Advertisement
Our Favorite Massachusetts Tiny Desk Entry
Here are the top 21 Tiny Desk Contest entries from Massachusetts
Call it the Alisa Amador Effect: after the Boston-area musician won the 2022 NPR Tiny Desk Contest, Massachusetts entries to the competition spiked. This year, nearly 230 Bay State artists competed for a coveted slot in the wildly popular NPR concert series, up from 150. Even if there’s no way to know for sure, it’s easy to conclude that local musicians saw a peer receive one of the nation’s most coveted musical accolades and thought, “Hey, that could be me.”
In the end, the honor went to Utah’s Little Moon. But the expanded pool of Massachusetts entries was a boon for our own panel of judges, who were tasked with choosing a local favorite to perform at WBUR’s CitySpace. We’ve been doing this for the past five years, and the process is always a delight. The video entries — all original songs, performed live — range from growly guitar rock to sensual R&B to bubbly electropop. We tapped four judges with deep connections to the local music scene to join me on the panel:
- Noah Schaffer is a Boston-based journalist who is a regular contributor to WBUR's Arts & Culture section. He co-produced and annotated critically acclaimed compilations of reggae and soul recorded in Boston and is the co-writer of gospel singer Spencer Taylor Jr.’s autobiography.
- HEESU is a South Korean artist, singer-songwriter and producer based in NYC. The Berklee College of Music grad was WBUR’s Favorite Massachusetts Tiny Desk Contest Entry in 2021.
- Isa Burke is a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist based in Portland, Maine. A graduate of Berklee College of Music, she co-founded the nationally lauded Americana trio Lula Wiles.
- Tim Hall is a Boston-based saxophonist and poet. Recently, he co-produced the City of Boston’s GLD FSTVL celebrating 50 years of hip-hop.
- Amelia Mason is a senior arts and culture reporter for WBUR. She launched the station's search for its favorite local entry to the Tiny Desk Contest in 2018.
Below are the panel’s top 21 entries. Next week, one of them will be announced as our favorite — so stay tuned!
Axel & Lo Lo, "You'd Like Me More"
Boston Typewriter Orchestra, "Left Blank"
Capella (feat. Shane Dylan), "You"
Cloudbelly, "November"
Esperanza, "Enloquecer"
Evan Greer, "'Hellraiser' for Anne Feeney"
Hayley Reardon (feat. Pau Figueres), "Honest"
Hereboy, "moonblue"
Jackson Powell, "Sleep"
Kina Zoré, "Covid 19"
Light Bird, "See Her"
Mark Lipman, "Daddy Issues"
Miranda Rae, "Ease"
Nadia Washington, "Fire"
Nate Haydel, "Santorini"
Otis Shanty, "Inch Away"
Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light, "Book of Judith/Judith's Campaign"
Rijah, "Up"
Seth Hanson, "Studying Armageddon"
The Official LP & The Pitts Campaign, "Juice"
Varsha, "Woman"
