Sidebar: Tiny Desk Joy: My Favorite Performances

From Adele to Juvenile: Tiny Desk Sets That Live Rent-Free in My Head

2025 scares me, I’m not gonna lie. To focus on the positive, I am hoping tiny desk continues to kill it. Is it the Unplugged of our time? I still think of Unplugged as the Unplugged of my time, but I will take this as a substitute that often brings me joy.

Before I return to regular links and recs, I wanted to offer some of my favorite tiny desk concerts for you to explore based on some key traits of great tiny desk performances.

Fun Pop

Sabrina Carpenter. Fun banter and great song selections. This is a no-skip album for me.

Billie Eilish. I am still not recovered from Obama selecting “Lunch” as one of his fave songs of the year. I hope his daughters were trolling him in assembling that list. The performance of “Birds of a Feather” here is chef’s kiss.