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Whether openly or covertly, all music types love this time of year. It's list-making season. Those of us behind the Take Five series wanted to get in on the act, too. So we asked WBGO, WDUQ and Jazz24 to share their top picks of 2008 with a couple more from the series curators.

They're cooking up new music — including a song for a 'Star Wars' video game — and videos on how to prepare traditional foods. Care for a fried meat pie?

A Mexican cumbia-punk band called Son Rompe Pera, a traditional singer from West Bengal named Rina Das Baul and a group from near Timbuktu called Al Bilali Soudan: three global acts on the rise.

The Susie Arioli band, out of Quebec, has just released its third jazz-swing album, That's for Me. NPR's Susan Stamberg speaks with vocalist Arioli and guitarist Jordan Officer about their music, inspiration and collaboration.

There's rock music -- you know, the kind inaugurated by Chuck Berry in the 1950s -- and then there's the real rock music, which started out on actual rocks in England in the 1800s. Paul Collins has written about the phenomenon of early rock bands in The Believer magazine, and talks about his findings.

Pianist Gabriela Montero fields songs sung over the telephone and creates her own improvisations around them. This week, hard work on a sailing team inspired a listener to sing the song "The Weight" by The Band.

What would it sound like if someone bridged the gap between large ensemble jazz and classic hip-hop anthems? One multi-generational group of musicians has made it their aim to find out.

Two English musicians, with a strange backstory, mine "library music" to create a fuzzy, endlessly vibing sound.

A four-piece band of Italian rockers won the Eurovision Song Contest on Sunday — Italy's third victory in the immensely popular festival.