Ann Powers appears in the following:
Lankum, 'Go Dig My Grave'
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
The gale force of a stirring afterlife echoes through the Irish experimental folk band's version of this traditional song.
Zach Bryan (feat. Maggie Rogers), 'Dawns'
Friday, January 27, 2023
Maggie Rogers' voice allows the duo to play with perspective and, in doing so, refreshes the template of Zach Bryan's laments.
Rickie Lee Jones, 'Just in Time'
Friday, January 20, 2023
Jones lets the sun shine in on this jazz standard, but maintains a pensive undertone.
boygenius, 'Emily I'm Sorry'
Thursday, January 19, 2023
One of three new boygenius tracks, this Phoebe Bridgers-led song captures the feeling of being both carried forward and entrapped by love.
Civil Rights Music For King's Time, And Ours
Monday, January 16, 2023
Ann Powers on music for racial justice.
Iris DeMent, 'Workin' on a World'
Thursday, January 12, 2023
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.
NPR Music 2022 Staff Picks: Ann Powers
Wednesday, December 21, 2022
NPR's pop critic shares her favorite albums of 2022.
Beyoncé's 'RENAISSANCE' is the No. 1 Album of 2022
Monday, December 12, 2022
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.
Ann Powers' Top 20 Albums Of 2022
Tuesday, December 06, 2022
NPR's pop critic and correspondent shares her favorite albums of this year.
Taylor Swift's 'Midnights' Breaks Billboard Records. But Is It Any Good?
Thursday, November 10, 2022
We discuss Taylor Swift's new album Midnights
Terre & Maggie Roche, 'Moonruns'
Thursday, November 03, 2022
The Roches' blend of distinctly slanted harmonies, vaudevillian humor and poignancy can all be heard in this Seductive Reasoning outtake.
S.G. Goodman: Tiny Desk Concert
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
In Goodman's songs, music is a route to both survival and transcendence. Watch her perform three powerful tracks that confront grief and stump for understanding.
In the haze of 'Midnights,' Taylor Swift softens into an expanded sound
Friday, October 21, 2022
On Swift's 10th and most challenging album, she and producer Jack Antonoff push her voice in new directions, rethinking the sonic rhetoric of first-person storytelling and shaking off old habits.
Leyla McCalla: Tiny Desk Concert
Thursday, October 20, 2022
Drawing from her new album Breaking the Thermometer, Leyla McCalla and her band explore the weight of memory in songs deeply immersed in the rhythms, sounds and history of Haiti.
Love Songs of a Dirtbag
Friday, October 14, 2022
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.
Billy Strings & Terry Barber, 'Long Journey Home'
Tuesday, October 04, 2022
The bluegrass star and his dad are a match made tender by the familiar harmonies of two lifelong picking partners.
Allison Russell: Tiny Desk Concert
Wednesday, September 14, 2022
Russell and her talented band embody healing community; watch a performance of songs from her astounding, unclassifiable album Outside Child.
Celebrating Olivia Newton-John
Tuesday, August 09, 2022
We remember Olivia Newton-John with NPR's Ann Powers.
Revolutionary Fun: Why we can't stop talking about Beyoncé's 'Renaissance'
Monday, August 01, 2022
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.
Joni Mitchell sings, steals show with surprise Newport Folk Festival concert
Monday, July 25, 2022
The iconic singer-songwriter performed her first public full-length show anywhere since 2000, with a little help from Brandi Carlile.
