T-Ache (proper) solidified Tiny Desk’s mission: encourage artists to reimagine their music.
Susan Hale Thomas/NPR
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Susan Hale Thomas/NPR
T-Ache (proper) solidified Tiny Desk’s mission: encourage artists to reimagine their music.
Susan Hale Thomas/NPR
Origin tales are all the time advised a number of alternative ways. Simply ask anybody who reads comedian books or watches the superhero films (and infinite reboots) they’re primarily based on. It is all a matter of perspective. The historical past of Tiny Desk has been advised by way of YouTube breakdowns, newspaper profiles, on-line listicles and prolonged podcast conversations — generally with the NPR Music staffers who have been there in the beginning, however usually by a devoted and rising fanbase who love this live performance collection.
Tiny Desk Radio, heard solely on public radio stations throughout the U.S., shares the live shows and tales in regards to the artists whom we ask to make music like they by no means have earlier than. Within the very first episode, we inform our personal Tiny Desk origin story with a little bit of historical past and one thing of a “biggest hits” montage. And for those who click on the audio button on this web page, you will hear an unique, prolonged model of what we broadcast, that includes Tiny Desk clips of Chaka Khan, Chris Stapleton, Sesame Avenue, Natalia Lafourcade, Wilco, Yo-Yo Ma and one in every of Mac Miller’s closing performances.
Let’s get one factor straight: Tiny Desk takes place behind an actual desk, in an actual workplace, in broad daylight, in Washington, D.C. NPR Music workers are sometimes submitting tales, taking conferences and enhancing podcasts simply inside earshot of the efficiency area. (I ought to know, my desk was straight throughout from the Tiny Desk’s unique location downtown; now, the Tiny Desk occurs behind my head.) The idea was imagined by Bob Boilen and Stephen Thompson in 2008 after they have been irritated they could not hear a quiet singer-songwriter in a loud bar at a music pageant, joked to the artist that she ought to play a present in our workplace… after which she referred to as them on their bluff. We actually did not know what we have been doing or what it might be, however we filmed Laura Gibson performing behind Boilen’s desk, posted the video on-line after which simply saved going.
However after an inciting incident, a narrative ignites. When T-Ache’s live performance went viral in 2014 for sangin’ with out AutoTune, we all of a sudden realized the true goal of Tiny Desk — that our area encourages artists to reimagine their music. For somebody like Taylor Swift, that meant taking part in her songs the way in which she initially wrote them: on guitar or piano. Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso, the Argentine pop duo, embraced the audio limitations with particular Tiny Desk preparations. IDLES one way or the other maintained its raucous dwell present, simply with out the advantage of displays.
Greater than 1,200 artists have come to our nook of NPR headquarters to take the Tiny Desk problem, which has all the time been a artistic collaboration with NPR Music producers, audio technicians and videographers. Our intention and hope with Tiny Desk Radio is to take NPR listeners behind the scenes of these collaborations, the place the surprising is a given.
Tiny Desk Radio is just out there to listen to on public radio stations. Verify the listings of your public radio station and hearken to the pattern on the high of this web page.
