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.
-
Two debuts claim the top two spots on Billboard's main album's chart: Lil Baby and Bad Bunny.
-
Each week, guests and hosts on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour share what's bringing them joy. This week: Demi Moore's Golden Globes win, Funny Story by Emily Henry, the film Hard Truths, and more.
-
Now that most Christmas songs and albums have been packed away into the proverbial attic, the pop landscape of the new year is coming into focus.
-
Each week, guests and hosts on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour share what's bringing them joy. This week: A documentary about yacht rock, Colouring's new album, the game Pentiment and an action movie about TSA.
-
No album in the history of the Billboard album chart has ever had a longer gap between stints at No. 1. Elsewhere, Christmas music dominates for one last week.
-
Even though Taylor Swift released her album "The Tortured Poets Department" back in April, she found a way to bring it back to the top of the charts in December.
-
Alfa Anderson sang on some of Chic's most memorable hits, including "Le Freak," "Good Times," and "My Forbidden Lover." She died on Dec. 17 at 78.
-
Holiday music rules the pop charts once again this week, as Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" scores its 17th nonconsecutive week at No. 1 — the third longest run of all time.
-
'Tis the season for a handful of familiar Christmas songs to monopolize the top spots on the Billboard pop chart. But a few newer songs are making a play to join the annual holiday jukebox.
-
This year marks 30 years since the release of Mariah Carey's hit, "All I Want for Christmas is You." But have any other pop singles been able to enter the holiday music canon since?