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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.

Japan has long been a cratedigger's paradise, with an inexhaustible supply of esoteric treasures, but keen dealers now hawk their wares on eBay. Despite the dwindling amount of rare vinyl to be found in Japanese record stores, record collector Egon still manages to return home with some gems.

The song "Brandy" by Looking Glass was No. 1 in 1972. For singer-songwriter Todd Snider, the song is a reminder of happy times. He was 6 years old when he first heard the song, but it left a lasting impression.

Jazz being the esoteric art that it is, many of its major artists were similarly obsessed with other forms of divining — numerology, tarot readings, enneagrams and especially astrology. Here are five jazz songs that might inspire you to ask your fellow jazz fan, "What's your sign?"

If you love seeing live concerts, chances are you've gone to shows where the clinking beer bottles and incessant crowd chatter were louder than the music. After seeing the soft spoken Laura Gibson lose out to a noisy audience during a show in Austin, TX, All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen and Song of the Day editor Stephen Thompson came up with a novel solution: They invited Gibson to play at the NPR Music offices, specifically Bob Boilen's desk, launching what's now called the Tiny Desk Concert series.

"Strange Fruit" can feel like a period piece, more a memorial than a protest song. Rare are the performers who have invested it with new meaning, fraught as it is with the legacy of America's past.

Just about everyone has been affected by the financial crisis, directly or indirectly. Songwriter Elizabeth Ziman used it as creative inspiration. She wrote a song about the crisis on Wall Street for her band, Elizabeth and The Catapult. "Taller Children" is the title track on her new album.

At the record store, Tom Cole spent most of his time warding off scornful looks as he toted Mothers of Invention LPs around. One day, he decided he needed to learn about jazz. A clerk at Discount Records and Books in Washington, D.C., suggested these five records. No standards; just his absolute favorites.

Coldplay is one of the best-selling bands in the world. In spite of its success, the band has a nagging problem: charges that it plagiarized not one, but three other artists to write its recent hit, "Viva La Vida." Yusuf Islam, aka Cat Stevens, is the latest accuser.

Children will always dance at parties, but the music they choose is bound to evolve with the tastes of each new generation. Or is it? Pose a question to Mrs. Kushnir's third-grade class at Lafayette Elementary School in Washington, D.C. — "Which music makes you dance around?" — and you'll hear a laundry list of trends from the '50s onward.