The Library of Congress National Recording Registry announced Wednesday that 25 new recordings were inducted into the Registry, including Amy Winehouse’s 2006 album “Back to Black,” the original cast album of Broadway’s “Hamilton,” and Elton John’s 1973 album “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”
The sounds chosen for preservation have “cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation’s recorded sound heritage,” Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said in a news release.
“These are the sounds of America – our wide-ranging history and culture. The National Recording Registry is our evolving nation’s playlist,” Hayden said. “The Library of Congress is proud and honored to select these audio treasures worthy of preservation, including iconic music across a variety of genres, field recordings, sports history and even the sounds of our daily lives with technology.”
In 2022, the National Recording Registry Board began to choose recordings to be preserved. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech was one of the 50 recordings chosen the first year. Since then, 675 recordings have been added to the Registry.
This year’s selections include folk, country, pop, sports, comedy, and even a video game sound. Minecraft is the second video game soundtrack to join the Registry. In 2023, the theme for Super Mario Brothers was added.
In a video posted on Instagram, Elton John said that he isn’t a “formula writer.”
“I didn’t think ‘Bennie and the Jets’ was a hit,” John said. “I didn’t think ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me’ was a hit. And that’s what makes writing so special. You do not know what you’re coming up with and how special it might become.”
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Tracy Chapman, whose 1988 self-titled album that includes her hit song “Fast Car” and was added to this Registry this year, said in the video she was up late at night when the first line, “You’ve got a fast car,” of the song came to her.
“The question is, who is you and then what’s the car all about,” Chapman said. “It’s in a way a process of answering questions.”
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