Lars Gotrich
Lars Gotrich is the editor of Tiny Desk and Tiny Desk Radio, a nationally broadcast program based on the beloved live concert series. He's produced performances at the Desk by Paramore, GWAR, Amy Grant, Turnstile, and Goo Goo Dolls.
After years writing about music for zines and working in college radio, Gotrich started his career at NPR as an intern for the All Songs Considered podcast in 2006, where he's been a regular presence ever since. He's produced several different series for NPR Music, including First Listen, Song We Love, #NowPlaying and the Listening Party. While Gotrich covers all kinds of music, he is best known as the creator of roséwave, the pop-forward summer music series, and Viking's Choice, a curatorial free-for-all that emphasizes the loud and the weird. And, once upon a time, Gotrich hosted #WAXnEGGS, a live cooking show filmed in his home, featuring live sets by the likes of Waxahatchee and Speedy Ortiz.
When he's not behind the mic or editing stories, Gotrich has appeared as a talking head in the music documentaries Welcome to Deathfest, Parallel Love: The Story of a Band Called Luxury, and No More Punk Time. He's also penned liner notes for vinyl releases by Sixpence None the Richer, Mary Halvorson, and Roadside Monument, among others. He is the world's okay-ist guitarist.
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The band's new album, Scour Order, looks back on nearly two decades of making challenging metal and forges a new way forward.
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Napalm Death's ongoing campaign for musical destruction comes to the Desk. The founding fathers of grindcore speed through a sprawling catalog with manic energy.
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In power ballads and two-steppers, Vince Gill crafts intimate songs about how we treat each other. The Country Music Hall of Famer sandwiches '90s hits in between new material, and closes with "Go Rest High on That Mountain."
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The Welsh guitarist's fingerstyle playing drones with a haunted quality, but her flurry of bends, slides and chord clusters rip open the firmament.
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D'Angelo. Brian Wilson. Sly Stone. We lost these greats and so many more in 2025 — singers, producers, conductors and writers whose departures gave us a pang of loss, but whose art still lifts us up.
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Which song lyrics from 2025 most moved our NPR Music critics?
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So much of the holiday season is about finding a balance between bright lights and dark nights. Sixpence None the Richer's music finds depth in the in-between.
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If you're searching for music off the beaten path, here's the list for you. NPR Music's Tiny Desk editor and resident Viking scours the corners of the music world to find his favorite records of 2025.
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At the Tiny Desk, our small office crowd joins the thousands who have been inside of these power ballads and felt something real.