Music Videos Special Edition: NPR Tiny Desk Concerts

If you haven't yet experienced the joy that is the NPR Tiny Desk Concert, I need you to be about it. I'm going to select my personal favorites, but there's a playlist here. Basically, they get artists to come in and give a three-set concert in their office. It's magical. It's a perfect snippet of music with all the stage banter.

0. Adele

I wasn't going to include this one on this list because the Tiny Desk Concerts get all sorts of chart-toppers (John Legend's TDC, for example, can be found here), but Adele's so good in it, it'd be a shame to start with anything else.

1. Andra Day

In the description for the video, one of the NPR staff talks about how they broke their rule of always seeing a live performance before booking an artist for this one and tell me you, Andra Day does not disappoint. if you came for Adele, stay for Andra Day.

2. T-Pain

Take all your autotune jokes and shove them up your ass. This is magical.

3. Noah and the Whale

If all you've ever heard from Noah and the Whale is Five Year's Time, you are in for a treat, my friends. I bought their album based off of this concert and it was half the impulse-buy level that most of my digital purchases are. Additional shout out to what is apparently a related video, Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes: Tiny Desk Concert, where Home is on point.

4. Nickel Creek

I feel like Nickel Creek is the modern folk darling, and NPR has been very kind to Nickel Creek-related projects (The Punch Brothers TDC is here, the Watkins get their own TDC here, and I'd be completely remiss if I didn't even mention to the set that YO-YO MA and others did with Chris Thile, here) but the story told before Rest of My Life makes this video my choice for the shout-out.

5. Hey Marseilles

Hey Marseilles' album To Travels and Trunks is one of my go-to albums when I'm not sure how I'm feeling but I know I want to feel something. Playing a live set with this many instruments isn't easy to pull off and something as simple as tuning can take you away from the performance, but if nothing else, watch this one for how happy they look with the Hey Hey's right around the four-minute mark.

Some names you may have heard and may be interested in checking out their Tiny Desk Concerts:
Iron and Wine
Death Cab for Cutie
The Decemberists
Passion Pit
Shovels & Rope

And some names that may be unfamiliar but I enjoyed listening to:
Dessa (who I've seen live and are just phenomenal)
Phox (was recommended to me on facebook and I have not regretted it)
Ages and Ages
The No BS! Brass Band
The Prettiots
Young Fathers

BONUS: As a bonus for going through all that, here's Scott Avett singing Where Have All the Average People Gone? 

Not a Tiny Desk Concert, but something that NPR would be about regardless. Also, if you were looking for it, the Avett's Tiny Desk Concert can be found here.