2015: Looking Back On A Year At The Tiny Desk

By Stephen Thompson,

Published December 30, 2015 at 8:00 AM CST

In January, Mucca Pazza set a Tiny Desk record by fitting 23 members onstage.

In just a few weeks, NPR Music will publish its 500th concert recorded live at the famed Tiny Desk — in fact, in 2015 alone, we've put out a whopping 84 of them. Winnowing those 84 down to the 15 you see here wasn't easy, but we settled on an impressive array of highlights, from a 23-piece band to a lone guitarist to a massive, virtually indescribable dance party.

For a full run of Tiny Desk videos, from this year all the way back to the series' inception in 2008, click here. And if you've ever dreamed of playing at the Tiny Desk yourself, be sure to enter NPR Music's second-ever Tiny Desk Contest.

Subscribe to the Tiny Desk podcast.

Stephen Thompson

Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)

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Bob Boilen

In 1988, a determined Bob Boilen started showing up on NPR's doorstep every day, looking for a way to contribute his skills in music and broadcasting to the network. His persistence paid off, and within a few weeks he was hired, on a temporary basis, to work for All Things Considered. Less than a year later, Boilen was directing the show and continued to do so for the next 18 years.

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