I’m a big fan of the Tiny Desk concerts too. Yesterday I started with one on YouTube it just played through a whole batch of them. You can also go to their site. They had Adele on back in 2011. http://www.npr.org/event/music/133687905/adele-tiny-desk-concert
I rediscovered the joys of a tube amplifier and playing music through a turntable…and I have heard the arguments, but there is something magical about listening to music that way and seeing the glow of the tubes:)
My H still has his 35 year old turntable and we love to listen to vinyl! D2 has a newer turntable that H got her a couple of years ago. She collects both old and new vinyl.
I didn’t think the New York Times thing was supposed to be 25 “essential” songs, so much as 25 illustrative songs. I listened to a number of them that I hadn’t heard already, and was pretty underwhelmed.
I am a big Wilco fan (though not as big a fan as I was a decade ago). “One Sunday Morning” is not a song I would tell anyone they had to listen to. It’s not essential to Wilco or Jeff Tweedy, much less to popular music in general.
Raury–he’s like 19. I love this song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXGwDB3mWn0
And yeah, huge fan of Old 97s and Rhett Miller’s solo stuff, too.
Found a new song by Fil Bo Riva called “[Franzis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGKh-1wAmiA)”
Really, really good
One of the reasons I listen to Sirius XM 28 (The Spectrum) is that they play a mix of old and new stuff, so this is the place where I tend to hear new artists for the first time. Sometimes I hear a song from a newer artist, and it’s the last one I hear, and other times I hear a song, then have to wait for new songs to be played to see if the person really has what it takes. One group that’s getting a lot of airplay is Mondo Cozmo (Shine). Another artist that I wasn’t sure about was Nathaniel Rateliff - his first song was waaaay different (and I know a lot of people didn’t like it) than his next two bigger played songs, so I like that he can play a wide variety and doesn’t seem stuck like a lot of artist do. Also like what I’ve heard from Sturgill Simpson.
Occasionally I hear an oldie that I haven’t heard in a long time, and am reminded of how many remarkable songs are decades old, and I go through a period where I listen to them over and over again (put it on repeat) as if I’m hearing it for the first time. Right now that song is Rock and Roll Woman by Buffalo Springfield. What can you not love about that song?
Those who mentioned Hamilton… have you listened to any of the Mixtape? Some interesting arrangements there!
Two of my faves this year:
Finally saw Jason Isbell in concert, have been a fan since his Drive by Truckers Days. This video is guaranteed to move you: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtgPeNKpnyw
The Milk Carton Kids may just be the new Simon & Garfunkle. Here’s a great cover: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tlhFmPvAdes and an original: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HW_07a0zZlI
Another 2016 Hamilton soundtrack addict here.
Like many here I find new music from All Songs Considered and Tiny Desk. I’ve long been drawn to music that falls into what is very broadly defined as Americana…from the Grateful Dead, The Allman Bros years ago onto Wilco (and Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt), Dave Alvin, Drove By Truckers, Dave Alvin, Robert Earl Keen. My current younger faves are a New England band called Darlingside. You can hear them on NPR’s World Cafe “Best of Live Sessions” 2016 here:
http://www.npr.org/sections/world-cafe/2016/12/26/506611390/world-cafes-best-sessions-of-2016
@audiophile I like Milk Carton Kids. First saw them at Newport several years ago.
@Anxiousmom1 Tiny Desk is a great resource. (Drive-By Truckers FYI). I really love Darlingside and have seen them live a few times. The band members met while at Williams College.
Take a listen to Rubblebucket: Here’s one of their older songs that is a favorite. Very, very fun group to see live. They’re based out of Brooklyn and touring in the Northeast over the next month or so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t2-rJo5bdw
I’ve also been listening to Sofi Tukker lately, a NYC area duo. Good dance beats.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlF1KxtArCg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7g_SWE90O8
Rag N Bone Man has had huge success in Europe and the UK this year but little traction in the USA. Recently won the Brit’s Critics Choice Award.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3wKzyIN1yk
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/dec/08/ragnbone-man-wins-2017-brits-critics-choice-award
Never hear the Milk Carton Boys before. They are also very funny - listen to the Lincoln Center concert.
I agree that the Tiny Desk desk concerts are a great way to hear new(ish) things. Our local Americana station, doesn’t seem to play the kind of stuff they used to.
@doschicos I would love to see the MCKs in concert, will have to settle for the Lincoln Theater DVD for now. I think Rag N Bone Man’s “Human” is about to break big here. First heard the song on Sirius Spectrum a couple of weeks ago and then also heard the acoustic version on Sirius Coffee House a few days later. Incredibly catchy, almost becomes an earworm after listening to it a couple of times
BTW @mathmom the Milk Carton Kids were also on Tiny Desk: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fp0xjVzmKxY
And not new, but I did see Tedeschi Trucks in concert for the 4th time recently, they are a force of nature. Here’s their Tiny Desk Concert: http://www.npr.org/2016/03/24/471725403/tedeschi-trucks-band-tiny-desk-concert
@audiophile It is one of those songs that feels very familiar even upon hearing it the first time, if you know what I mean. 
Just catchy and comfortable sounding.
Rachel Platten. Loved hearing her on the New Years Eve special. She came on after the Mariah Carey debacle to sing in the New Year.
Another vote here for Darlingside. This summer, I finally succumbed to a sub-genre I had generally disliked for a number of years: Arty, atmospheric folk with close harmonies. Like Fleet Foxes, yccch. Which is what Darlingside is, except I like them. And also a band called River Whyless, whose recent record We All The Light I really enjoy.
(Bonus quiz: Before Darlingside, what other cult-popular band (now dormant) began at Williams College?)
There was new music this summer that was sort of from two bands I have loved for a long time. John K. Samson, longtime front/songwriter for a brilliant band called The Weakerthans that officially called it quits a couple years ago, released a solo album, called Winter Wheat, in collaboration with his wife and 3/4ths of what used to be The Weakerthans. It’s folky and quiet,mostly acoustic, unlike The Weakerthans (who could be quite noisy, if more intellectual than the norm for noisy bands – one of their good songs was called Our Retired Explorer Dines With Michel Foucault in Paris, 1961). But it has the same wry humor and generous storytelling about struggling people. And it has two songs that close out the narrative he began with The Weakerthans’ song A Plea From A Cat Named Virtute.
The other was a new album from Okkervil River, called Away. Okkervil River is a band I have absolutely adored for about a decade. A couple of their albums are among my very favorites ever – The Stage Names (and its fraternal twin, The Stand-Ins) and Silver Gymnasium. Their music was Americana-ish, but mostly personal narrative from the frontperson, Will Sheff. In between the last album and this one, Sheff fired the entire band and hired a new, very different one, and basically completely changed his musical style. (The first track is called Okkervil River RIP.) The new music is still autobiographical, but full of classical and jazz elements, and all about texture and color. There’s a gorgeous song about his dying grandfather, Comes Indiana Through The Smoke.
My wife can’t stand either of the foregoing records – too mournful and depressing. Which is true, but I enjoy them.
And, finally, two recommendations from one show I saw last summer: Adia Victoria is a young African-American woman from South Carolina, now living in Nashville, with a really powerful take on Southern Gothic blues rock. Her record is Beyond The Bloodhounds, and it is full of goosebump-producing wails. Margaret Glaspy is a former fiddle prodigy married to Terry Gross’ favorite jazz guitar prodigy, but she has ditched her fiddle and old-timey music for electric guitar and spiky singer-songwriter songs about twentysomething concerns, like how angry you get at your parents and other condescending oldsters for not remembering you’re an adult, and how bad you are at breaking up with people you should break up with. Her stuff has lots of pop hooks and fiddle riffs twisted into punk. Emotions and Math. The best song is You And I.
Oh, sure–Fountains of Wayne–that wonderful garden store with the fabulous kitschy Christmas display we took the kids to every year!..oh, wait, nevermind.
Love the group, too!