Bob Boilen is retiring — let’s all tip our fedoras

Plus, V from BTS plays Tiny Desk Korea, Mitski talks about her new album and more.

View this email online September 16, 2023 Support This Newsletter From Tiny Desk concerts to our deep dive into the history of hip-hop, NPR Music’s work is made possible by your donation. When you contribute, you amplify the sounds of our communities, the voices of our people, and the rhythm of our collective spirit. Please donate today. by Stephen Thompson, NPR Music This week, we pay tribute to a tenacious and inventive colleague; plus, V from BTS plays Tiny Desk Korea, Mitski talks about her new album and more. MegVogel/NPR Near my old desk in NPR Music’s offices in Washington, D.C., there’s a whiteboard with three words scrawled across the top in block letters: “STEPHEN’S ENEMIES LIST.” Many names have graced that list over the years: colleagues, pet peeves, seemingly innocuous natural phenomena (sunsets, mostly), that sort of thing. But one name has always resided at the very top: Bob Boilen. Since shortly after we began working together in 2006, I’ve maintained a fierce and almost entirely fictitious rivalry with Bob, who announced his retirement Wednesday. That rivalry really kicked off in earnest following an exchange with my other non-negotiable Enemies List enemy, Robin Hilton. Sometime in 2007, during a week when Bob happened to be on vacation, I worked up the courage to explain to Robin that, in my previous job at The Onion, I’d had a running joke with a colleague: Every time I passed his office, I’d make a gigantic show of giving him the finger. (The Onion in those days was nothing if not a bastion of stoic professionalism.) The reason I brought this up to Robin was to explain away, in advance, the absolute inevitability that I would one day slip up, forget where I worked, and flip the bird in Robin’s direction. Our cubicles were situated at such an angle that the sense memory from my Onion years was bound to kick in, and I wanted Robin to know that this was not personal, old habits die hard, and so on. Because Robin and I are both rascals, this led more or less instantly to a days-long arms race in which we gave each other the finger constantly. But a thought lingered in the back of my mind: Bob Boilen — earnest tour guide to the world of music, nattily behatted All Things Considered veteran and All Songs Considered host, giddy connoisseur of rainbows — was gonna hate this middle-finger thing. I was relieved to remember that I was about to head off on vacation myself, so the momentum of all that bird-flipping would have time to die down. A few days into my own vacation, while walking on the beach, I received a text message from Bob’s number. No words, no warning, just a photo of Bob himself, smiling conspiratorially, middle finger extended. From there, my performative enmity toward Bob seeped into many phases of my work. I sassed him in all-staff emails announcing upcoming Tiny Desk concerts. We ribbed each other mercilessly whenever we appeared on All Songs Considered together. I slipped digs against him into stuff I wrote for the NPR website — as I’ve also done in this newsletter — and we generally made it a long-running, ongoing joke that Bob and I are locked in eternal warfare. And, of course, we still text each other photos of our extended middle fingers, because… well, see above, re: stoic professionalism. Bob and I have, along the way, balanced that rivalry with literally thousands of genuinely magical moments together: festivals, live shows, hundreds of Tiny Desk concerts, and countless hours in studios as we played music for each other. And, of course, we got to have the conversation that sparked the creation of Tiny Desk concerts back in 2008, when I half-joked that we should skip a Laura Gibson set at a maddeningly noisy Austin venue and just ask her to perform at his desk instead. We’ve gotten to spend the last 15-plus years in misty-eyed disbelief at how that seemingly innocuous conversation sparked so much wonder, joy and discovery. If you’d told us at the time that our silly little back-and-forth would one day change the trajectory of T-Pain’s career, we’d never have been able to game out the Butterfly Effect of it all. But here we are. Tributes to Bob are pouring in across the world of music media, and I share their mix of appreciation for his NPR legacy and excitement about what he plans to do next. Because Bob makes a damn good bagel and lives not terribly far from my house, I personally hope that what he plans to do next is show up on my doorstep with a bag of piping-hot homemade bagels in hand. But in the meantime, I want to add two footnotes to Bob’s incredible 35-year legacy at NPR. One is a lesson he taught me as we were launching Tiny Desk concerts: An idea isn’t much good without the persistence to make it pay off. Robin Hilton used to say of Bob that “his bite is gentle, but he never lets go.” Many of my colleagues have fueled the enormous success of the Tiny Desk over the years — Robin thought up the series’ name (a tip of the hat to Bob’s former band), Frannie Kelley booked that fateful T-Pain appearance, Josh Rogosin is the best audio engineer in the known world, Bobby Carter has drastically expanded the series’ voice and reach, and countless other producers, editors, videographers, engineers, managers, interns and other staffers did hard work that helped us expand and improve — but it definitely wouldn’t have survived without Bob’s mix of enthusiasm and tenacity. I’ve tried my best to appropriate that mix in the years since, and I’m grateful to him for modeling it up close. The second footnote, and one that doesn’t get mentioned nearly as often, is that Bob’s work is woven into the DNA of NPR’s successful panel-discussion shows, including the NPR Politics Podcast and It’s Been a Minute. Both of those shows drew on the format and formula of Pop Culture Happy Hour, and PCHH was inspired in part by the alchemic chemistry of All Songs Considered’s late-’00s panel-discussion shows with Bob, Robin, myself and once-and-future multiformat superstar Carrie Brownstein. Bob has taught me — and many others -– so much about what NPR can do and try, how it can sound, and what goes into making it sing. Bob Boilen is a great guy and a true friend. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to reviewing applications for a new nemesis.   Newsletter continues after sponsor message More to read, watch and hear Mitski doesn’t give a lot of interviews these days, even when she’s got a brand-new album to promote. But she still talked to World Cafe about The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, its cinematic sound and the Oscar nomination she landed for her work in Everything Everywhere All At Once. Olivia Rodrigo is everywhere: Her new album GUTS came out last week, she performed on the VMAs this past Tuesday night and she just announced a 2024 world tour. On Pop Culture Happy Hour, I hosted a discussion of the new album with my pals Anamaria Sayre and Cyrena Touros. (Spoiler: We love it.) And, speaking of the VMAs, I popped up on Morning Edition to discuss this year’s telecast and the curious place MTV occupies in the music industry. Also speaking of the VMAs, this week saw Shakira pick up a Video Vanguard Award and perform a medley of some of her hits. To mark the occasion, Isabella Gomez Sarmiento wrote a marvelous tribute to the singer, whom she describes as a transformative trailblazer who “created a new multicultural pop stardom.” Speaking of transformative trailblazers, Allison Russell — a tremendous singer-songwriter with a new album called The Returner — spoke to Lara Downes about her work and the way it’s been informed by traumas and triumphs alike. The great and good Nate Chinen reviewed Sardinia, a new album on which jazz legend Chick Corea performs works of Mozart and Gershwin live. Recorded on the titular Italian island in 2018, the record is “another posthumous grace note from Corea,” who died in 2021. New Music Friday rounded up a fresh batch of new albums — in this case by Corinne Bailey Rae, Mitski, Ralphie Choo and Vagabon — and discussed their many highlights. (Glad to see The Beaches get a shout-out, too, because that record is a joy.) You should watch Mexican singer-songwriter Silvana Estrada perform her poetic, stripped-down songs live for WNXP’s Sonic Cathedral! (Don’t miss her 2021 Tiny Desk (home) concert, either.) Because We're Free to All Because we're freely accessible to everyone, your support ensures quality news and shows are available to you and people who can't afford to get past the paywalls imposed by for-profit companies. We depend on people like you taking a voluntary action: donating. Your donation sustains independent reporting and creates a more informed world.  It takes all of us. Help today.  Donate Now Tiny Desk Credit: Courtesy of Tiny Desk Korea Two weeks ago, this newsletter celebrated a new partnership called Tiny Desk Korea, which would showcase performances by Korean acts at a desk situated in Seoul. It also teased a set by none other than BTS’s V — a set that finally arrived late Thursday. As it turns out, and as you might have already guessed, V’s performance of songs from Layover has been of considerable interest to the BTS ARMY in the hours since it was published. Also this week: Indigo De Souza sings songs of despair and hope, while also taking a moment to share her burial plans. One More Thing The day Bob Boilen met Elmo. Listen to your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to hear live radio from WUFT 89.1 (edit station). Need a new playlist? Follow NPR Music on Spotify and Apple Music 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! You received this message because you're subscribed to NPR Music emails. 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