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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Greg Tate's death left an immeasurable hole in the universe of cultural criticism. Vernon Reid, Matana Roberts, Jared Michael Nickerson and Christina Wheeler pay tribute to his music as Burnt Sugar. -
Wet Leg, the year's breakout indie rock band, just released a debut album full of loopy, addictive songs that are as fun to talk about as they are to listen to. -
The show, despite a delay caused by the pandemic and brief moments of seriousness, was mostly a highly professional, relentlessly energetic showcase for the pleasure of live music. Plus a few awards. -
In this four-song set, the country artist delivers her songs with clear-eyed passion.
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NPR Music's Ann Powers moderates the first-time meeting of far-flung soulmates. Hurray for the Riff Raff's new album was inspired, in part, by adrienne maree brown's book Emergent Strategy. -
We're all feeling too much. Mitski's music can help. On her sixth album, she embraces dramatic emotions — and even in the depths of inner dysregulation, her clarity is remarkable. -
From her state-of-the-art home studio, the beloved singer-songwriter plays selections from her 2021 album, Ocean to Ocean, as well as a fan favorite.
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The new documentary Get Back, cut from 50-year-old footage of Beatles recording sessions by director Peter Jackson, offers a chance to look at one moment when the myth of the "band guy" took shape. -
The star who commands a planetary position in the galaxy of pop chronicles divorce and soul-searching recovery on an album that thrillingly redefines her artistry by bringing her gently down to earth. -
From the opening of their first hit, "Bye Bye Love," the Everly Brothers spoke directly to the deepest longings and anxieties of the generation that would come to define the rock and soul era.
