{"id":21041,"date":"2025-07-24T17:32:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T17:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/21041\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T17:32:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T17:32:13","slug":"tiny-desk-concert-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/21041\/","title":{"rendered":"Tiny Desk Concert : NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"

Existential dread never sounded more joyful or uplifting than it does in the hands of PUP<\/a>. Across its catalog of albums, like the appropriately titled Morbid Stuff or The Dream is Over, the Canadian pop-punk group confronts world-weary discontent with deadpan humor, hard-earned wisdom and a lot of heart.<\/p>\n

For the group’s long-overdue Tiny Desk, PUP (an acronym for Pathetic Use of Potential) rips through five songs, opening with the restlessly hooky “Morbid Stuff,” followed by “Robot Writes a Love Song,” from 2022’s The Unraveling of PUPTheBand, and “Hallways,” a driving anthem about staying alive in the face of struggle, if only to take care of your dog.<\/p>\n

Outside of the songs, frontman Stefan Babcock doesn’t say a word during the set, but beams playfully through much of it, even after he sings, “I’ve been navigating my way through the mind-numbing reality of a godless existence,” from the 2019 track “Kids.” The band closes with the pop-leaning “Hunger for Death,” from PUP’s latest album, Who Will Look After the Dogs? Trying hard not to break character, Babcock leans in with, “F*** everyone in this office,” before adding, “especially me.”<\/p>\n

SET LIST<\/p>\n

“Morbid Stuff””Robot Writes a Love Song””Hallways””Kids””Hunger for Death” <\/p>\n

MUSICIANS<\/p>\n

Stefan Babcock: vocals, guitar, keysSteve Sladkowski: guitar, background vocalsNestor Chumak: bass, background vocalsZack Mykula: drums, background vocals <\/p>\n

TINY DESK TEAM<\/p>\n

Producer: Robin HiltonDirector\/Editor: Maia SternAudio Technical Director: Josh NewellHost\/Series Producer: Bobby CarterVideographers: Maia Stern, Joshua Bryant, Kara FrameAudio Engineer: Josephine NyounaiProduction Assistants: Ashley Pointer, Dhanika PinedaPhotographer: Grace RaverSeries Editor: Lars GotrichExecutive Producer: Suraya MohamedSeries Creators: Bob Boilen, Stephen Thompson, Robin HiltonVP, Visuals and Music: Keith Jenkins<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Existential dread never sounded more joyful or uplifting than it does in the hands of PUP. Across its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-21041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}