Ann Powers

Early life and education

Powers was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. During elementary school, her first poem was published in the Our Lady of Fatima school newspaper.

Powers earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in creative writing from San Francisco State University, and a Master of Arts degree in American literature from the University of California, Berkeley. Powers studied literary theory. She also wrote about music, feminism, film, and religion.

Career

Powers' professional writing career began in 1980 while she was still in high school, when she started writing for the Seattle music weekly magazine The Rocket. After college, in 1986, Powers started writing about popular music and pop culture as a columnist at the San Francisco Weekly.

From 2001 until May 2005, Powers was senior curator at the Experience Music Project (EMP) in Seattle, which later became Museum of Pop Culture (MoPOP). Powers and her husband Eric Weisbard have helped organize the annual EMP Pop Conference (now MoPOP Conference) since its inception in 2002.

After a brief tenure as Blender magazine's senior critic, in March 2006, she accepted a position as chief pop critic at the Los Angeles Times, where she succeeded Robert Hilburn. Powers wrote regularly for Pop & Hiss, the Los Angeles Times' music blog, in addition to other features and news articles. She remained in this position until March 2011, when she departed for NPR, though she continued as a contributor for the Los Angeles Times afterward. Since 2011, Powers has been NPR Music's critic and correspondent. Powers has written for The Record, NPR's blog about finding, making, buying, sharing, and talking about music, since April 2011. In 2017, Powers spearheaded a multi-platform project at NPR called Turning the Tables. The project sought to reconstitute the canon of American popular music by publishing a list of the 150 greatest albums by women and a related series of essays, audio features, and events. Powers is also the Nashville correspondent for World Cafe, regularly recording sessions with local and regional Southern musicians.

Powers' work often critiques the perceptions of sex, racial, and social minorities in the music industry. She has written about topics such as religion, feminism, and film.

Books

Powers co-edited the 1995 anthology Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop, and Rap, and was the guest editor of the Da Capo Press Best Music Writing 2010.

In 2000, Powers published the memoir Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America. The book focuses on Powers' time living in Seattle, San Francisco, and Brooklyn. Joshua Klein of the A.V. Club described the project as "us[ing Powers'] personal experiences to define how youth culture (what she calls bohemianism) has changed over the years (though she lingers mostly on the '80s)."

In 2005, Powers co-wrote the book Piece by Piece with musician Tori Amos. The book discusses the role of women in the modern music industry and features information about composing, touring, performance, and the realities of the music business.

Powers wrote a proposal for a book on Kate Bush's album The Dreaming that was slated to be published in 2007 as part of the 33 1/3 series; however, the project was abandoned when Powers started her job at the Los Angeles Times, and the book was never written.

In August 2017, Powers published the book Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black & White, Body and Soul in American Music. The book reconsiders the history of American popular music through the lens of sexuality and eroticism. It was positively reviewed and was chosen as one of the best books of 2017 by The Wall Street Journal, NPR, No Depression, and BuzzFeed.

In 2024 she published a biography of singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, titled, Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell.

Other works

Powers has appeared in various TV shows and documentaries. She was in the film The Punk Singer as an interviewee discussing the influence of Kathleen Hanna on punk music. She also appeared in the documentaries The Gits and Undeniably Donnie in addition the Behind the Music Remastered episode on Heart.

Personal life

Powers is married to Eric Weisbard, a music critic and professor of American studies at the University of Alabama. They moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 2009, later moving to East Nashville, Tennessee, in 2015. They have a daughter.

Honors and awards

• 2008: Artist in Residence, The Popular Music Project at USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center
• 2010: ASCAP, Deems Taylor Award for "The Cultural Critic: Lady Gaga, It's Time for Idol to Open the Closet Door" and "My Night with Prince" for the Los Angeles Times

Works and publications

Books

Selected writing

• – Da Capo Best Music Writing 2007
• – Da Capo Best Music Writing 2009
• – on PJ Harvey's album Rid of Me

References

References

1. Powers, Ann. (6 January 2018). "I was born right before the Beatles invaded. 02/04/1964. Old and proud".
2. (19 October 2011). "Why I Write: Ann Powers Reflects on Writing About Rock". [[National Writing Project]].
3. Flanary, Patrick. (17 September 2011). "The Hype Machine".
4. Eskenazi, Stuart. (28 April 2002). "Cool with it". [[The Seattle Times]].
5. Cross, Charles R.. (30 August 2017). "NPR's Ann Powers talks new book, music, and her Seattle roots". [[The Seattle Times]].
6. (27 February 2001). "Interview: Ann Powers". [[PBS]].
7. (15 April 2015). "A lot of smart people will be at the EMP Pop conference this weekend. Will you be one?". [[The Stranger (newspaper).
8. Cross, Charles R.. (14 April 2017). "MoPOP's Pop Conference to explore music and politics". [[The Seattle Times]].
9. (26 April 2011). "Interview: Ann Powers - Chief Pop Music Critic, Los Angeles Times". [[Seattle Post-Intelligencer]].
10. (18 February 2011). "Critic Ann Powers leaves L.A. Times for NPR". LA Observed.
11. (19 February 2011). "Ann Powers ankles LA Times". [[Variety (magazine).
12. "Ann Powers - Critic and Correspondent, NPR Music".
13. Schlanger, Talia. (25 July 2017). "'Turning the Tables': Behind the List". [[NPR]].
14. Powers, Ann. (24 July 2017). "A new canon: In pop music, women belong at the center of the story". [[NPR]].
15. (24 July 2017). "The 150 Greatest Albums Made By Women". [[NPR]].
16. "Nashville Sessions". [[NPR]].
17. (19 September 2010). "Pop music critic Ann Powers searches for the language of rock and roll". [[Rock and Roll Hall of Fame]].
18. (1995). "Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Pop, and Rap". Plexus.
19. (2010). "Best Music Writing 2010". Da Capo Press.
20. (15 December 1999). "Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America by Ann Powers". [[Kirkus Reviews]].
21. (31 January 2000). "Weird Like Us: A Bohemian America by Ann Powers". [[Publishers Weekly]].
22. (10 March 2000). "Weird Like Us".
23. (29 March 2002). "Ann Powers: Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America". [[The A.V. Club]].
24. (2005). "Tori Amos: Piece by Piece. A Portrait of the Artist: Her Thoughts, Her Conversations". Broadway Books.
25. (1 February 2005). "Tori Amos: Piece by Piece by Tori Amos & Ann Powers". [[PopMatters]].
26. (31 January 2005). "Nonfiction Book Review: Tori Amos: Piece by Piece". [[Publishers Weekly]].
27. 333sound. (11 March 2006). "33 x 33 1/3".
28. (2010). "Kate Bush's the Dreaming (33 1/3)". Continuum Intl Pub Group.
29. Powers, Ann. (6 January 2018). "Hey everyone I never wrote that book. A proposal was accepted but I got busy at my new job (@latimes) and never even started. Could @erikaherzog cite this Tweet? Back me up @333books?".
30. (2017). "Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black & White, Body and Soul in American Music". Dey Street, William Morrow.
31. (7 December 2017). "The Best Fiction and Nonfiction of 2017". [[The Wall Street Journal]].
32. (11 August 2017). "The True Meaning of 'Tutti Frutti': Pop and rock are about more than sex. They're about bodily freedom and liberating joy. David Kirby reviews 'Good Booty' by Ann Powers". [[The Wall Street Journal]].
33. (5 December 2017). "NPR's Book Concierge: Our Guide To 2017's Great Reads". [[NPR]].
34. (29 November 2017). "A Few Good Books: The Best Books of 2017". [[No Depression (magazine).
35. (5 December 2017). "The Ultimate BuzzFeed Books Gift Guide". [[BuzzFeed]].
36. Powers, Ann. (2024-03-12). "Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell". Dey Street Books.
37. (2013). "The Punk Singer: A Film About Kathleen Hanna".
38. (10 October 2015). "Undeniably Donnie".
39. Wright, Rickey. (October 9, 2006). "Guilt and Pleasure". [[Seattle Weekly]].
40. (28 August 2014). "Local Q&A: Ann Powers, music critic". [[The Tuscaloosa News]].
41. "Super Powers: How a move to East Nashville invigorated NPR's lead music critic Ann Powers". The East Nashvillian.
42. (19 December 2010). "Sharing Rebecca: A Mother's Story of Her Daughter's Open Adoption". [[Parenting (magazine).
43. (10 March 2009). "YOU BETTER THINK: Why Feminist Cultural Criticism Still Matters in a "Post-Feminist," Peer-to-Peer World". USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center.
44. (13 December 2009). "Frank talk with Lady Gaga: The pop sensation's bold stances on feminism, sexuality, fame and so much more have helped elevate her music to its own art form". [[Los Angeles Times]].
45. (11 January 2009). "Where music meets religion: What an L.A. Times writer learned spending a night with Prince in 2009". [[Los Angeles Times]].
46. (8 November 2010). "42nd Annual ASCAP Deems Taylor Awards Announced". [[ASCAP]].
47. Prose, Francine. (2024-06-16). "What We Think About When We Think About Joni Mitchell". The New York Times.
48. O’Hagan, Sean. (2024-07-21). "Travelling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell by Ann Powers review – the myriad faces of a musical maverick". The Observer.
49. (2024-07-22). "The Circle Game".
50. (2024-05-31). "Joni Mitchell made music with the boys, but remained her own woman". Washington Post.
51. (2024-08-19). "How to Hug a Cactus Tree".