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Next time you walk into the Library of Congress, feel free to play some punk albums on full blast. After all, you could be playing tracks that are being honored as some of the most important examples of recorded sound.
Ramones, the 1976 studio debut by the seminal New York punk band of the same name, is among 25 recordings being added today to the National Recording Registry, a Library of Congress collection that every year selects a batch of audio considered to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” And any album that includes “Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue” certainly merits that.
Rock is well represented in this year’s batch, from Chubby Checker’s 1960 recording of “The Twist” to Cheap Thrills by Big Brother and the Holding Company (featuring Janis Joplin) to Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, a selection that all but confirms that dropping acid and watching The Wizard of Oz at a high-school party is a culturally significant American tradition.
Other widely known recordings being added to the registry include Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” and The Bee Gees-led soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever.
Among the lesser known, but no less vital, music selected is the Appalachian rockabilly “Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley’s,” featuring a young Doc Watson; the self-titled 1976 album by The Wild Tchoupitoulas, the legendary Mardi Gras Indian funk band that launched the careers of the Nevill Brothers; and a 1965 performance of “Hoodoo Man Blues” by the Chicago bluesman Junior Wells featuring a young Buddy Guy.
And even President Dwight D. Eisenhower made the list, with a December 19, 1958 speech that was the first recording in history to be broadcast by a communications satellite. (The United States launched it into orbit the day before.)
Here’s the full list of recordings selected today:
- “After You’ve Gone,” Marion Harris (1918)
- “Bacon, Beans and Limousines,” Will Rogers (Oct. 18, 1931)
- “Begin the Beguine,” Artie Shaw (1938)
- “You Are My Sunshine,” Jimmie Davis (1940)
- D-Day Radio Broadcast, George Hicks (June 5-6, 1944)
- “Just Because,” Frank Yankovic & His Yanks (1947)
- South Pacific, Original Cast Album (1949)
- “Descargas: Cuban Jam Session in Miniature,” Cachao Y Su Ritmo Caliente (1957)
- Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, Van Cliburn (April 11, 1958)
- President’s Message Relayed from Atlas Satellite, Dwight D. Eisenhower (Dec. 19, 1958)
- “A Program of Song,” Leontyne Price (1959)
- “The Shape of Jazz to Come,” Ornette Coleman (1959)
- “Crossing Chilly Jordan,” The Blackwood Brothers (1960)
- “The Twist,” Chubby Checker (1960)
- “Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley’s,” Clarence Ashley, Doc Watson, et al. (1960-1962)
- “Hoodoo Man Blues,” Junior Wells (1965)
- “Sounds of Silence,” Simon and Garfunkel (1966)
- Cheap Thrills, Big Brother and the Holding Company (1968)
- The Dark Side of the Moon, Pink Floyd (1973)
- “Music Time in Africa,” Leo Sarkisian, host (July 29, 1973)
- Wild Tchoupitoulas, The Wild Tchoupitoulas (1976)
- Ramones, The Ramones (1976)
- Saturday Night Fever, The Bee Gees, et al (1977)
- “Einstein on the Beach,” Philip Glass and Robert Wilson (1979)
- “The Audience with Betty Carter,” Betty Carter (1980)
