
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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"Murder on the Dancefloor," a 2001 hit song in the U.K., is just the latest old track to be introduced to a new generation of listeners after being used at a pivotal moment on screen.
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Each week, Pop Culture Happy Hour guests and hosts share what's bringing them joy. This week: 5-Second Films, an eye-opening Melrose Place article, the song "Ça plane pour moi" and rewatching 30 Rock.
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Each week, Pop Culture Happy Hour guests and hosts share what's bringing them joy. This week: new Doctor Who specials, Beedle the Bardcore's version of Usher's "Yeah!," and remembering Andre Braugher.
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We kept hearing that Artificial Intelligence is a threat to the creative arts. So we put ChatGPT to the test to see if it can, indeed, write a decent song.
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Each week, guests and hosts on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour share what's bringing them joy. This week: the song "Farrah Fawcett Hair" and the shows Blue Eye Samurai and Ghosts UK.
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Each week, guests and hosts on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour share what's bringing them joy. This week: the Goosebumps TV series, New Blue Sun from André 3000, and Matt Rogers' Christmas album.
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Themes emerge quickly when you dig into the nominations for the 66th Grammy Awards. The major categories are dominated by women and seemingly up for grabs; elsewhere, progress is not always so clear.
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NPR Music's Stephen Thompson breaks down the nominations for next year's Grammy Awards, out Friday. Some of the world's biggest pop stars got major nods, with SZA as the most-nominated artist.
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Each week, guests and hosts on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour share what's bringing them joy. This week: The Gilded Age podcast, food influencer Keith Lee, the show Bargain, and Madi Diaz's new album.
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The Beatles' final song could never live up to the body of work that precedes it. But it could never diminish it, either.