Jay-Z, School House Rock & Cyndi Lauper Among Recordings Added The Library of Congress Registry

The Library of Congress has added 25 recordings to its National Recording Registry that it calls “audio treasures.”

Among the recordings added, include albums from Jay-Z and Cyndi Lauper, a Schoolhouse Rock boxed set, a speech by Robert F. Kennedy and Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.”

Every year, the Librarian of Congress selects 25 recordings for the registry that are at least 10 years old and hold “culturally, historically, or aesthetically” significance. The registry is now up to 525 titles from the library’s collection of almost 3 million pieces records. 

“The National Recording Registry honors the music that enriches our souls, the voices that tell our stories and the sounds that mirror our lives,” Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said in a statement. “The influence of recorded sound over its nearly 160-year history has been profound and technology has increased its reach and significance exponentially. The Library of Congress and its many collaborators are working to preserve these sounds and moments in time, which reflect our past, present, and future.”

When it came to rapper Jay-Z’s sixth album The Blueprint, being added to the registry, it made the cut due to its demonstrations of “Jay-Z’s range, from battle raps throwing shade on his lyrical adversaries such as Nas and Prodigy of Mob Deep, to triumphant anthems about life at the top, to heartfelt examinations of his personal history.”

Lauper’s 1983 solo debut “She’s So Unusual,” also made the cut along with Curtis Mayfield‘s “Superfly” soundtrack and Jazz saxophonist Dexter Gordon‘s album Go.

The registry also added a recording of a speech that Sen. Kennedy gave on April 4, 1968, to a crowd in Indianapolis, Indiana, after discovering that civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated. Saying that “the recording of the speech captures the tone and emotion of his delivery and the expressions of the crowd —their dismay at the news of King’s death as well as their support for his calls for the country to pull together in the pursuit of both peace and justice.”

Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” which was written in response to the murder of civil right’s activist Medgar Evans and the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, which killed four African-American girls, was also named as “one of the most vital songs to emerge from the Civil Rights era.”

Schoolhouse Rock which included a series of animated shorts that used catchy songs from “I’m Just a Bill” to “Conjunction Junction” and “Three is the Magic Number,” which taught children math, grammar, and other educational subjects were also included. The 1996 box set of recordings was included because it was said to have helped rescue the songs from obscurity so that “parents who grew up watching the cartoons could play the songs for their children in the car, keeping the music alive and relevant for another generation.”

These are only a few of many recordings that were archived at Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation. Check out the full list of recordings added to the registry below, 

• Yiddish Cylinders from the Standard Phonograph Company of New York and the Thomas Lambert Company (c. 1901-1905)
• “Memphis Blues” (single), Victor Military Band (1914)
• Melville Jacobs Collection of Native Americans of the American Northwest (1929-1939)
• “Minnie the Moocher” (single), Cab Calloway (1931)
• “Bach Six Cello Suites” (album), Pablo Casals (c. 1939)
• “They Look Like Men of War” (single), Deep River Boys (1941)
• “Gunsmoke” — Episode: “The Cabin” (Dec. 27, 1952)
• Ruth Draper: Complete recorded monologues, Ruth Draper (1954-1956)
• “La Bamba” (single), Ritchie Valens (1958)
• “Long Black Veil” (single), Lefty Frizzell (1959)
• “Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America, Vol. 1: The Early Years” (album), Stan Freberg (1961)
• “GO” (album), Dexter Gordon (1962)
• “War Requiem” (album), Benjamin Britten (1963)
• “Mississippi Goddam” (single), Nina Simone (1964)
• “Soul Man” (single), Sam & Dave (1967)
• “Hair” (original Broadway cast recording) (1968)
• Speech on the Death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy (April 4, 1968)
• “Sweet Caroline” (single), Neil Diamond (1969)
• “Superfly” (album), Curtis Mayfield (1972)
• “Ola Belle Reed” (album), Ola Belle Reed (1973)
• “September” (single), Earth, Wind & Fire (1978)
• “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)” (single), Sylvester (1978)
• “She’s So Unusual” (album), Cyndi Lauper (1983)
• “Schoolhouse Rock!: The Box Set” (1996)
• “The Blueprint” (album), Jay-Z (2001)