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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Valerie Simpson burns it all down performing "Send Me To the 'Lectric Chair," a signature song of Bessie Smith, during the 2019 NPR Music Turning the Tables opening concert at Lincoln Center.
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Chills all around as Lizz Wright and Rhiannon Giddens invoke the spirit of Marian Anderson with "Deep River" and "Go Down Moses" at the 2019 NPR Music Turning the Tables concert at Lincoln Center.
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Rhiannon Giddens gets the spirit of fierce rock and roll independence as she sings "Up Above My Head," made famous by Tharpe, at the 2019 NPR Music Turning the Tables concert at Lincoln Center.
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Just try to keep up with Charenée Wade as she slays "Cotton Tail," which Ella Fitzgerald included in her 1957 Ellington songbook album, during the 2019 Turning the Tables concert at Lincoln Center.
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This year, Turning the Tables focused on music's "founding mothers." Watch the season-opening concert at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, featuring Rhiannon Giddens, Lizz Wright and more.
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The All Songs gang looks back at this year's anthems and unmissable milestones, from Kendrick Lamar's Pulitzer to Childish Gambino's mind-blowing video for "This Is America," Rosalía, Mitski and more.
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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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The singer-songwriter, asked by student organizers to perform during the "March For Our Lives" in Seattle, says of the moment that "this is a generation I am in complete support of."
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At the behest of a 14-year-old fan who launched a Twitter campaign, the forever-game pop-punk faves have covered one of the Internet's favorite songs. The crossover is, somehow, pretty illuminating.
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Fanny is one of music's lost legendary entities, often invoked but seldom playlisted. The band's first song in 44 years conveys the same effervescent spirit.