Ann Powers

The singer and fiddler has mastered craft and structure in order to communicate the nuances of a richly responsive internal life.

NPR Music critic Ann Powers talks about her new favorite band at the moment, St. Paul and The Broken Bones. The eight-piece soul band is from Alabama and just released its second album, Sea Of Noise.

Sea Of Noise lifts this Alabama eight-piece from its spot as the nation's best young party band into headier and more exciting territory, where insights matter more than mere imitation.

"I'm trying to not be so revealing," Wainwright says of the song, an air that evokes both Kate Bush and lounge singers. "I've written a lot of songs that were so personal they got me into trouble."

Yoakam's new project shows this king of modern classic country making a spiritual return to his Eastern Kentucky birthplace for as he rethinks songs from throughout his career within a bluegrass mode.

EDM stars The Chainsmokers own the No. 1 and No. 8 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 right now, thanks in large part to the women singing their songs.

We got two writers, Ann Powers and Jason King, going back and forth on what they've found in the reclusive singer's third album.

The country singer claims her space among the divas with a tearjerking ballad, recorded live with her band at Nashville's historic RCA Studio A.

As listeners everywhere process it in real time, two NPR Music critics trade notes on Ocean's confounding new release.

On Wednesday night, during their first headlining tour in a decade, the Chicks showed off the many ways they've always been more than the usual Music City act.

Invoking the figure of the cosmic cowboy, the East Nashville singer-songwriter taps into dreamy pop psychedelia. In the video, Tasjan is a mournful angel in a disco-ball suit.

It's the immediacy of Waldon's storytelling, utterly unsentimental yet deeply heartfelt, that makes the young country singer a queen of the cool rejoinder and an all-around contender.

Jessy Wilson and Kallie North bring together gospelized soul and clapboard-church country in a stirring song that calls for action, respect and compassion.

Working with a band of unassumingly outstanding Nashville session players, McKenna finds a balance between literary subtlety and rock 'n' roll swagger.

The Nashville songwriter's smoke-stained voice conveys calm insight, his words capturing the creative process with no excess romanticism.

After stints in Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, Kathleen Hanna still finds new ways to rage and inspire. On her new album at the helm of The Julie Ruin, she transforms anger into a source of power and fun.

The man whose songs have been recorded by Luke Bryan, Little Big Town and more is now emerging as a crucial voice on his own.

The singer-songwriter turns a joke from the sitcom Modern Family into something profound with a slow-building ballad.

The band fully enters the present political moment with a mighty song inspired by civil rights activists' campaign to remove the Confederate flag from the South Carolina Statehouse.

Ann Powers and Jewly Hight, NPR Music's team in Nashville, dive deep into the country music industry's biggest annual party and report back on what's in store for the genre in the coming year.