The Best Music of 2016

Heavy Rotation

Public radio hosts share the songs they couldn't stop playing this year.

Listen to highlights from this playlist on Spotify

Mike Adams At His Honest Weight
Bronze Worlds
Aesop Rock
Blood Sandwich
Courtney Marie Andrews
Rookie Dreaming
Atmosphere
Perfect
BADBADNOTGOOD
Time Moves Slow
David Bazan
Both Hands
Bear's Den
Red Earth & Pouring Rain
Big Thief
Real Love
Blood Orange (feat. Empress Of)
Best To You
Tom Brosseau
Fit To Be Tied
Ethan Burns
Homeward
Caleborate (feat. Cadence, Moms)
Thank God
Communist Daughter
Roll A Stone
Charley Crockett
I Am Not Afraid
Dawg Yawp
Can't Think
Doombird
The Salt
Dyan
Days Upon Days
Mark Erelli
Look Up
Izo FitzRoy
Here I Come (Moods Remix)
FKA twigs
Good To Love
The Frightnrs
Nothing More To Say
A Giant Dog
& Rock & Roll
Glass Animals
Life Itself
Jabee (feat. Chuck D)
Monument
Jim James
Same Old Lie
Sarah Jarosz
Comin' Undone
The Jayhawks
Quiet Corners & Empty Spaces
Mick Jenkins (feat. BADBADNOTGOOD)
Drowning
Beau Jennings and the Tigers
Back In Town
Kaia Kater
Paradise Fell
Michael Kiwanuka
One More Night
Kungs feat. Cookin' on 3 Burners
This Girl
Takuya Kuroda
R.S.B.D.
Lady Midnight feat. Afrokeys
Wax Line
Lo Moon
Loveless
Mandolin Orange
Hey Stranger
Cass McCombs feat. Angel Olsen
Opposite House
The Del McCoury Band
The Government Road
James Vincent McMorrow
Rising Water
Vic Mensa
There's Alot Going On
Tift Merritt
Dusty Old Man
Júníus Meyvant
Neon Experience
The Minders
Needle Doll
Mondo Cozmo
Hold On To Me
Kyle Morton
Survivalist Fantasy
Kacey Musgraves
A Willie Nice Christmas
My Morning Jacket
Magic Bullet
Nada Surf
Cold To See Clear
Noname (feat. Akenya & Eryn Allen Kane)
Reality Check
Obongjayar
Creeping
Oddisee
Brea
Beth Orton
1973
The Paranoid Style
Common Emergencies
Preoccupations
Stimulation
Psychic Twin
Lose Myself
Radiation City
Milky White
Fil Bo Riva
Like Eye Did
Saba (feat. Twista)
GPS
Seratones
Don't Need It
Sheer Mag
Nobody's Baby
Amanda Shires
The Way It Dimmed
Skating Polly
Pretective Boy
Regina Spektor
The Trapper and the Furrier
Split Single
Blank Ribbons
Chris Staples
Golden Age
Mavis Staples
High Note
Sylvan Esso
Kick Jump Twist
Kate Tempest
Europe Is Lost
Third Root
Soul Force
Adam Torres
High Lonesome
A Tribe Called Quest
Melatonin
Foy Vance
She Burns
Ryley Walker
The Halfwit In Me
Warpaint
New Song
Yaeji
New York 93
Pete Yorn
Lost Weekend