Top 10 BEST NPR Tiny Desk Concerts

 This French band might be known for their polished indie pop / rock recordings, but for the Tiny Desk series, they presented the audience with the sort of stripped down acoustic jams you’d expect your friend’s band to perform in an intimate house concert. Tracks like “Lisztomania” and “1901” are immediately recognizable, but the instrumentation makes the tracks feel totally new. The songs are as joyous as ever, but there’s a certain richness and warmth to these acoustic versions. There’s nothing performative about their set, it’s just a group of friends playing together - and that’s a rare, intimate musical moment to witness.

Chance starts this concert off by introducing not only the members of his backing band, but also himself too - as if we didn’t already know him. He’s clearly thrown by the space and the fact that it’s literally just an office, but it’s a humanizing moment. He’s now just a songwriter laying himself bare for a room of faces he can actually make out, without all the pretense of a full-sized concert. Unsurprisingly, given that he’s one of the most unique rappers of his generation, he delivers a heartfelt performance, going so far as to recite a poem he had just written that very day. Humble… and astounding.

With alt-J, the general rule is… expect the unexpected. For their second visit to the office, they asked for a trio of strings, including a cello, and the resulting performance was, quite frankly… astounding. Musical acts typically simplify their sound to play the Tiny Desk, and though alt-J did strip down their core instrumentation, the string arrangement resulted in an uncommonly full-sounding performance - with the sort of bass sound that one rarely hears at these concerts. Of course, it goes without saying, the songs they performed, both new and old, were a treat to see and hear performed.

If you’re ever feeling sad, just throw on a DRAM  track and you’ll find yourself grinning in a matter of seconds. The upbeat rapper and singer has an infectiously positive sound, and when he visited NPR, he filled the space up with his good vibes. Playing standout tracks like “Cash Machine,” “Cute” and, of course, “Broccoli,” DRAM  effortlessly reminded us why he’s become such a success. He writes music from the heart, is unafraid of blending styles and knows how to own the spotlight, be it onstage or behind a stage. In this setting, he’s mesmerizing.

This international sensation has the sort of voice you can’t ignore. She could command attention whether she was performing at the Royal Albert Hall, or busking on a street corner. All that is to say, when it comes to Adele, the expectations are always high, which makes it even more impressive that she still somehow managed to blow everyone away when she visited to give a Tiny Desk Concert. She’s charming, she’s personable, but most importantly, she reminds everyone beyond the shadow of a doubt that her vocals don’t need any help from a sound studio - she can drop jaws, even in the most mundane of settings.

They might not be a household name, but this Birmingham, Alabama soul band deserves every bit of press and exposure they’ve received, and so much more. Paul Janeway, the enigmatic vocalist and frontman owned that desk like it was an actual stage, and oozed with the sort of enthusiasm that transforms a space. For a lesser singer, gold shoes like that would’ve been distracting, but with vocals chops like his, those killer kicks are a side note. Janeway’s voice hits you right in the gut, and the Broken Bones, though understated in their performance, create a sound that speaks straight to the heart.

Just how many people can you fit behind that desk? At the time of this performance, in 2009, this was the largest group Bob Boilen had hosted, and in a true takeover of the space, they have their own little party - which we’re lucky enough to have been invited to. There’s no pretense - it’s just a group of musicians who seem to genuinely love one another and the adventure they’ve embarked upon. The lineup has since changed, but this video survives as an intimate portrait of the band’s early time together.

This genre-blurring artist made a big splash with his second LP, Malibu. Visiting NPR to support the album, and with the company of his band the Free Nationals, Paak proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the hype was well-deserved. Delivering his distinctly soulful, raspy vocals from behind the drumset for the entire set, he and his fellow musicians groove like they’re rehearsing in their own practice space, unselfconscious and undeniably feeling it. It’s low-key, intimate, personable, and just a downright pleasure to watch. It’s a performance that says this act is powerhouse, and they’re not going away anytime soon.

In this admittedly more elaborate Tiny Desk Concert, the Blue Man group literally took over the NPR space. In the teaser video, they were first shown hilariously pilfering whatever their blue hearts desired from the larger NPR office, before setting up to do what they do best - making odd music with custom instruments. With the help of two not-so blue musicians, they showed that they don’t need a whole stage or their complex PVC instruments to put on a great show. Even without the lights, the paint and elaborate stage, the Blue Man Group delivered pure magic.


Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.

 

The Internet


Lianne La Havas


Leon Bridges

 

We’ve seen a number of big names strip down their sound to suit the Tiny Desk space and overall mood. But some artists are simply too big, with live shows too elaborate for us to ever reasonably expect to see them in this particular space. T-Pain… is one of them. But that’s what made this performance so special. NPR truly brought us something we likely would’ve never witnessed otherwise. If you ever made the mistake of thinking that T-Pain is all auto-tune, this performance likely left you speechless. This isn’t T-Pain the entertainer putting on another spectacle, this is Faheem Rashad Najm, baring his soul, and it’s beautiful.