Celine Dion’s hit single “My Heart Will Go On,” and Elton John’s monumental album “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” are two of the 25 recordings that will join the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in the United States this year as some of the defining sounds of American history and culture to be preserved for future generations.
Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden this week announced the 25 recordings as audio treasures worthy of preservation for all time based on their cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation’s recorded sound heritage. More than 2,600 nominations were made by the public this year for recordings to consider for the registry -from American rock classics such as “Fly Like an Eagle” to famed English musician Amy Winehouse, who died in 2011 at the age of 27.
“These are the sounds of America -our wide-ranging history and culture. The National Recording Registry is our evolving nation’s playlist,” said Hayden. “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.”
The 2025 selections span the sounds of folk, jazz, country, pop, comedy, sports, Latin, dance, tech, choral, R&B, and musical theater. The recording from Minecraft is only the second video game soundtrack to join the registry, following the theme from Super Mario Brothers, selected in 2023.
The recordings selected for the National Recording Registry this year bring the number of titles on the registry to 675, representing a small portion of the national library’s vast recorded sound collection of nearly four million items.
The full list of the audio recordings inducted in the US Library of Congress for 2025
The 2025 class of inductees, includes except for Elton John’s album and Celine Dion’s 1997 hit from the blockbuster film “Titanic,” Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black,” Chicago’s debut “Chicago Transit Authority,” the original cast recording of Broadway’s “Hamilton,” Mary J. Blige’s “My Life,” Tracy Chapman’s self-titled debut album, Roy Roger’s and Dale Evans’ classic “Happy Trails,” Mile Davis’s jazz fusion album “Bitches Brew,” Charley Pride’s groundbreaking “Kiss an Angel Goodmornin,” Freddy Fender’s groundbreaking song “Before the Next Teardrop Falls,” Steve Miller’s Band “Fly Like an Eagle,” Vincente Fernadez’s enduring ranchera song “El Rey,” Hawaiian Quintette’s “Aloha Oe,” Brother Bones & His Shadows “Sweet Georgia Brown,” Chuck Thompson’s “Radio Broadcast of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series,” Harry Urata Field Recordings, Don Rickle’s “Hello Dummy!” Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman,” Thelma Houston & Pressure Cooker’s “I’ve Got the Music in Me,” Keith Jarrett’s “The Koln Concert,” the Nimrod Workman Collection, Chanticleer’s “Our American Journey,” Brian Eno’s Microsoft Windows Reboot chime and Daniel Rosenfeld’s “Minecraft: Volume Alpha.”
“Chicago Transit Authority” finished number one in the public nominations this year. Other selected recordings in the top 10 include “Happy Trails,” “My Life,” and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.”
