
Stephen Thompson
Stephen Thompson is a writer, editor and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist on All Songs Considered. Since 2010, Thompson has been a fixture on the NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created and developed with NPR correspondent Linda Holmes. In 2008, he and Bob Boilen created the NPR Music video series Tiny Desk Concerts, in which musicians perform at Boilen's desk. (To be more specific, Thompson had the idea, which took seconds, while Boilen created the series, which took years. Thompson will insist upon equal billing until the day he dies.)
In 1993, Thompson founded The Onion's entertainment section, The A.V. Club, which he edited until December 2004. In the years since, he has provided music-themed commentaries for NPR programs such as Weekend Edition, All Things Considered and Morning Edition, on which he earned the distinction of becoming the first member of the NPR Music staff ever to sing on an NPR newsmagazine. (Later, the magic of AutoTune transformed him from a 12th-rate David Archuleta into a fourth-rate Cher.) Thompson's entertainment writing has also run in Paste magazine, The Washington Post and The London Guardian.
During his tenure at The Onion, Thompson edited the 2002 book The Tenacity Of The Cockroach: Conversations With Entertainment's Most Enduring Outsiders (Crown) and copy-edited six best-selling comedy books. While there, he also coached The Onion's softball team to a sizzling 21-42 record, and was once outscored 72-0 in a span of 10 innings. Later in life, Thompson redeemed himself by teaming up with the small gaggle of fleet-footed twentysomethings who won the 2008 NPR Relay Race, a triumph he documents in a hard-hitting essay for the book This Is NPR: The First Forty Years (Chronicle).
A 1994 graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Thompson now lives in Silver Spring, Md., with his girlfriend, his daughter, their three cats and a room full of vintage arcade machines. (He also has a large adult son who has headed off to college but still calls once in a while.) Thompson's hobbies include watching reality television without shame, eating Pringles until his hand has involuntarily twisted itself into a gnarled claw, using the size of his Twitter following to assess his self-worth, touting the immutable moral superiority of the Green Bay Packers (who returned the favor by making a 22-minute documentary about his life) and maintaining a fierce rivalry with all Midwestern states other than Wisconsin.
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Cher's 1998 hit "Believe" turns 20 this year. There's a long history of artists using vocal modifications, but this song brings the Auto-Tune front and center.
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The Ohio folk-rock band matches fatalistic, ruminative rambles to arrangements that sparkle and surprise.
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Camila Cabello won the night's two biggest prizes, while Nicki Minaj, Jennifer Lopez and Ariana Grande gave splashy performances.
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The artist disappeared Tuesday night, setting off a police search and a groundswell of support from fans and peers.
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Stream 100 great songs by artists who performed at SXSW 2018.
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A playlist featuring Kendrick Lamar, SZA and more, to close out 2017. NPR Music's Stephen Thompson shares a list of notable songs from the past year.
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Tom Petty wrote a lot of hits during his more than 40 years making music. Petty is one of the many notable people who died in 2017. As much as he was known for big classic rock anthems, he was also capable of just tremendous grace and beauty in his songwriting, as seen in the song "Wildflowers."
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On Wednesday, founder Kevin Lyman announced the tour is ending after 23 years. After helping launch bands like No Doubt, Sublime and countless others, next summer will be the last cross-country tour.
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A new EP featuring six of Prince's previously unreleased songs was scheduled for release Friday. But a lawsuit filed by the late artist's estate may prevent it from ever coming out.
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MTV turns 35 Monday, and is marking the occasion with a channel called MTV Classic, which will air MTV programming from the 1990s and 2000s.