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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Her album-as-Sistine Chapel: awe-inspiring from a distance and glittering with detail, a star-filled imaginary sky and an origin myth that comes to life through its brilliant brush strokes.
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On Being Funny In A Foreign Language, the new album by his band The 1975, Matty Healy makes romantic music for cynical outsiders who insist they're ready to give love a try.
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Russell and her talented band embody healing community; watch a performance of songs from her astounding, unclassifiable album Outside Child.
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The era-defining star's seventh album sparks a conversation about the infinite possibilities of dance music, the difference between fun and pleasure and why disco is always political.
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The Brazilian singer Flora Purim helped create the sound of jazz fusion. Now, as she releases what she says will be her final album, it's time to give her artistic legacy its due.
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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.
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Alynda Segarra is one of the most adventurous spirits to ever come out of the Americana music scene. Segarra is better known as Hurray for the Riff Raff.
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Ronnie Spector, lead singer of the 1960s girl group The Ronettes, has died at 78 after a bout with cancer. She recorded a string of pop hits including "Walking In The Rain" and "Be My Baby."
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A new year means a lot of new music. But what's worth checking out? A sneak preview of what you should be listening to in 2022.
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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.
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NPR Music critic Ann Powers reviews a new docuseries called "The Beatles: Get Back". It centers around hours of unseen footage of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
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NPR turns 50 this year, and we're marking it by looking back on some other things that happened in 1971. It was that year that songwriter John Prine released his debut album. Prine died in 2020.