Olivia Rodrigo’s Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

Plus, 2021's best classical, rap and R&B albums

View this email online by Marissa Lorusso NPR Just over a week into 2021, one of the year’s biggest breakout hits arrived: Olivia Rodrigo’s “drivers license.” It topped the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for eight weeks, broke streaming records on Spotify and even earned Rodrigo a Saturday Night Live sketch devoted to the song’s emotional power.  In May, Rodrigo released her debut album, SOUR; Tiny Desk creator Bob Boilen calls it “the first pop record in recent memory that I love.” (Two tracks from it also landed on our list of the best songs of the year.) “She sings about stuff we’ve all heard a zillion times if you’re over 25,” Bob says, “but she does it with expressions and twists of phrase that I adore. And the songs are all so memorable — not in an earworm way, just fabulous melodies.” So Bob invited Rodrigo to play a Tiny Desk (home) concert, and she picked a fitting location to perform “drivers license” and a few other tracks from SOUR: a local DMV in California. It’s an impressive and exciting performance, particularly since Rodrigo has mostly made her name in the era of social distancing. And if you’re looking for even more Tiny Desks, we also shared sets from Chicago MC Mick Jenkins and Pakistani musician Arooj Aftab this week. Newsletter continues after sponsor message Featuring Last week, we shared lists of the 50 best albums and 100 best songs of 2021. But we didn’t stop there: This week, we published lists of the year’s best classical, R&B and rap albums. The revered cultural critic Greg Tate died this week at the age of 64. Tate was an early and influential hip-hop writer, but also so much more: a “groundbreaking culture-shaper” who was also “a life-changing mentor, loyal friend, intuitive bandleader  a being who created a vast community by remaining open and giving all his life,” as our colleague Ann Powers puts it. We gathered some of his friends, colleagues, elders and protégés to recommend some of his most essential writing.  As the end of the 20th century approached, Radiohead took to the studio to capture the sound of a society fraying at the edges. Our friends at the podcast Throughline spoke to the band’s Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood about the dread at the heart of Kid A and Amnesiac. Electronic composer Jlin warps percussion and other-worldly sounds into a fascinating, challenging collage. Her new EP, Embryo, is the result of introspection and solitude. "I created this really to keep my sanity," she says. As college students in the late 1980s, Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan launched two projects: the band Chunk (now known as Superchunk) and the record label Merge. Decades later, Chunk is still going strong as Superchunk, and Merge has morphed into one of the most influential labels in indie music. The two founders spoke to How I Built This about their careers this week. Listen to your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to hear live radio from WUFT 89.1 (edit station). What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: nprmusic@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Books, Pop Culture, Health and more! Need a new playlist? Follow NPR Music on Spotify and Apple Music! You received this message because you're subscribed to NPR Music emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy