Apart from the mainly-Chinese playlist in the sidebar (commentary here), below are some links to an eclectic selection of All-time Great Songs* on this blog. Besides the songs, the posts are worth reading too—Trust Me, I’m a Doctor.

• Fado das horas sung by a youthful Carminho
• Erbarme Dich (see also Bach tag)
• You’re my thrill and other gems from Billie Holiday
• Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen and Der Abschied (see also Mahler tag)
• Michel Legrand: You must believe in spring and The windmills of your mind
• Amy Winehouse: Back to black
• Purcell, When I am laid in earth
• Chet ballads, here and here
• Orchestral song-cycles: Wagner, Berg
• Beatles songs: impossible to choose, rejoice in them all!
• Same for The magic of the voice (1 and 2)
• A Swedish psalm
• Moon river, sung by Audrey Hepburn
• moving versions of Somewhere over the rainbow (Judy Garland, Nina Simone, Ariana Grande)
• Eternal source of light divine
• Naturträne by Nina Hagen!!!
• Rameau‘s Tristes apprêts
• Smile (Charlie Chaplin, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland)
• Two guttural vocalists
• Ravel, Shéhérazade (see also Ravel tag)
• Comment te dire adieu
• Aretha: Amazing Grace and I say a little prayer
• Buxtehude, Klaglied
• let me tell you sung by the amazing Barbara Hannigan (see also here)
• Voila sung by Barbara Pravi
• The great Enza Pagliara
• The kilam laments of Kurdish bards
• Karen Dalton with It hurts me too.

* Of course, varied as this selection is (à la McClary; see also here, and here), it isn’t so eclectic as to include Albanian funeral laments, Sardinian tenores, flamenco deep song,  Indian dhrupad, Inuit throat-singing, Umm Kulthum, Aboriginal dream songs… (see also Voices of the world). But I can’t resist including

• The ballad of the dictator, sung and played by Nicolae Neacșu (under Musical cultures of East Asia)
• and the plaintive free-tempo songs under Songs of Asia Minor.

And I can’t start adding songs without words, but we just have to include the divine Clara Rockmore’s Vocalise on theremin:

For two celebratory playlists, see Dancing in the streets!!! and A playlist for Emma and Leylah.

For a similarly diverse playlist of trumpeters, see here (indeed, trumpet has its own tag); and for some feminist lists, here (with bonus tracks including Sheridan’s Smith’s amazing cover of Anyone who had a heart) and here. My series on north Indian raga is introduced here.