London, UK. Singer Rihanna performs her 777 secret gig tour at the HMV Forum in Kentish Town in London. 19th November 2012

landmarkmedia/Shutterstock

London, UK. Singer Rihanna performs her 777 secret gig tour at the HMV Forum in Kentish Town in London. 19th November 2012/landmarkmedia/Shutterstock

I can’t believe I’m going to say this out loud — but I am not a huge NFL fan. I can actually count the number of games I’ve watched on one hand. I don’t get the rules of the NFL and have no interest in learning them. When the family watches the Super Bowl, I generally sit on the bench. That being said, I never miss the halftime show. I love the spectacle, the drama, and seeing the best artists in the world perform.

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Music Features

Rainbow Kitten Surprise Will Shake You Out of Your Pretension

Let RKS remind you what live music is supposed to be.

Rainbow Kitten Surprise - It's Called: Freefall [Official Video]

One day you're listening to your usual assortment of experimental synth music and whale noises, maybe a little Kero Kero Bonito if it's sunny out.

In a good mood, you decide to branch out, and a song comes on your discover weekly that you don't recognize. You bob your head along to the beat, and wonder who the band is, thinking they must be deliciously obscure. You reach for your phone to save the track, and recoil at the glitter-sprinkled name: Rainbow Kitten Surprise. The name sounds distinctly like the name of your seven-year-old niece's Guitar Hero band, but you find that in reality it refers to a group of serious musicians from Boone, North Carolina who play an amalgamation of indie and folk rock. Even worse than their name, they have millions of plays. They're popular and kitschy and unacceptable for someone like you who only shops at organic co-ops in your vintage Doc Martens. You move on to the next song.

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Music Features

Half Waif, Ben Gibbard, and 5 Other Live Streams to Tune Into Now

Get your best headphones, crack open a cold one, and enjoy these livestream shows, straight from one artist's living room to yours.

Half Waif: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

Now that we're all stuck at home, musicians are turning to livestreams in order to share their art with the world. Here are some incredible livestreams to check out this week and next:

Friday, 3/27: Half Waif, the dreamy electro-pop outlet of Pinegrove's Nandi Rose Plunkett, is performing her ethereal new album "The Caretaker" this Friday at 7:30 PM. Tune in here. Plunkett also recently wrote a column for NPR about how she's staying sane during quarantine—which involves spending a lot of time on her couch.

Half Waif: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concertwww.youtube.com


4PM Daily:Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie has been doing daily livestreams, and he just released a song called "Life in Quarantine."

Benjamin Gibbard - Life in Quarantine (Official Audio)www.youtube.com


Saturday, 3/28: Bands including indie outlet WD-HAN will be gathering for a festival called Doomed Fest on Saturday, March 28th and Sunday, March 29th, starting at noon EST daily. Tickets are $10 and all proceeds go towards supporting performers.

Sunday 3/29: Elton John is bringing Billie Eilish, Mariah Carey, and Alicia Keys (all in the safety of their own homes) together for the iHeart Living Room Concert for America, airing 9PM Sunday.

Sunday 3/29: Jay-Z's streaming platform Tidal will be bringing a coterie of illustrious artists together this weekend for free livestreams, including Beyonce and Rihanna for their Sunday R&B sessions.

Rihanna - Diamonds (Acoustic Live)www.youtube.com


Wednesday 4/1 (and every Wednesday and Friday): Indie band San Fermin is doing IGTV livestreams every Wednesday and Friday at 3PM EST. They also just released the second installment of their dual album, The Cormorant, along with a new video for "Freedom (Yeah Yeah Yeah)." Tune in to the livestreams here.

Thursday, 4/2: The musician Mike Broussard is doing livestreams every Thursday at 1PM EST. Experience his rollicking, expansive ballads by tuning in here.

Marc Broussard-Solo Acoustic (Round 2)www.youtube.com


April 4th: Actor and musician Michelle Creber will be performing a livestream concert on April 4th. She also just released a new music video for "Storm" and dropped a moving, cinematic new single called "False Empire."

STORM (music video) - Michelle Creberwww.youtube.com


Have a livestream you want featured? Email eden@popdust.com.

MUSIC

At the Tiny Desk, Megan Thee Stallion Proves Hot Girl Summer Is a State of Mind

Megan Thee Stallion debuted a new song and performed with a live band for the first time on NPR's Tiny Desk.

Megan Thee StallionBeautycon Festival, Portrait Studio, Day 2, Los Angeles, USA - 11 Aug 2019

Photo by Sara Jaye Weiss/Shutterstock

Just like depression isn't always a seasonal thing, hot girl summer can last the whole year if you let it.

Even though it's been snowing on the East Coast, Megan Thee Stallion made it clear that hot girl summer is a state of mind when she lit up the Tiny Desk Concert in Washington D.C. this week as part of their extended live-stream series.

Stallion has had an incredible year, and it looks like she's only going to keep ascending. A year ago, she was taking classes at Texas Southern University and performing at local shows. Then her song "Hot Girl Summer" sparked an entire meme-based online movement, inspiring people everywhere to cast off their reservations and embrace love for themselves (and, of course, for others).

She started off her Tiny Desk performance by breaking the ice, saying, "I'm gonna get real comfortable with y'all, so I'm need y'all to get real comfortable with me." From there, she performed with a live band for the first time—Brooklyn's Phony Ppl, a multi-genre group that added new sonic scope to her songs. Her setlist included "Hot Girl Summer," of course, as well as "Cash S***" and a new song called "F**** Around." The latter track seems to be about the thrill of infidelity, though Stallion clarified, "We don't condone cheating… Sorry to my future boo."

Regardless of the song's implications, Stallion made it clear that just because it's winter, that's no excuse to hibernate or shut down. If anything, it's time to bring the energy of hot girl summer—whatever that means to you—into the holiday season and beyond.

MUSIC

Dear NPR Tiny Desk, Stop Having Repeat Performers

With all the love and respect in the world, NPR Tiny Desk, maybe consider using your massive platform to continue to uplift new artists as you have in the past, rather than inviting repeat performers.

I love the NPR Tiny Desk, and I love almost all the performers who have ever been featured on it.

I love the series' inclusivity and taste, and I appreciate the way the Tiny Desk Contest picks artists who deserve the major platform that the prize affords.

However, there's one thing that's been bothering me about the Tiny Desk. The show typically doesn't have repeat performers, but in the past few years, several bands have been invited on to perform more than once. Yesterday, Sharon Van Etten came on to perform three new songs, though she first performed in 2010. Wilco was invited to return in 2016. Julien Baker performed two shows, one in 2016 and then one in 2018, and then came back to perform with boygenius in 2019, alongside Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers—both of whom had also performed before.

boygenius: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concertwww.youtube.com

Even though I am a devoted fan of most these artists and think that boygenius is the future of rock music, the fact that these artists were invited to perform twice rubs me the wrong way, which makes me wonder how people who are not fans of these artists feel. All these repeats seem to contradict the intent of the show, which has always seemed to be about getting past layers of artifice and tapping into the true emotions at the core of a wide variety of music.

This annoyance isn't really directed at the Tiny Desk or the repeat performers, of course. One series certainly can't be held responsible for the corruption at the heart of the corporatized music industry or for breaking out of the media's elitist echo chambers.

Maybe the annoyance is rooted in the fact that so many artists dedicate their lives to music and yet never get the chance to be featured on a platform like the Tiny Desk. I have so many friends who have submitted wonderful videos to the Tiny Desk competition, and I've watched hundreds more submissions by artists who truly deserve recognition from NPR and other music outlets, yet receive little to none, especially if they don't have the cash or luck granted to others.

Maybe I'm annoyed because, in general, music is such an extraordinarily random crapshoot of a profession, and the truth is that most talented and hardworking musicians I know are sleeping on benches in the parks of New York.

As a music and culture writer, I'm also aware that I've absolutely fallen prey to the temptation to write repeatedly about artists and celebrities I know and love instead of prioritizing new and diverse voices. In that sense, I do understand Bob Boilen's desire to have his old favorites back in his office.

Maybe, Bob, both you and I can try to work on this. We can listen to Go Home by Julien Baker in private as many times as we want, while knowing that as music writers and content curators, we have the power to choose what stories and voices to elevate, and we have to constantly interrogate those choices and subconscious biases that may inform them. On the other hand, tokenization is never the answer, and nothing replaces having more diverse voices in positions of power in the first place.

Britney Spears

Photo by Pariente Jean-Philippe-Sipa-Shutterstock

Today, it was announced that Britney Spears would remain under the conservatorship of her father, Jamie.

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