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 Americawas 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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With The Tortured Poets Department, the defining pop star of her era has made an album as messy and confrontational as any good girl's work can get. -
At its best, the influential online music pub — which Condé Nast announced last week will be folded into GQ — created a rare and precious space to slow down, pay attention and really listen. -
After Friday's Supreme Court decision, artists from around the world spent the following days sharing their reactions and plans for the immediate future. -
This song's story always must be told and heard again; we have not yet moved beyond the need for its witnessing. -
NPR's music correspondent answers questions about the changing nature of the music industry during the pandemic and talks about how some artists are trying to make ends meet.
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Spotify "data alchemist" Glenn McDonald has been regularly scanning the platform for new songs addressing the crisis, updating his master playlist along the way. -
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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Adele's new album 25 had record sales in its first week — selling more than 2.4 million copies. We get a check on more pop music news from 2015.
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The album You and I, due in March, is made up of songs recorded in Buckley's very first studio sessions after signing to Columbia Records, and displays the singer's wide range of influences.
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We all know what's most often excavated: Nirvana's roar, Biggie's cool murmur, the futuristic sigh of Aaliyah. But there's more to the decade than those obvious landmarks.
