Ann Powers
Ann Powers is a music critic for NPR and a contributor at the Los Angeles Times, where she was previously chief pop critic. She has also written for other publications, such as The New York Times, Blender and The Village Voice. Powers is the author of Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America, a memoir; Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black & White, Body and Soul in American Music, on eroticism in American pop music; Piece by Piece, co-authored with Tori Amos; and Traveling on the Path of Joni Mitchell.
13 articles
List of articles in the library
Essay by Ann Powers, The Village Voice, 12 May 1992
UNICORN KEEPERS have an embarrassing job. The mere thought of those misty white creatures, phallic fantasies for wide-eyed girls, brings a chuckle to sophisticates' lips. ...
Alice in Chains: Misery loves company
Report and Interview by Ann Powers, Spin, March 1993
Part heavy-metal heroes, part doomsday demons, Seattle's Alice in Chains turned desolation into dollars with their second album, Dirt. Ann Powers finds that success isn't ...
Digable Planets: Rebirth Of Cool
Report and Interview by Ann Powers, Spin, May 1993
Packed with style and grace, Digable Planets' 'Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)' became the hottest rap single of the year. Ann Powers discovers that ...
Review by Ann Powers, Spin, October 1995
THE FOCUS of a daydream flutters, soft-sharp-soft: in your head, images wander, possibilities flow, and any particular fantasy soon gives way to the pleasure of ...
Afghan Whigs: Signifying Honky
Report and Interview by Ann Powers, Spin, April 1996
THE AFGHAN WHIGS' GREG DULLI DARES TO GET FUNKY ON YOUR ALT-ROCK ASS ...
En Vogue: EV3 (EastWest/Elektra)
Review by Ann Powers, Spin, August 1997
IT'S ONLY fitting that EV3, En Vogue's first album since 1992's slam-dunk smash Funky Divas, hits the racks the same week the Women's National Basketball ...
Essay by Ann Powers, Spin, November 1997
"Girls Rule" is more than just a cute T-shirt slogan; it's an increasing reality on the pop charts, playing fields, and TV and movie screens. ...
Review by Ann Powers, Spin, July 2000
SOMETIMES YOU HAVE to take the long way to find a direct route. ...
Interview by Ann Powers, Los Angeles Times, 11 January 2009
IT WAS 11 p.m. on the night before New Year's Eve, and I was doing something I hadn't expected would crown my 2008: sitting in ...
Lady Gaga: Frank talk with Lady Gaga
Interview by Ann Powers, Los Angeles Times, 13 December 2009
ALMOST IMMEDIATELY after she deposited herself in a corner booth at L'Espalier, the restaurant at Boston's Mandarin Oriental Hotel on the December afternoon after the ...
A New Canon: In Pop Music, Women Belong at the Center of the Story
Essay by Ann Powers, NPR, 24 July 2017
Turning the Tables: why make a list of the greatest albums made by women? To start a new conversation, and to rewrite history. ...
Kate Bush: How Kate Bush's The Dreaming Made My Monsters My Own
Retrospective by Ann Powers, NPR, 26 August 2021
Occasionally, a woman artist will make it her mission to speak as the monster others fear her to be, turning shame into strength. That's the ...
Book Excerpt by Ann Powers, 'Traveling' (Dey Street Books), June 2024
Excerpted from Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell © 2024 by Ann Powers. Reprinted by permission of Dey Street Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. ...
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