NPR Music

When the pianist Esbjorn Svensson died in a scuba accident in 2008, many fans of his group, the Swedish trio known as E.S.T., wondered if there might be some unreleased experiments lurking in a studio vault. There were. Just out is a disc called 301, which was recorded in 2008 during sessions for the group's final album.

When we started the Noise Pop Festival in 1993, we were, to the best of our knowledge, the first to use term "noise pop" to define a certain yin and yang of melody and dissonance. We've been thrilled that it's taken on a life and culture of its own, and we're proud to present this list of the genre's Top 100 songs, as chosen by the creators and team behind the festival and the Noise Pop Podcast.