Hey everyone,

Hope you all had a great summer and are adjusting to the colder temperatures this week.

Today, I want to dive into the story behind Tiny Desk Concerts—a super popular concert series from NPR that's blown up on YouTube.

How did NPR, a public radio station in the U.S., manage to attract such a massive global audience? Let’s find out!

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📻️ The story behind Tiny Desk Concerts

How it started?

In 2008, Bob Boilen and Stephen Thompson, respectively the director of a NPR program called “All Things Considered” and NPR’s music editor, attended a concert of the folk artist Laura Gibson in Texas. Unfortunately for the artist, the bar in which she performed allowed drunk people inside, who didn’t care at all about her performance. The artist felt defeated after that show but the 2 NPR employees who attended the show wanted to give her the platform she deserved. They decided to invite her to play at NPR’s headquarters, in Washington, D.C.

They filmed the performance and uploaded it to NPR’s website, but at the time there wasn’t really the ambition to create a series of performance after this first experiment. However, a few weeks later an artist that Boilen & Thompson had under their radar came to play in D.C. and they decided to invite him to play in the headquarters once again. At that time they knew this was the start of something special.

Simple rules, precise curation

The Tiny Desk producers sort through incoming pitch emails and monitor social media to decide on their next guests as the main point of the series is to provide exposure to upcoming artists.

The artist isn’t paid to perform and they are not allowed to have any vocal monitors or auto-tune during their performance. Also, all musicians should fit behind the desk, which was Bob Boilen’s actual desk and not a recording studio. Artists and musicians need to be creative to make it work and offer a memorable performance.

Why did it become so popular?

Tiny Desk had their first viral moment when T-Pain, famous for his collaborations and for his use of auto-tune, performed in 2014. People were stunned to hear T-Pain without autotune but also to see the first rapper to appear in the Tiny Desk series. At that time, NPR didn’t showcase much rap, R&B or Latin music in their other programs and they started using the Tiny Desk platform to showcase artists from these genres.

While the series continued, it gained popularity on YouTube as the show perfectly fits to YouTubes algorithm, with videos of 15 to 25 minutes long and a very engaged community, which boosts the recommendations. There are three concerts per week and the format never changes, which really helps to identify the brand. Tiny Desks was also created at a time where there was barely any competition on the music video landscape but the team managed to stay relevant even during Covid times where they offered artists to do concerts from their homes, which they called the “Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts” where the artists filmed themselves.

The Tiny Desk effect

While the purpose is still to be a platform for smaller artists, NPR sometimes invites superstars such as Dua Lipa, BTS or popstars that had their hits in the 2000s with a recent performance from Justin Timberlake. Those superstars want to come to the show as it offers them a challenge to perform in these conditions and sometimes reach a new audience, especially for non-American artists. Many people in the industry keep an eye on the show, and clips from it often pop up on social media. Take Usher’s Tiny Desk performance, for example—it has 23 million views, which is way less than most of his music videos. But those views led to articles, memes, and gave him the boost he needed to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show last year.

For rising artists, performing at Tiny Desk can be a game-changer. It’s not just about exposure—it can significantly elevate their careers, build their confidence, and act as a powerful endorsement within the industry. The show creates a unique platform where they can really make a lasting impression.

Boilen now left NPR and there are a lot of expectations behind the show but as he puts it “We’re not making a difference in Taylor Swift’s life… but if we can turn people on to someone they’ve never heard, that’s always been – in my 35 years at NPR – that has totally been my goal.” (From AP News).

💿️ Favorite Tiny Desk Performances

Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals

This concert actually inspired me to learn the drums, even though I only did it for a few months 😬 Still, the energy was incredible. Anderson .Paak, surrounded by the amazing musicians of The Free Nationals, created such a powerful vibe in that performance.

Mac Miller

Published one month before Mac Miller’s death, this Tiny Desk concert is his last recorded performance. It has a special place for many Mac Miller fans and is also one of the most viewed NPR concerts.

If you want to discover more new music, I’ve also curated the playlist featuring my favourite tracks released in the past few months 😉 

I’ll end this inspiring story with some words from Boilen, the creator of this show “Sometimes it’s just straight inspiration that makes something great, and not a lot of planning.”

Have a great day and see you soon!