Olivia Rodrigo Tiny Desk Concert, Takes Over DMV
The Olivia Rodrigo Tiny Desk Concert is one of our favorites from the NPR performance series. The Department of Motor Vehicles is a dreaded place for many people. It’s often crowded, frustrating and slow. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In this episode, we go inside the Woodland Hills DMV where singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo has taken over for her Tiny Desk concert. Read on to find out details on the concert along with video of the full performance.
About Olivia Rodrigo
Olivia Rodrigo is your classic singer-songwriter. Her beautiful voice paired with her guitar play is sure to leave people’s mouths agape. She has been working on her music since she was just 11 years old, when she would grab a guitar and belt out songs that her father wrote.
The year 2021 has been huge for Rodrigo with the release of her studio debut album Sour. Released in May, the album reached number one of The Billboard charts and as 2021 is coming to an end has been featured on a variety of Year-End Best lists from several major publications. In addition Olivia was recently announced as Time’s Entertainer of the Year.
About NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Series
While this is not the first time Rodrigo has had the opportunity to perform on NPR, it is one of the most prestigious performances any musician can achieve.
Since its inception in 2008, NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series has hosted a wide range of performers – from popular mainstream artists like Chance the Rapper to Indie bands such as The National. The series has been praised for its intimate and unpretentious setting, which allows artists to perform without the distraction of a studio audience or elaborate stage production.
About the DMV
In case you have forgotten what the DMV is during Covid, here is a brief history 🙂 The Department of Motor Vehicles is a government agency in charge of regulating and administering driver licenses, vehicle registrations, and identification cards in the United States. It was created in 1966 and is headquartered in Sacramento, California.
The DMV is often seen as a place where people go to get their driver’s license. But it does much more than that. The DMV also issues identification cards, registers vehicles, and administers driving tests.
Olivia Rodrigo Tiny Desk Concert
The set list for the tiny desk concert included four tracks from Rodrigo’s 2021 studio debut album Sour. The track order is below:
“Good 4 U”
“Traitor”
“Drivers License” (would have been odd if she did not do this song)
“Deja Vu”
For the Olivia Rodrigo Tiny Desk Concert, Rodrigo experiments and changes some arrangements of the songs to keep with the Tiny Desk mentality. From the start of the show, with an acoustic version of the song “Good 4 U” it had me hooked and I wanted to see how she may change up the other Pop songs. The highlight is the set’s closing track, “Deja Vu”. It starts slowly and gradually ramps up until the full band joins in.
Olivia Rodrigo Tiny Desk Concert
Olivia Rodrigo’s Tiny Desk Concert at the Department of Motor Vehicles was a perfect way to take over the DMV for her NPR Tiny Desk Concert. With four songs from her studio debut album Sour, she proved that you don’t have to be just an Indie band or popular mainstream artist to play on NPR. Her acoustic version of “Good 4 U” had me hooked and I wanted to see how she may change up other Pop songs like “Drivers License”. The highlight is the set’s closing track, “Deja Vu”, which starts out slowly before building into full-band music with guitars, drums and tambourine.
Want more great pop music, check out our Adele 19 Album Review.
