© 2024 Interlochen
CLASSICAL IPR | 88.7 FM Interlochen | 94.7 FM Traverse City | 88.5 FM Mackinaw City IPR NEWS | 91.5 FM Traverse City | 90.1 FM Harbor Springs/Petoskey | 89.7 FM Manistee/Ludington
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

The 5 Best 'Before They Were Stars' Tiny Desk Concerts

"Music discovery" isn't just some catchy tagline we deploy in press releases. The staff of NPR Music lives for finding compelling, exhilarating, jaw-dropping talent from every genre and giving those artists the space to shine. And not to pat ourselves on the back or anything — *pat pat* — but out of the nearly 900 Tiny Desk concerts we've published, a bunch have created star-making moments for boldface names in popular music.

Check out this playlist of Tiny Desk alums who were invited to perform behind Bob Boilen's endearingly cluttered desk before their careers really took off. (They were always stars to us.)


Tiny Desks In This Playlist

• Brandi Carlile (read more)
• Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals (read more)
• Adele (read more)
• H.E.R. (read more)
• Mitski (read more)

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Sidney Madden is a reporter and editor for NPR Music. As someone who always gravitated towards the artforms of music, prose and dance to communicate, Madden entered the world of music journalism as a means to authentically marry her passions and platform marginalized voices who do the same.