Ann Powers
Ann Powers is NPR Music's critic and correspondent. She writes for NPR's music news blog, The Record, and she can be heard on NPR's newsmagazines and music programs.
One of the nation's most notable music critics, Powers has been writing for The Record, NPR's blog about finding, making, buying, sharing and talking about music, since April 2011.
Powers served as chief pop music critic at the Los Angeles Times from 2006 until she joined NPR. Prior to the Los Angeles Times, she was senior critic at Blender and senior curator at Experience Music Project. From 1997 to 2001 Powers was a pop critic at The New York Times and before that worked as a senior editor at the Village Voice. Powers began her career working as an editor and columnist at San Francisco Weekly.
Her writing extends beyond blogs, magazines and newspapers. Powers co-wrote Tori Amos: Piece By Piece, with Amos, which was published in 2005. In 1999, Power's book Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America was published. She was the editor, with Evelyn McDonnell, of the 1995 book Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Rap, and Pop and the editor of Best Music Writing 2010.
After earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University, Powers went on to receive a Master of Arts degree in English from the University of California.
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A pair of concerts scheduled for Nov. 6 and 7 in Los Angeles will see a deep roster of famed artists performing songs from throughout Mitchell's deep catalog. -
The song appears on Piano & A Microphone 1983, an upcoming collection of cassette recordings Prince made at his home studio. -
While it's not wrong to observe decorum and sombre reflection in the wake of such a loss, there's no reason that honoring a life as monumental as Aretha's can't be joyful — and yes, entertaining. -
Aretha Franklin died of pancreatic cancer Thursday. Her hits, from the 1960s to the 1980s, helped define the era. NPR's Noel King talks to NPR music critic Ann Powers about the singer's legacy.
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At the behest of a 14-year-old fan who launched a Twitter campaign, the forever-game pop-punk faves have covered one of the Internet's favorite songs. The crossover is, somehow, pretty illuminating. -
The results are in for our reader poll, and your picks for the greatest albums made by women deeply modify and sometimes openly challenge our original Turning the Tables list. -
The night's winner, "Remember Me" from the film Coco, and Sufjan Stevens' "Mystery of Love" — two ballads — represented the best of what songs can communicate within film. -
Monae expands her Afro-cyber-heart technoverse with the announcement of an album and a film, co-starring Westworld's Tessa Thompson. -
A strained "Star-Spangled Banner," a decaf flat white of a halftime show and, of course, the advertisements: Super Bowl LII's musical moments were legion, if often little else. -
The title track from Joshua Hedley's forthcoming album Mr. Jukebox mines both country music history and his own experience playing for Nashville barflies.
