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 motion pictures (and infinite reboots) they’re based mostly 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 typically by a devoted and rising fanbase who love this live performance sequence.
Tiny Desk Radio, heard solely on public radio stations throughout the U.S., shares the live shows and tales concerning 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 should you 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 all 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 employees are sometimes submitting tales, taking conferences and enhancing podcasts simply inside earshot of the efficiency area. (I ought to know, my desk was instantly 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 known as them on their bluff. We actually did not know what we have been doing or what it will 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 instantly realized the true function 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 in some way maintained its raucous stay present, simply with out the good thing about 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 inventive 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 barely accessible to listen to on public radio stations. Examine the listings of your public radio station and hearken to the pattern on the high of this web page.
