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NPR’s All Songs Considered began in 2000, long before on-demand streaming began to reshape the way people hear music. Sixteen years later, the show is still kicking — even thriving, having become one of the most popular podcasts on iTunes.

To recognize 16 successful years of music discovery, All Songs Considered hosts Robin Hilton and Bob Boilen are throwing a Sweet 16 party at D.C.’s 9:30 Club Jan. 13 at 7 p.m. Pop experimentalist Dan Deacon co-headlines the bash alongside singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten, with more special guests to be announced. No surprise, tickets have already sold out.

Lucky for you, WAMU’s Bandwidth.fm is giving away free tickets to the show. Want in? It’s easy. Just be one of the first to fill out this form below, and we’ll add you to our guest list. But act quickly! These spots will move fast.

Before the age of Soundcloud and Bandcamp, Maryland R&B artists like April + VISTA, LeXuS and Reece may not have found thousands of listeners. The rapid, distressed rhymes of K.A.A.N., a brickmason in Columbia, might have evaporated as quickly as they skittered from his mouth. Protester and Red Death may never have fueled a mosh pit outside of D.C., and wicked but humble local ensembles like More Humans might count only their parents as fans.

We’re lucky that these artists can be heard now. But they still deserve more ears. That’s why Bandwidth.fm spent days upon days devising this year’s playlist of our favorite new local music. (Want to jump right to it? Scroll down.)

To compile this year’s list, we hit up our contributors — experts in the region’s hip-hop, R&B, jazz, rock, punk, electronic music, metal and more — and asked them to rank their picks, like we did last year. Then we threw out the rankings. Why? We couldn’t measure these songs by any one standard. They are — much like D.C.’s musical communities — all over the map.

For example: In a competition between metal veterans King Giant and young street rapper Topdolla Sweizy, could anyone agree on a victor? Could art rockers Beauty Pill go in the same pot as trombonist Reginald Cyntje? Does Kali Uchis vs. The Max Levine Ensemble make any sense? You see what we mean.

Ultimately we decided on 50 local songs we dig for all kinds of reasons. We had few rules, other than geography (from this area) and release year (2015). We omitted local natives who have built solid careers outside of D.C., like Kelela, Logic, Wale and Oddisee. We didn’t venture far beyond the beltway, which means we didn’t pick any of our favorite artists out of Baltimore, Richmond, Norfolk or Ellicott City, among other locales. And you might find that we overlooked several genres — not out of disdain, but because we didn’t follow them closely enough to intelligently size them up. (Sorry, classical-music lovers!)

But even with those restrictions, we had a rough time paring down our list to 50 songs, which is a testament to the range of ingenuity and talent found here. So think of this playlist not just as fodder for your earbuds, but also as an audio tour of D.C.’s rich and constantly evolving musical culture. — Ally Schweitzer, editor, Bandwidth.fm 

Warning: Many of these songs contain explicit lyrics. 

This list was compiled with help from Teta Alim, Christopher Buresh, Angela Byrd, David Combs, Lars Gotrich, Steve Kiviat, Ron Knox, Catherine Lewis, Ryan Little, Keith Mathias, Marcus J. Moore, Nicole “DJ Heat” Mosley, Megan Pauly, Jesse Rubin, Alex Schelldorf, Ally Schweitzer, Courtney Sexton, Farrah Skeiky, Johnthan Speed, Joe Warminsky, Michael J. West, Justyn Withay, Briana Younger and Alan Zilberman.

Nas before Illmatic. A young Jay Z and Notorious B.I.G. Members of the Wu-Tang Clan, long before they topped the charts with Wu-Tang Forever. Those are just some of the would-be legends that appeared on The Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito Show on WKCR in New York City.

From 1990 to 1998, the late-night radio program led by DJs Stretch Armstrong (Adrian Bartos) and Bobbito (Robert Garcia) captured some of the most golden moments in hip-hop’s golden era. Fans of the music look back on it as the most important hip-hop show of its day.

At 7 p.m. on Nov. 10, NPR is showing a new documentary about the storied show, called Stretch and Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives. WAMU 88.5 is giving away about two dozen tickets to the event, and we’d love you to score a pair.

So… you want these tickets? Follow these simple instructions: Before noon on Friday, Nov. 6, send an email to bandwidth@wamu.org with the subject line “Stretch and Bobbito.” Include your full name and the name of your (one) guest, if applicable. If you’re among the first 20ish people to email us, you win.

Want a glimpse of Stretch and Bobbito? Watch the documentary’s trailer up top. Then come and get these tickets.

NPR is located at 1111 North Capitol St. NE in D.C.

Some of this year’s most unforgettable local songs didn’t come from comfortable experiences. They sounded fed up, and particularly urgent in a year marked by growing inequity at home and multiple slayings by police in places that didn’t feel far away.

In one of the year’s rawest rock songs, Thaylobleu cranked up its guitars to tell a personal story of police harassment. Chain and the Gang and Jack On Fire assailed gentrification with wit and hyperbole. Punk band Priests declared everything right wing. Two remarkable hip-hop works channeled frustration and fatalism among young black Americans: Diamond District’s Oddisee cried, “What’s a black supposed to do — sell some crack and entertain?”, while Virginia MC GoldLink rapped about all the glorious things he imagines happening to him — when he dies.

Not that peace and love felt impossible in 2014: In a touching song released two years after his death, Chuck Brown sang of a “beautiful life” enriched by the warmth of community. Promising newcomer Kali Uchis made us kick back with a soulful number steeped in giddy infatuation. Experimentation thrived in D.C. music: Young artists built on the region’s strong punk pedigree and expanded its boundaries. Mary Timony’s band Ex Hex embraced a classic sound and made one of the country’s best rock ‘n’ roll records. Local bands with shorter but distinctive resumes — like Laughing Man, Two Inch Astronaut and Deleted Scenes — sounded better and more creative than ever before. A Sound of Thunder and Gloom reminded us that the D.C. area is still a reliable producer of top-notch metal.

As expected, Bandwidth contributors faced hard choices while making this list of the year’s best local songs, and not only because it’s our first one. Up until deadline, we were still hearing new D.C. songs we wanted to include. But in a place where mounting wealth has created a challenging environment for art, that’s not a problem, really. It’s a testament to a music scene that perseveres despite long odds. —Ally Schweitzer

Warning: Many of these songs contain explicit lyrics.

Deleted Scenes, “Lithium Burn”
April 15, Park the Van/Nevado

Deleted Scenes’ 2011 breakthrough album, “Young People’s Church of the Air,” shifted the D.C. indie-rock band in a more experimental direction, but the hyperactive “Stutter”—the first single from the group’s forthcoming followup—indicated that the foursome has definitively taken off the parking brake. That song might be the most loopy on the album. But Deleted Scenes’ less madcap singles, like “You Get To Say Whatever You Want,” showcase the skills of producers Brian McTear and Jonathan Low (also known for their work with Sharon Van Etten, Kurt Vile, and The War on Drugs), who have cast off the impenetrable haze of “Young People’s Church of the Air” and sharpened every element on the record—most notably singer Dan Scheuerman’s formidable voice. (Valerie Paschall)

Typefighter, “The End of Everything”
April 22, Huge Witch Records

Since releasing its first EPs, Typefighter has ditched the banjo and acoustic guitars and turned up to 11. Songs like the anthemic single “Much” show that the quartet can do triumphant guitar riffs just as well as Titus Andronicus—though Typefighter hasn’t yet veered into rock-opera territory. But the band still knows how to channel a moment: On the album’s title track and the sentimental “I Like the Way You Are,” they set aside noise and let singer Ryan McLaughlin’s raw voice hang either forlornly (the former) or gratefully (the latter) in the ether adding depth to what is otherwise a perfectly welcome stomper. (Valerie Paschall)

Protect-U, “Free USA”
May 13, Future Times

If “Time 2 Technique” offers a preview of what’s in store for Protect-U’s first LP, “Free USA” should be one of the year’s must-have electronic albums. D.C. musicians Mike Petillo and Aaron Leitko have released tracks here and there, laying a foundation with beats that would get even the most sedentary listener’s head bopping; but now, they seem to have mixed the funky beats that made “Motorbike” so urgent with the twinkling synths that colored their early tracks like “U-Uno” and “Double Rainbow.” There aren’t many albums that can work for people in any mood and any setting, but this could be one of them. (Valerie Paschall)

Gods’Illa, “Believe in Gods’Illa”
June, self-released

It’s still unbelievable when you think about it: That Gods’Illa‘s 2011 project, “CPR: The Blend Tape” was hosted by the great Erykah Badu. That’s not a slight against the Forestville, Md., hip-hop trio. But the famous vocalist’s appearance seemed to validate the group—which spits conscious bars just as ably as lyrics about nothing—and brought more attention to what truly was an excellent tape. Its new album, “Believe In Gods’Illa,” arrives with just as much promise—even without a celebrity endorsement. (Marcus J. Moore)

Priests, “Bodies and Control and Money and Power”
June 3, Don Giovanni/Sister Polygon

On its earlier material, D.C. quartet Priests shredded through angry, political, surf-flecked punk rock—and both releases spoke to the band’s immense potential. Now, having honed its sound and message with incessant touring, the group has become the most promising torchbearer of D.C.’s vibrant punk and riot grrrl traditions. “Right Wing,” Priests’ first single from this summer’s “Bodies and Control and Money and Power” is almost startling in its cleanly produced and spot-on D.C.-via-L7 sound. If the rest of the album is as laden with hooks and sing-along refrains as its first single, the band may have to sink their fingernails into the dirt to keep from being dragged out of the underground. (Ron Knox)

Martyn, “The Air Between Words”
June 16, Ninja Tune

It’s odd to think of Dutch-born house/dubstep/techno producer Martyn as a local artist. The Northern Virginia resident doesn’t play many local dates, and he hasn’t made much of a mark on D.C.’s electronic-music scene since he moved to the area (for love) in 2009. But Martyn is kind of slippery that way anyway; he subtly changes sounds almost as often as he boards an airplane. His second album, the thrilling 2011 LP “Ghost People,” traded in quick-footed, high-energy house music, but his debut LP, 2009’s “Great Lengths,” borrowed a little more from dubstep. For his third album out this summer, Martyn promises yet another shift: something closer to his debut, but still different, he told Resident Advisor. No word on live D.C. dates yet, but I won’t hold my breath. (Ally Schweitzer)

The 1978ers, “People of Today”
July, Mello Music Group

yU is always thoughtful, from his elaborate rhyme cadence to his evocative beats. For his solo work, namely 2010’s “Before Taxes” and 2011’s “the EARN,” yU riffed on daily endeavors and kept an eye toward brighter times. On “People of Today,” yU will join producer SlimKat as The 1978ers—both were born in 1978—for a thoughtful narrative about everyday folks. That’s not surprising, given yU’s low-key demeanor and common-man ethos; there’s a reason he’s called the “humble king.” (Marcus J. Moore)

Warning: This song contains explicit lyrics.

Diamond District, “March on Washington”
September, Mello Music Group

Released in 2009, Diamond District’s “In the Ruff” arrived the same year President Obama took office. But while huge swaths of the city celebrated the country’s first black president, “In the Ruff” kept D.C.’s blight in full view with its grainy beats and raw rhymes. Since then, group members Oddisee, Uptown XO and yU have made significant strides, and “In the Ruff” is considered a landmark album for DMV hip-hop. What will they do for an encore? (Marcus J. Moore)

Warning: This song contains explicit lyrics.

Ex Hex’s debut album
Release date to be announced, Merge

Some of the best parts of Wild Flag’s 2011 LP happened when Mary Timony channeled her inner ’70s crotch-rocker, and Ex Hex is basically that distilled into one band. The trio’s first 7-inch, released last month, is a power-rockin’ blast, especially “Waterfall.” It’s music for leather jackets and Miller Genuine Draft—about fun and not much else—and that’s part of what makes Ex Hex one of the most exciting new D.C. rock bands in years. (Ally Schweitzer)

The Black Sparks’ debut album
Release date to be announced

The term “high school band” usually serves as an excuse for terrible music. But the high schoolers in The Black Sparks have played together for five years, and if last month’s show in Bethesda with Priests, Give and Vile Faith offered any indication, the band’s sound is maturing quite nicely. The Black Sparks established themselves as a solid hardcore act. Now their new material finds them snaking through a more complex (albeit still brutal) instrumental attack rather than merely pummeling the audience with a two-minute adrenaline rush. There’s no name or date for their forthcoming album yet, but they’ve just recorded their material at Inner Ear—a good omen in itself. (Valerie Paschall)

She explains the process on her Tumblr blog:

I decided to transcribe it into modern notation, assuming the second line of the staff is C, as is common for chants of this era.

The Garden of Earthly Delights, created between 1490 and 1510, depicts Eden on the left, scenes of debauchery in the center panel, and hell on the right, where the score is placed. As the student aptly points out, “so yes this is LITERALLY the 600-years-old butt song from hell.”

Don’t be shy. Go have a listen.