Stephen Thompson
Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)
In 1993, Thompson founded The Onion's entertainment section, The A.V. Club, which he edited until December 2004. In the years since, he has provided music-themed commentaries for NPR programs such as Weekend Edition, All Things Considered and Morning Edition, on which he earned the distinction of becoming the first member of the NPR Music staff ever to sing on an NPR newsmagazine. (Later, the magic of AutoTune transformed him from a 12th-rate David Archuleta into a fourth-rate Cher.) Thompson's entertainment writing has also run in Paste magazine, The Washington Post and The London Guardian.
During his tenure at The Onion, Thompson edited the 2002 book The Tenacity Of The Cockroach: Conversations With Entertainment's Most Enduring Outsiders (Crown) and copy-edited six best-selling comedy books. While there, he also coached The Onion's softball team to a sizzling 21-42 record, and was once outscored 72-0 in a span of 10 innings. Later in life, Thompson redeemed himself by teaming up with the small gaggle of fleet-footed twentysomethings who won the 2008 NPR Relay Race, a triumph he documents in a hard-hitting essay for the book This Is NPR: The First Forty Years (Chronicle).
A 1994 graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Thompson now lives in Silver Spring, Md., with his girlfriend, his daughter, their three cats and a room full of vintage arcade machines. (He also has a large adult son who has headed off to college but still calls once in a while.) Thompson's hobbies include watching reality television without shame, eating Pringles until his hand has involuntarily twisted itself into a gnarled claw, using the size of his Twitter following to assess his self-worth, touting the immutable moral superiority of the Green Bay Packers (who returned the favor by making a22-minute documentary about his life) and maintaining a fierce rivalry with all Midwestern states other than Wisconsin.
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The singer-songwriter assembled her band at a New Hampshire bookstore for a set of warm folk-pop songs.
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No one makes music better suited for moments of hard-won comfort than Joan Shelley.
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Across genre, styles and borders, these artists were all about connecting in a disconnected world.
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Alternate takes are often mere curiosities, but Karen Dalton's country-inflected version of "Something on Your Mind" feels genuinely revealing.
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Spiritualized's new song slowly blooms into full-blown Technicolor space-rock.
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The London-based band follows up a sprawling, pan-genre beast of an album from earlier this year by distilling its eclectic sound down to the essentials.
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John Mellencamp and Bruce Springsteen have discographies that go back to the '70s, but have never actually recorded in the studio together until now.
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Backed by members of Sylvan Esso, Mountain Man, Bon Iver and more, Flock of Dimes' Jenn Wasner performs three songs from her new album, Head of Roses.
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From an empty Shea Theater in Turners Falls, Mass., the trio plays songs from their new album, Sweep It Into Space, along with two towering classics.
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"Fat Chance" reveals a surprise partway through, emerging as an anthem about overcoming long odds, doing "a complete 180" and climbing out of the ruins, stronger than ever.