Billie Eilish Performs an NPR Tiny Desk Concert, with a Little Bit of Technology & Magic

Even COVID-19 can’t stop NPR’s series of Tiny Desk Con­certs, which has pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured Yo-Yo Ma, Adele, Wilco, The Pix­ies, and many, many oth­er tal­ent­ed musi­cians. As NPR explains below, the per­for­mance involved a lit­tle bit of tech­nol­o­gy and some mag­ic. Enjoy:

It did­n’t take long for Bil­lie Eil­ish to become one of the biggest pop stars in the world, sweep the Gram­my Awards’ major cat­e­gories and release the lat­est James Bond theme. And today, at just 18, she and her broth­er, Finneas, have accom­plished what no one has been able to do for five and a half months: per­form a Tiny Desk con­cert in what cer­tain­ly appears to be the NPR Music offices.

Of course, due to safe­ty con­cerns, even the NPR Music staff can’t set foot in the build­ing that hous­es Bob Boilen’s desk. But if you look over Eil­ish’s shoul­der, there’s no mis­tak­ing the signs that she’s appear­ing at the Tiny Desk in its present-day form: On the last day before staff began work­ing from home, I took home the Green Bay Pack­ers hel­met that sat on the top shelf — the one Har­ry Styles had signed a few weeks ear­li­er — for safe keep­ing. In this per­for­mance, that spot is emp­ty.

So how the heck did they do it?

Hon­est­ly, it’s best that you watch the whole video to expe­ri­ence the extent of the tech­ni­cal feat — which, in the spir­it of Eil­ish’s Sat­ur­day Night Live per­for­mance, they’re will­ing to share with you. And thank­ful­ly, we still have our ways of pho­tograph­ing the desk, even if the room has fall­en silent.

So set­tle in for a wel­come jolt of Tiny Desk inno­va­tion, not to men­tion two of the excel­lent stand­alone sin­gles Bil­lie Eil­ish has released in the past year: “my future” and “every­thing i want­ed.” And, seri­ous­ly, be sure to watch until the very end.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent

Yo-Yo Ma Per­forms the First Clas­si­cal Piece He Ever Learned: Take a 12-Minute Men­tal Health Break and Watch His Mov­ing “Tiny Desk” Con­cert

Peter Framp­ton Plays a Tiny Desk Con­cert for NPR, Fea­tur­ing Acoustic Ver­sions of His Clas­sic Songs

Watch 450 NPR Tiny Desk Con­certs: Inti­mate Per­for­mances from The Pix­ies, Adele, Wilco, Yo-Yo Ma & Many More


by | Permalink | Comments (0) |

Sup­port Open Cul­ture

We’re hop­ing to rely on our loy­al read­ers rather than errat­ic ads. To sup­port Open Cul­ture’s edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion. We accept Pay­Pal, Ven­mo (@openculture), Patre­on and Cryp­to! Please find all options here. We thank you!


Leave a Reply

Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.