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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"Hello Sunshine," the first single from Bruce Springsteen's upcoming album Western Stars, shares the same melancholy space as early '70s ballads by Jimmy Webb and Kris Kristofferson. -
Giddens links folk instruments and traditions of the African-American diaspora with those of Francesco Turrisi, a pianist and master of the frame drum. -
The track, recorded with Colombian singer Maluma, channels "Despacito," with a nod toward Madonna's 1986 song "La Isla Bonita."
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Hear the nihilist rock of PUP, R&B singer Khalid, the celestial, Enya-inspired pop of Weyes Blood and more on our list of the best new albums out on April 5. -
The sinister pop of Billie Eilish, lyrical rap from Quelle Chris and a long-shelved album from Marvin Gaye are just some of the albums on our short list of the week's best new releases. -
Townes started making music as a teenager and rose in Canada's flourishing country scene before moving to Nashville at 19. -
Her songs are poetic and political, steeped in both punk and cabaret, and sung in a voice that blends Eartha Kitt's cool with Nina Simone's fury. -
Women dominated NPR Music's list of the best albums of 2018. But the revolution behind the changes in music today is deeper, and more subtle, than the numbers reveal. -
The All Songs gang looks back at this year's anthems and unmissable milestones, from Kendrick Lamar's Pulitzer to Childish Gambino's mind-blowing video for "This Is America," Rosalía, Mitski and more. -
At a concert in Los Angeles this week in honor of her 75th birthday, Joni Mitchell listened carefully as a hand-picked group of peers and protégés entered into a dialogue with her inexhaustible voice.
