Ann Powers

Kathleen Hanna's voice shatters things — maybe glass, given the lung capacity behind her vibrating wail, but more importantly barriers and preconceptions. Her '90s band Bikini Kill helped revitalize both indie-rock and feminism; in that group and in Le Tigre, the beats-based trio that followed, Hanna created sounds ...

If Bob Dylan's long career as a genius of the American spirit has taught us anything, it's that one fan's trash is another one's treasure. "I never looked at songs as 'good' or 'bad,' only different kinds of good ones," he once said. Dylan's music, from the magpie folk ...

Listen at the audio link to Ann Powers' conversation with NPR's Rachel Martin about the pair of singles that jump-started the fall 2013 pop season.

How do you know autumn is on its way? Turning leaves? Previews of Oscar contenders at the movie theater? The announcement ...

It's already August 8, which means you've got maybe three or four weeks left to complain about preseason football, inadequately shield yourself from the scorching heat of the sun, and communicate with your kids about something other than why they haven't done their homework. So why not get cracking on ...

For those who haven't yet discovered Nora Jane Struthers, the summery song "Bike Ride" is a great introduction to her beguiling, well-considered worldview. The first time Struthers sings the song's most important line — "I can go anywhere" — the phrase rises up out of her throat, free, wide open. ...

Asked about the first time she ever performed a song, Valerie June once recalled a scene in her family's driveway in Jackson, Tenn. It was right after a storm — the kind of Southern downpour that drives even the most determined children inside. The pint-sized June sank to her ...

Party music isn't usually meant to change the world. It's for relaxing and getting a little bit wild; it inspires kissing and booty-shaking and high-fiving, not marches up the Washington Mall. The chart-topping good time guy Bruno Mars, whose dedication to fun comes second only to his respect ...

Last Thursday Mark Arm was on the top of the Space Needle; two days later, he was riding around in a golf car full of trash. Truth in criticism: I never actually saw the Mudhoney singer in the vehicle to which his name was affixed (the sign read: "MR. ARM") ...

The Civil Wars are a duo whose interchanges, onstage and on the 2010 debut album Barton Hollow, fascinated fans with their magnetic pull and expressiveness. Joy Williams and John Paul White, singer-songwriters whose own separate careers had stalled at different crossroads, came together by accident and quickly became

It's fitting that Pearl Jam announced an October 15 release date for its 10th studio album, Lightning Bolt, today — the same day that fellow Seattle rock 'n' roll lifers Mudhoney are playing on top of the Space Needle. (Happy birthday, Sub Pop!) That's ...

Three minutes and forty five seconds into the explicit version of the video for Robin Thicke's song "Blurred Lines," the camera lingers on the frowning face of 21-year-old model Emily Ratajkowski. Its gaze then slips down her nearly nude, supine form toward her backside, revealing a tiny STOP sign perched ...

Bobby "Blue" Bland was known as the Frank Sinatra of the blues. He smoothed out Southern soul with the elegance of jazz and big-band music, sparked it with elements of country and pop, and influenced musicians like Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles. The singer and guitarist is credited with modernizing ...

"Long live the idols — may they never be your rivals!" the rapper and producer J. Cole exclaims in a key line from his second album, Born Sinner, officially released this week. It's a salute with a slight undercut — an embrace of elders that also implies the need for ...

Sometimes, it can be difficult to notice a cultural sea change. At first, there's just a little, unexpected turn in the tide. But then, whoosh! The new current takes over, and old preconceptions are swept away. Country music seems to be in the middle of this process now.

Last May, ...

Last Friday, on Bob Dylan's birthday, I spent the morning checking out old interviews with the supreme trickster on YouTube. I came across this one, from the 1980s, in which an Australian journalist asks Dylan how he'd like to be remembered.

"Oh, as someone who tried ...

North America's newest pop star is exiting International Space Station Commander Chris Hadfield, whose truly space-age rendition of David Bowie's "Space Oddity" has racked up more than 11 million YouTube hits since being posted Sunday. After marveling at Hadfield's lovely Canadian tenor voice, his moustache and his command ...

"Give life back to music," coo the robots on the first track of Daft Punk's new album, Random Access Memories, which showed up yesterday on iTunes after a long period of near-hysterical anticipation and advance marketing. Does the veteran Parisian dance music duo succeed in doing ...

What defines good singing? Technique or feeling? That argument, a perennial among music lovers, roared back into the foreground last week after Harry Connick, Jr. appeared on American Idol. The fortysomething pianist and crooner found himself trending on Twitter for the first time since his acting run on ...

One of the many trailers promoting Baz Lurhmann's film version of The Great Gatsby ends with Leo DiCaprio uttering a crucial line adapted from the original novel. "My life has got to be like this," he says, pointing a finger toward the sky. "It's got to keep going ...

I hope that, somewhere in her beautiful Brentwood home, Natalie Maines has a jar full of nickels that gets fuller every time someone calls her "fearless." The Dixie Chicks singer is well-known as a firebrand who never hesitates to share her progressive views about both politics and pop music. ...