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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In her Tiny Desk performance, the artist lives on her own artistic plane — inviting listeners to take their time to fully join her.
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Harvey talks with NPR Music's Ann Powers about her album I Inside the Old Year Dying, a ragged, highly crafted adaptation of her epic poem Orlam, and why she prefers to make art without boundaries. -
Four decades into his career, Lloyd Cole's On Pain finds this purveyor of guitar pop still exploring that hazy space where people question themselves and make excuses or promises they might not keep.
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The Portland singer-songwriter trades in twang for psychedelia on a plane-spotting song that captures a fluctuating melancholy.
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In her Tiny Desk, Tivel's empathy elevates her folk-based, jazz-touched compositions from mere stories to secular prayers.
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At the reinstatement of expelled Tennessee lawmaker Justin Jones, a small gathering of Nashville musicians opened up the People's Songbook for a musically imperfect yet unforgettable Bob Dylan cover.
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Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have been offering life lessons to their fervent fans for nearly four decades; here, they play a set of stone-cold classics, including "Closer to Fine."
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The gale force of a stirring afterlife echoes through the Irish experimental folk band's version of this traditional song.
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One of three new boygenius tracks, this Phoebe Bridgers-led song captures the feeling of being both carried forward and entrapped by love.
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DeMent contemplates her powerlessness in the face of her own mortality — she won't be around to see the changes today's climate activism might accomplish.
