As NPR Music celebrates its 10th anniversary, we're looking back at the first decade of our existence year by year. This website was born during a time when technology was changing how we bought, sold, carried, listened to and understood music; some of the developments that we saw as revolutionary in the moment almost feel quaint today. The music has a way of sticking around, though, as do the memories of the people we shared it with: musicians, friends, you. Our list isn't comprehensive — it couldn't be. Instead, what you'll find on the pages that follow is a selection — picked by those of us who call NPR Music home — of songs, albums, events, trends and happenings that linger in our minds, that draw us back in time, that make us hungry for the next 10 years.
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Go back to the year 2007, when NPR Music was born, along with classmates like Radiohead's pay-what-you-wish album In Rainbows and the very first iPhone. View 2007 >
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2008 brought the first Tiny Desk Concert, the arrival (finally) of perhaps the most notoriously delayed album ever and one of the best videos of all time. View 2008 >
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Go to the year 2009, which saw black entertainers celebrating a new president and the death of the King of Pop. View 2009 >
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A year of big debuts — from the likes of Kesha, Justin Bieber and Janelle Monáe— and new chapters from Kanye West, Gil Scott-Heron, Jónsi and The Beatles. View 2010 >
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2011 can be summed up by one album that landed in January and dominated the rest of the year. View 2011 >
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2012 showed the Internet in all its glory and horror: crowdfunding, "Call Me Maybe" memes and "Gangnam Style." Plus: Channel Orange and the Tupac hologram. View 2012 >
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In 2013, we lost George Jones and Lou Reed but witnessed the return of a pair of disco-loving robots and a surprise from Queen Bey herself, just weeks before the year's end. View 2013 >
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2014 began with a Frozen streak, included some stumbles (U2 and Apple, we're looking at you) and closed with an R&B revelation. View 2014 >
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In 2015, Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly spawned a protest anthem, Hamilton rewrote history and Sufjan Stevens dug into his own past. View 2015 >
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2016 was shaped by the loss of David Bowie, Prince and Phife Dawg and driven forward by Beyoncé's landmark album, Lemonade. View 2016 >
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