I don’t know if anyone has come across these before, but I found an NPR Tiny Desk Concert on YouTube this evening and they are great.
They are just three or four song acoustic sets played in NPR’s offices. There are loads by people I have heard of (Pixies, Billy Bragg, Wilco, Death Cab For Cutie, Natalie Merchant) and many I haven’t.
If I’ve done this properly, this post should include Lyle Lovett, which IMO is sublime.
http://www.npr.org/event/music/166752674/lyle-lovett-tiny-desk-concert
Is this better?
http://www.npr.org/event/music/166752674/lyle-lovett-tiny-desk-concert
Nope. But at least I’ve got two comments.
thanks for this. Love Lyle Lovett and love tiny desk concerts.
So many excellent performances
There are some good ones
– but some veer too much into hipster All Songs Considered territory…
The Wilco one is a good case in point – try the 360 view to see that the desk might be tiny but the room is large – jammed with NPR types.
Still good though
fascinating and sort of disappointing too. I had no idea that this was the configuration.
I think the 360 degree cameras give a rather distorted view of the concert area – it really is small!
The Tiny Desk concerts are a wonderful treasury. If they have a few eccentric hipster choices, they more than make up for it for the extraordinary range of musical styles they manage to cover.
Like DuCool favourites Stile Antico.
The spirit of the Venerable Peel is alive and well and living in the drawer of a desk at NPR.
That’s lovely. Thanks.
Stile Antico have been going for ten years.
If you like acapella early music, their catalogue is an absolute treasure trove.
Beautiful singing. Notice that they never use a conductor or leader.
Start with “Song of Songs” or “Media Vita” or “Music for Compline” … or …hell, they’re all great!
Would love to see ’em live…
They remind me very much of Harmonia Mundi labelmates Sequentia.
You note “jammed with NPR types.”
Being recorded at NPR, who else would be there?
If you like these (and I do too), you may also appreciate the similar ones that Paste does. The only way I’ve found to list them is to go to the Paste site (www.pastemagazine.com) and search for “Live at the Paste Studio”.
Cheers @johnw I’ll have a look.
My favourites include performances by Gogol Bordello, Edward Sharpe and Adele. All of whom thrived in the environment.
Carpool Karaoke is very good too, despite being hosted by James Corden, who I don’t normally like. The Rod Stewart one was wonderful, but I think Adele’s just edges it, particularly for her impressive Minaj-style rapping, which is skillz, innit.
(blimey, 88 million views!)
Carpool Karaoke came to my mind too when I was looking at the comments above and, @minibreakfast, we seem to share the same feelings about the host. They are fun, though. I liked the Rod Stewart and the Adele ones. I like Adele more for her chat than her singing.
The Stevie Wonder Carpool Karaoke is a fine one too.
Much as Carpool and and the Black Cab have their moments, they still seem a bit like a novelty twist. Which would be fine if they were an alternative to a plethora of decent live music shows. But they aren’t because, in the UK at least, we don’t appear to have any.
KEXP Radio from Seattle do some great youtube stuff.
I like the Lucinda Williams session from a year or so ago.
Also, as well as NPR and KEXP, KCRW in Santa Monica has some great sessions in their archive. I’ve discovered many bands listening to their sessions.
Amanda Palmer – this set made me smile.