
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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Some big names in music have special album releases tied to today, Record Store Day. We highlight a few - and take a listen.
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Bon Iver's new album, SABLE, fABLE, explores a world of new possibilities for the artist, and in the accumulation of hardships and opportunities that got him to this fresh start.
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Check out our long list of albums that hit streaming Thursday night, including new records by Bon Iver, Valerie June, Ken Carson and much more.
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Crooner Pat Boone used to be a staple of the Billboard charts. Now, for the first time in nearly half a century, he's back.
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Ariana Grande's deluxe edition of her 2024 album, Eternal Sunshine, catapults it from No. 87 all the way back to No. 1. Elsewhere, Kendrick Lamar's "Luther (feat. SZA)" sits in the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for a seventh consecutive week, and Pat Boone makes his long-awaited move toward chart domination.
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Here's the list of new albums out today, including Djo, Jane Remover, Elton John and Brandi Carlile.
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Jack Black and Jason Momoa star in the first attempt to adapt the blockbuster video game for the big screen. And Pedro Pascal returns in a real-life inspired Bay Area anthology with a lot going on.
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Country music superstar Morgan Wallen is the first artist to have five Top 10 singles from an album that hasn't even been released yet. His highly anticipated album "I'm the Problem" drops in May.
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Playboi Carti's supersized blockbuster MUSIC holds at No. 1 in its second week of release. Elsewhere, Kendrick Lamar's "Luther (feat. SZA)" holds at No. 1and Morgan Wallen charts a fifth top 10 hit from an album that isn't even out yet.
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Lucy Dacus headlines a stacked week for new releases. NPR Music's Stephen Thompson welcomes Indie 102.3's Alisha Sweeney to share their favorites of the bunch.