Artists from all across the genre spectrum shine in the stripped down and focused setting of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series, but roots musicians often stand out from the rest. Even a big-voiced, high concept, maximally-produced country artist like Brittney Spencer is seemingly at her best in this simplified context, where her impeccable, controlled, and artful voice can deliver songs from her 2024 debut release, My Stupid Life, as if they were always intended to be played by only a handful of musicians behind a desk in a corporate headquarters.
Spencer and her ensemble utilize space and restraint to center her acrobatic and athletic vocals, which are tender and powerful, passionate and nuanced. The group kicks off their six-song Tiny Desk set with “Bigger Than The Song,” a track that’s something of a mission statement for Spencer and the new album. The lyrics name check artists who have inspired and blazed a trail for the vocalist and songwriter, from Beyoncé – with whom Spencer collaborated on Cowboy Carter and “Blackbiird” – to Whitney Houston to Maren Morris, an adept and technical singer who’s not only a peer of Spencer, but a community member of hers, as well. The number points out how, even in Music City and on Music Row, the priorities of creators in country and beyond should always be bigger than just a profitable, “hit” song.
The concert continues with an easy, deliberate flow and with Spencer confidently inhabiting a vibe that feels most like a living room guitar pull or a back porch jam session. Her energy may be off the cuff, but this singer is intentional and in the driver’s seat. The group play through a handful more tracks from My Stupid Life, culminating with “I Got Time,” an apropos closer that longs to run away from the noise and the rat race to a kudzu-draped back road. Spencer is more than comfortable playing around in these classic and familiar country idioms and she uses her variable and virtuosic singing to sell each and every archetype and stereotype she references. But it’s remarkable that she does so as often with touches and styles from outside of “traditional country” as from within it. And that might just be the most traditionally country thing about Brittney Spencer.
Read more about Spencer, My Stupid Life, and her unique approach to utilizing her voice as an instrument in our recent Good Country feature, from BGS and GC contributor Jewly Hight. You can find that story here.
