The Best Tiny Desks

These are my emotional support concerts.

I, and nearly 10 million others (according to YouTube), love NPR’s Tiny Desk concerts.

They always serve as such a good counter-balance when I’m feeling overwhelmed with just how awful people and the world can be — a reminder of transcendence and beauty.

Through my work lately (I’m doing, among other thing, legal transcription and translation) I’ve been encountering a lot of pretty awful people, or at least people in what I hope are their absolute worst moments: our lowest, stupidist selves.

So when I need a pick-me-up, Tiny Desk is there. And this morning, I woke up wanting to share some of my favorites with you before going back down to shovel piles of dung around in the underworld for the cause of justice. Behold:

1. Stromae. This is a dude from Belgium, and he’s just so, so good.
   
   I mean, obviously I think everyone on this list is good. Anyway, he’s mesmerizing: a smooth, strong voice, almost freakishly tall and skinny, objectively beautiful, and weirdly wearing grandma clothes and school-girl braids with his bandmates equally oddly-dressed, not unlike penises? His very European sarcasm both charms me and puts me slightly on the defensive.
   

   

   I mean just look at this beautiful weirdo.

   2. The Wild Reeds. This is a trio of women who sing, like — is folk-metal a thing? Because it would be that.
   
   During one of the most difficult times of my life — my separation from my ex-husband — these ladies got me through and reminded me that you could be heartbroken and flawed, and still strong and awesome.
   

2. Coldplay. You know, I wasn’t even that big of a fan of Coldplay before. But some bands, you just don’t really appreciate until you see them perform live, and that was this for me.
   
   Actually, this was just the lead singer, Chris Martin, on his keyboard with a really great choir backing him up. The music is great, but I also love how none of the performers can stop smiling the whole time…color me 100% charmed.
   
   (Note in the middle of this; I have to force myself to stop playing the concerts after I copy the link and it is really hard.)
   

3. Regina Spektor. I love Regina Spektor so, so much. I’ve even written about her before. I’m a little embarrassed to say how much her voice and her music mean to me. Oof. Just beautiful. I would like to be her.
   

4. Edward Sharp and the Magnetic Zeroes. If a bunch of hippies descended from a Gypsy-like caravan in California and walked in to give a concert without having showered first, they would look like this crowd.
   
   Their songs sound how they look: relaxed, harmonious and folksy, perhaps just coming off of a psychedelic high. But what most mesmerizes me isn’t the bearded lead singer, but Jade Castrinos, a short woman in a beanie who closes her eyes and kind of flops around happily and totally un-self-consciously while she performs. Few things fascinate me as much as women who seem to feel absolutely no social pressure to conform to traditional ideals of femininity.
   

5. Lewis Capaldi. This is a more recent discovery, and I’ve been kind of obsessed since I first heard him…he’s made it onto several of my “for listening to in the car” playlists.
   
   His music is beautiful, and he’s got one of those full, soulful, and slightly gritty voices that just make me swoon. He’s also really, really funny even though every single song is about heartbreak. He’s Scottish and seems to have a doctorate in self-deprecating humor, no doubt fed in part by homely looks that do not match his voice in the least — his commentary between the songs alone is enough reason to watch this, but the songs themselves will make you cry if you’re feeling a certain way.
   

6. Lizzo. Lizzo is wildly talented and such a larger-than-life figure. Her music is good, but my knowledge of it is restricted to this little concert because the main draw for me is her performance: she is hilarious, charismatic, and her talent is just mesmerizing.
   
   The singing plus the banter in the middle is all the pickup you need on a bad day, I’d say.
   

7. Natalie Lafourcade. This singer hails from Coatepec, just a few kilometers down the road from Xalapa. Her career, at least by the time she was famous on a national stage here, started off poppy, but this concert is a little more “rootsy,” a word I just made up but know you get.
   
   She’s got a beautiful, smooth voice that’s just puro dulzor, plus she’s just adorable, sweet and smiley. I’m also amused and charmed by the fact that, despite having lived in Canada for quite a bit, her English isn’t super great, and she doesn’t seem too worried about it.
   

8. Dave Matthews. Dave Matthews Band is one of my first musical loves (also Jewel, but she doesn’t have a Tiny Desk…yet.), and it’s a love that has so far lasted a lifetime.
   
   This is just him without the usual band that includes plenty of wind instruments you wouldn’t expect for rock and pop, but it’s still lovely. He’s also funny and endearingly awkward, an example of transcendent and self-aware masculinity I wish there were more of in this world. “Here on Out” is my favorite song in this set, and I listen to a live version of “The Warehouse” when I’m looking for some beautiful morning art to remind me of how it feels to keep my grip on all my muck light.
   

9. Indigo Girls. The Indigo Girls are my other great lifelong love discovered as a teenager. And I saw today that they have a Tiny Desk concert!
   
   It’s not their best performance, and their voices are different, now singing from what Anne LeMott describes as “the wrinkly peaks of middle age.” But my, what a pair! Emily Saliers is the blonde one with the higher voice, the one that’s most changed, suddenly wavery…er. Amy Ray is the brown-haired one with the lower voice and ever-sexy gaze (God, I love butch women).
   
   Also, they’re just such a great representation of hopeful endurance, fighting the fight even when it’s easy to wallow in despair. They’ve been together nearly 40 years now (as a band, never a couple), and are still going strong!
   
   When my daughter complained the other day that there weren’t love songs for gay people, I practically leapt with glee and squealed. “ALL these love songs are for other women!” (and everyone, as most songs are, of course). I haven’t managed to drum up much enthusiasm in her yet, but I’ve got time.
   
   11: This isn’t a Tiny Desk concert, but I am a Paul Simon mega-fan and I recently discovered this tribute concert with all kinds of artists singing his songs for him (Dave Matthews Band does one!).
   
   My mom introduced us to Paul Simon when his album Graceland came out: she bought the tape, and it was our car soundtrack for years. He’s in his 80s now, and still making music — it seems like there are just some people in this world who are a bottomless pit of creativity, who could write a song a day even if they lived 100 more years.
   
   I’m probably giving him too much credit, but such is my adoration.

   
   This is my favorite song from it, by the way, sung by Rhiannon Giddens (it starts at about 2:35, as Paul does quite a bit of talking beforehand. He’s older and knows he has a limited time to get in everything he wants to say, so we happily let him.)
   
   
   There are more, of course! And if you’ve made it this far, you deserve a reward. Perhaps a nice Tiny Desk concert.