Courtesy Library of Congress/Getty Pictures
Annually, the Nationwide Recording Registry makes annual alternatives for inclusion within the Library of Congress after advising preservationists and the Nationwide Recording Preservation Board. Once we consider the Nationwide Recording Registry, we naturally consider music. Nonetheless, the Library of Congress is house to a mess of different recordings, together with broadcast sporting occasions, comedy, and spoken phrase.
Appearing Librarian of Congress Robert R. Newlen named 25 new recordings to be added to the repository as “audio treasures” worthy of preservation, primarily based on a rubric of their cultural, historic or aesthetic significance within the sounds that formed America.
“The Library of Congress is proud to pick these audio treasures and can work to protect them with our recording trade companions,” says Newlen.
The nomination course of is definitely fairly easy. Public participation is extensively inspired and purposes may be submitted by way of a web-based portal, the place you’ll be able to submit as much as 50 recordings. Based on a press launch, the general public submitted greater than 3,000 nominations. The self-titled debut album from the rock band Weezer, Weezer (The Blue Album). “Music and recorded sound are important and fantastic elements of our every day lives and our nationwide heritage,” Newlen continued.
For 2026, the Nationwide Recording Registry has listed 25 works for preservation, spanning 70 years of music and consisting of nation, pop, jazz, Latin, folks, funk R&B and extra. Nationwide Recording Preservation Board Chairman Robin Ahrold says that general, the registry’s alternatives replicate “the breadth of the American expertise” because the nation approaches its 250th anniversary. “From R&B icons to a Spanish-language vacation favourite, from a legendary sports activities present to the superstars of this era, it’s an thrilling reflection of America at its greatest.”
The listing contains 9 compositions by blacks. Alternatives embrace Beyoncé’s 11X platinum-certified hit “Single Women (Put a Ring On It),” two-time Grammy Award winner Chaka Khan’s cowl of Prince’s “I Really feel For You,” Gladys Knight and the Pips’ soul anthem “Midnight Practice to Georgia,” and Ray Charles’ 1962 Grammy-winning album. Trendy sounds in nation and western music.
There are additionally a handful of alternatives that will change the course of music as we all know it. Ruth Brown’s 1950 track “Teardrops From My Eyes,” recognized partly for serving to lay the muse for what we all know to be Atlantic Data, can be included within the yr’s alternatives, as is The Winston’s 1969 observe “Amen, Brother,” which incorporates the so-called “Amen break,” the six-second drum solo that will turn out to be probably the most sampled audio clip in historical past. The landmark jazz album from composer and saxophonist Oliver Nelson, The blues and summary reality, was one of many defining information of the post-bop period. A pioneer of Chicago home music, Jamie Principe’s 1982 file “Your Love,” enhanced by Frankie Knuckles, is well known as one of many first true home tracks.
On the planet of sport, The Struggle of the Century: Ali vs. Frazier was additionally recorded within the archives. The 1971 present from Madison Sq. Backyard was a worldwide cultural marker as the 2 fighters have been each undefeated. This struggle is extensively thought of the best boxing match in historical past, handing Muhammad Ali the primary defeat of his profession.
Though she is probably the most embellished Grammy Award winner, this yr’s picks additionally mark Beyoncé’s first recording chosen for inclusion within the registry. The marketing campaign so as to add Beyoncé was led by San Antonio Congressman Joaquin Castro, who’s main a campaign to make sure that works by Texas and Latino artists are recorded within the archives.
The audio chosen for the registry brings the variety of titles on the nationwide registry to 700. For perspective, the nationwide library assortment represents roughly 4 million gadgets. The mission of the registry is to make sure that information will probably be preserved and exist for generations to return.
See the total listing of works registered with the Library of Congress under.
Recordings chosen for the Nationwide Recording Registry in 2026
- “Cocktails for Two” – Spike Jones and His Townspeople (1944) (single)
- “Mambo n°5” – Pérez Prado (1950) (single)
- “Tears from My Eyes” – Ruth Brown (1950) (single)
- “Fly Me to the Moon (In Different Phrases)” – Kaye Ballard (1954) (single)
- “Put Your Head on My Shoulder” – Paul Anka (1959) (single)
- “The Blues and Summary Reality” – Oliver Nelson (1961) (album)
- “Trendy Sounds in Nation and Western Music” – Ray Charles (1962) (album)
- “Flip! Flip! Flip! (To The whole lot There Is a Season)” – The Byrds (1965) (single)
- “Amen, Brother” – The Winstons (1969) (single)
- “Merry Christmas” – José Feliciano (1970) (single)
- “Struggle of the Century: Ali vs. Frazier” (March 8, 1971) (broadcast)
- “Midnight Practice to Georgia” – Gladys Knight and the Pips (1973) (single)
- Unique forged album “Chicago” (1975) (album)
- “The Satan Got here All the way down to Georgia” – The Charlie Daniels Band (1979) (single)
- “Magnificence and Rhythm” – The Go-Go’s (1981) (album)
- “Texas Flood” – Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Hassle (1983) (album)
- “I Really feel for You” – Chaka Khan (1984) (single)
- “Your Love” – Jamie Principe (1986) / Jamie Principe/Frankie Knuckles (1987) (singles)
- “Rumor Has It” – Reba McEntire (1990) (album)
- “The Wheel” – Rosanne Money (1993) (album)
- “Doom” Unique Soundtrack – Bobby Prince, composer (1993)
- “Go Relaxation Excessive on That Mountain” – Vince Gill (1994) (single)
- “Weezer (The Blue Album)” – Weezer (1994) (album)
- “Single Women (Put a Ring on It)” – Beyoncé (2008) (single)
- “1989” – Taylor Swift (2014) (album)