The end of the first decade of the millennium is soon upon us, and the team at NPR's All Songs Considered has been working overtime to compile in-depth coverage of the decade in music, with essays, quizzes, a timeline, and, now, a list of The Decade's 50 Most Important Recordings. Among them are three Nonesuch recordings: John Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls, the Ali Farka Touré and Toumani Diabaté collaboration In the Heart of the Moon, and Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

Comprising "indelible songs and albums that challenge, inspire and captivate," says NPR of the works it chose for the list, "These are the game-changers: records that signaled some sort of shift in the way music is made or sounds, or ones that were especially influential or historically significant."

While there is admittedly much left to debate about any such list, the folks at All Songs Considered acknowledge, they could all agree on one thing: "This was one of the best decades yet for music. We can't wait to hear what comes next."

Writer Tom Huizenga describes Adams's On the Transmigration of Souls as a "vigorous musical response" to the attacks of September 11, 2001. It was commissioned for the New York Philharmonic and premiered by the orchestra, under the direction of Lorin Maazel, at New York's Avery Fisher Hall, joined by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and New York Choral Artists on September 19, 2002. The piece was recorded in concert that week and released on Nonesuch in 2004.

The late Malian guitar legend Ali Farka Touré and kora master Toumani Diabaté joined forces for the 2005 World Circuit/Nonesuch album In the Heart of the Moon, an album would be one of Touré's last and would go on to win that year's Grammy for Best Traditional World Music Album. But, as NPR's Bob Boilen points out, it wasn't exactly the most traditional of pairings. "Two brilliant musicians from Mali came together without rehearsal to record one of the decade's most stunningly gorgeous records," says Boilen. "This recording blends two wildly different Malian traditions—a mixing of cultures, which doesn't always happen there. The result is a classic."

Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot may be among the decade's most talked-about albums for the story of how it made its way, circuitously, to Nonesuch, as captured on the documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. But it is, of course, much more than its provenance. Finally released in April 2002, the album, says critic Tom Moon, can now be seen as a starting point for the many musical adventures the band would undertake in the coming decade. The recording of the album, Moon suggests, triggered "profound creative change, dislodging old patterns and opening up new ways of thinking," opening the way for the "bolder and at times thrillingly ambitious" music that would follow. For his part, Boilen adds: ""We wouldn't be talking about this record if this was not one of the most brilliant records of this decade, in my opinion."

There's also an added plug on the show for perhaps a 51st record from Boilen for Brian Wilson's SMiLE as an album that, while written some decades ago, was only just released in 2004 on Nonesuch and undoubtedly influenced albums like Panda Bear's Person Pitch.

Read more from each of these NPR contributors and many others in the complete list and listen to the hour-plus on-air discussion of The Decade's 50 Most Important Recordings from All Songs Considered at npr.org.