Solution to A Ton of Sounds

By Annelise Beck with significant help from Josiah Schwab

The puzzle is composed of 5 second clips from various songs. Each song title contains a word that represents a letter in the NATO phonetic alphabet (clued by the title - "A Ton" anagrams to "NATO"). The songs in the mp3 file are sorted alphabetically by artist.

Song artist Song title Letter First word of clip
Azure Ray November N carefree
Chicago Mississippi Delta City Blues D I've
Cyndi Lauper Echo E all
D. J. Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson M rough
Gary P. Nunn Corona con Lima L corona
Grateful Dead Cosmic Charlie C charlie
Guns'N'Roses November Rain N hard
Kamelot Edenecho E but
Kanye West Diamonds from Sierra Leone S forever
Kenny Chesney Hemingway's Whiskey W burns
Lanny Sherwin Lima Beans and Liver L try
Ledisi Bravo B a
Linda Rondstadt High Sierra S explain
Radiohead India Rubber I smile
Scar Symmetry Alpha and Omega A nothing
Stratovarius Alpha and Omega A god
The Byrds 2-4-2 Fox Trot (The Learjet Song) F lear jet
The Decemberists Yankee Bayonet Y wolves
The Mountain Goats Alpha Rats Nest A dream
Tom Lehrer The Masochism Tango T before
Trapt Echo E by

The flavortext "When you first hear a song, file it away" suggests that you should listen to the clip and order by what is first. Sorting alphabetically by the first word of the clip and then reading the single letters from the titles gives the phrase BETWEEN CLASS AND FAMILY. In taxonomy, the group between class and family is ORDER.