All Songs Considered: Our favorite Tiny Desk Contest entries
NPR Music
NPR
4.3 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 31 March 2026
⏱️ 34 minutes
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Summary
Tiny Desk series producer Bobby Carter joins All Songs Considered host Robin Hilton. (They’re also the two lead judges for the Contest.)
Featured entries:
(00:00) Intro
(00:51) Pump Action: “Supernova”
(03:34) Lily Talmers: “The Big Idea”
(07:18) Walker Burroughs: “Open Skies”
(10:53) Les Greene & the Swayzees: "Long Story Short"
(14:08) Nicolosi: “Are You Coming To The Ivy?”
(17:20) Jackie Marchal: “Excavate The Girl”
(21:43) the King will come: “welcome”
(24:33) Yuri Shin: “Falling Rabbit”
(27:54) Lauren Frihauf: “One Thing Always Leads To Another”
(31:41) Meira: “Make Me Go”
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode of All Songs Considered comes to you from the NPR Music podcast. |
| 0:04.4 | NPR Music, of course, you're home for Tiny Desks and the Tiny Desk Contest. |
| 0:09.1 | I am here with Bobby Carter, the series producer and host for Tiny Desks. |
| 0:15.5 | I would like to think that I'm here with you, Rob. |
| 0:17.8 | I have wanted you on the show for so long, but this is a great excuse to have you on because |
| 0:21.7 | this is the Tiny Desk Contest season. |
| 0:24.2 | So every year around this time of year, we do the Tiny Desk Contest. |
| 0:29.5 | It's where people record an original song, shoot a video of it, they send it in for the |
| 0:35.9 | opportunity to maybe play behind the tiny desk itself. |
| 0:40.1 | The big stage. And every year around this time of year, we do a series called Top Shelf, |
| 0:45.5 | where we share some of the artists that we discovered along the way. And that's what we're |
| 0:49.2 | here to talk about. I'm going to let you kick it off. Let's get to it. Let's go to Nashville, Tennessee, another returning contestant. |
| 0:58.5 | This is their third entry, a band called Pump Action. |
| 1:02.1 | The song is called Supernova. |
| 1:03.4 | Music Frisk claim on a run without a name with a fire burning in the middle |
| 1:32.3 | Untamed with a pile of scattered ice at the bottom |
| 1:37.2 | Endgame is a marvelous with rain till it starts to shake the base a little |
| 1:44.3 | A damn shame |
| 1:46.6 | Keeping everybody warm is the problem |
| 1:49.1 | Closer to you |
| 1:54.1 | Close enough |
| 1:55.4 | Third degree the might is touch |
... |
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