Brian Eno’s ‘Windows 95’ theme among new entries to the National Recording Registry
Elton John, Brian Eno, Celine Dion, Amy Winehouse, and Tracy Chapman are among several new entries to the National Recording Registry this year.
Announcing the new class of 2025, the Library of Congress revealed the inclusion of John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album, Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’, Winehouse’s ‘Back To Black’, and Eno’s Windows 96 reboot theme among those selected.
To qualify for entry, songs have to be at least a decade old and have influence “based on their cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation’s recorded sound heritage.” The public submitted over 2,000 entries for 2025’s grouping, each hoping for their favourites to gain the acknowledgement of significant cultural impact.
“These are the sounds of America — our wide-ranging history and culture,” Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden explained, per The Washington Post. “The National Recording Registry is our evolving nation’s playlist.”
Hayden continued, “The Library of Congress is proud and honoured 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.”
Eno created the Windows 95 theme in the 1990s, during a pivot towards more ambient musical explorations. At the time, however, he encountered a creative impasse, but he felt compelled to rise to the challenge.
“The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas,” Eno recalled to SF Gate, “I’d been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, ‘Here’s a specific problem – solve it.'”
Despite exceeding the required run time, the final result contained all of the notes of technological dreamscape the project needed, all while reinvigorating Eno’s own creative enthusiasm. “I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work,” he said.
Adding: “Then when I’d finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time.”
2025 National Recording Registry:
- Hawaiian Quintette – ‘Aloha ‘Oe’
- Brother Bones & His Shadows – ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’” (1949)’
- Roy Rogers and Dale Evans – ‘Happy Trails’
- Chuck Thompson – Radio Broadcast of Game 7 of the 1960 World Series
- Harry Urata Field Recordings (1960-1980)
- Don Rickles – Hello Dummy!
- Chicago – Chicago Transit Authority
- Miles Davis – Bitches Brew
- Charley Pride – ‘Kiss an Angel Good Mornin”
- Helen Reddy – ‘I Am Woman’” (1972)’
- Vicente Fernandez – ‘El Rey’
- Elton John – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
- Freddy Fender – ‘Before the Next Teardrop Falls’
- Thelma Houston & Pressure Cooker – I’ve Got the Music in Me
- Keith Jarrett – The Koln Concert
- Steve Miller Band – Fly Like an Eagle
- Nimrod Workman Collection
- Tracy Chapman – Tracy Chapman
- Mary J. Blige – My Life
- Brian Eno – Microsoft Windows Reboot Chime
- Celine Dion – ‘My Heart Will Go On’
- Chanticleer – Our American Journey
- Amy Winehouse – Back to Black
- Daniel Rosenfeld – Minecraft: Volume Alpha
- Original Hamilton Broadway Cast – Hamilton: An American Musical
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