Musicians, prepare your YouTube channels. The Tiny Desk Contest is back. This is its fifth year. And in that time, they've received tens of thousands of entries from across the country and from every genre you can imagine, all of them auditioning for a chance at fame, a bit of fortune and a show at the desk that belongs to NPR Music's Bob Boilen, who joins me in the studio now. Welcome back, Bob.
BOB BOILEN, BYLINE: Thank you.
CORNISH: All right. So a Tiny Desk Concert, for those of you who don't know, is when a musician comes to NPR's offices, and they play a show at your desk, and we put it up online. Now, what makes a good Tiny Desk Contest entry?
BOILEN: So we go through 6,000 or 7,000 videos, more maybe, and singularity is a thing, like, you see an artist and only that person can do that thing. That's when you know you have something special. So Gaelynn Lea was our winner in our second year of our contest.
GAELYNN LEA: (Singing) Our love's a complex vintage wine, all rotted leaves and lemon rind. I'd spit you out, but now you're mine.
BOILEN: When you listen to her voice and you listen to her violin playing, I've never heard anybody sing or play like that.
CORNISH: So it's not about where you perform. I've seen some of these videos, and sometimes people try and get gimmicky about doing the performance in a quirky place or doing something unusual.
BOILEN: Oh, (laughter) and I love those.
CORNISH: OK. You still like those.
BOILEN: But that's not the winner. We could well put a video of someone playing on a raft in an ocean playing a song. We might put it up online, but that doesn't make the winner, as does the quality of the video, or the quality of the sound doesn't matter. The talent shines through, and that's the most important thing.
CORNISH: So anything new this year?
BOILEN: Oh, the cool thing is that I'm really thrilled about is that we can open the contest to 18-year-olds. It used to be you had to be 21, so now 18, which makes me so happy because I go to shows all the time, meet really young people who say I want to enter, and this year, we're allowed to do that, so that's pretty cool.
CORNISH: Now, the winner gets a free trip to D.C. - right? - an appearance here at your desk where they will have their performance. What else do they get?
BOILEN: Their life changed (laughter) absolutely. You talk to every one of those winners, Fantastic Negrito, who won our first year, has won two Grammys.
FANTASTIC NEGRITO: (Singing) Good Lord, we travel and we travel trying to find it. We're just people, lonely people, you and I.
BOILEN: Tank and the Bangas are putting out an album on a major label this year - in fact, coming in May, just announced. It's a platform for these talents, and it completely rearranges their life. It's wonderful.
CORNISH: So you mentioned 18-year-olds can apply this year - right? - 18 and up. How do folks send their submissions?
BOILEN: First of all, you have to make a video of one song, an original song, behind a desk of your choosing. We're looking for artists that are unsigned, so the unknowns and the unsigns of the world. And they send their video to npr.org/tinydeskcontest. And you have till April 14 to figure out something great to send us. And, of course, most people will wait till April 14.
CORNISH: That's NPR Music's Bob Boilen. Bob, thanks for coming in.
BOILEN: My pleasure. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.