a lot of respect for performers and their need for personal space, but I also remembered so many years ago, standing in the lobby of a Holiday Inn to get Ray Davies to sign my album.

After much gentle but passionate and persistent cajoling, I said sure. I took his book, walked backstage, saw Brian Wilson and asked him to sign it, "To John, from Brian Wilson."

Less than two minutes later, I walked back to John, gave him a big thumbs-up and handed him his book. It was such a sweet moment, because it clearly meant so much to him.

As I stood around during intermission, I heard snippets of random conversations that went something like, "They love Brian so much, they named their son after him." Earlier in the evening, I saw someone with a surfboard trying to get a picture with Wilson.

Brian Wilson is a man with a hard past: an abusive father, bouts of deep depression and voices in his head. He's the sole survivor of a family of brothers (Carl and Dennis) who made up the core of The Beach Boys.

But what Brian Wilson can hold on to are his songs: They are, in a way, his children. And those children are very much alive and well because of an incredible bunch of dedicated fans and a marvelous band of musicians. They all derive so much strength and joy from Wilson's songs -- music as simple and innocent as "Surfer Girl" and as complicated and emotionally wrought as "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times."

It's easy to laugh off fandom of any kind. But having seen it up close, it's a powerful glue that bonds people together. It's powerful enough to make a dream or two come true.

The comments below make for some good reading about music in 2008, things that are on our poll or missing.
thank you

When was the last time you sat down and listened to your favorite record, held the artwork in your hands and did nothing else? For me, it's been ages. I find it so easy to have my attention pulled away by the Web, by email or even a magazine. The music may hold my interest, but the artwork rarely does.

I've come to the conclusion that it's the fault of the art and not my short attention span. I've never liked the CD format when it comes to artwork and liner notes. Sure, there are box sets that are knockouts, but the average CD booklet is hard to read and just plain too tiny.

Now comes the future of album covers: digital art.

For years, we've seen CDs with bonus videos and even electronic books. But nothing has knocked me out until recently, when I saw Snow Patrol's new interactive Booklet (a clunky but descriptive name) for its latest release, A Hundred Million Suns.

I downloaded the art for free as an application from the iPhone app store. I haven't even heard the music yet, though I could imagine listening on my iPod Touch, while opening a series of digital origami, complete with lyrics and liner notes.

The first screen shows a universe of origami shapes, like stars. Touch one of the shapes and it comes forward.

Pinch the origami to open or close it.

When some of the paper shapes open, you'll find lyrics or other notes.

There are also videos and Web links, but the key to my loving this has less to do with the execution and more to do with the form. I love the idea of sitting with my iPod and playing with the artwork while listening to music. Any artist or designer, frustrated by the CD format, will just delight in making art that moves, morphs and informs.

If you think of artwork the way a designer thinks of a video game, all of a sudden the paradigm shifts from bands getting their music on Guitar Hero to fans taking unforgettable journeys into a band's artistic vision, which includes its music, its words and its musings.

You think MTV was a marriage of music and art? Just wait.

It's hard to believe, but we're entering the final stretch of 2008, and it's time to pick your favorite CDs of the year.

In mid-November, we'll post a ballot, here on the blog, asking you to vote for the best albums of 2008. But for now, we'd like some nominations. There are some obvious ones: TV on the Radio's Dear Science, Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago and Vampire Weekend's self-titled disc are a few of them. But what are some that aren't as obvious?

Tell us your nominations for the year's best CDs. We'll use your picks to compile a master list, which we'll then post here for voting. (Note: You'll need to register with npr.org to comment here on the blog and to vote in the poll we'll post in mid-November.)

Can't remember what albums came out this year? Browse the All Songs Considered archives to see what we've reviewed this year.