Stephen Thompson Stephen Thompson is a host, writer and reviewer for NPR Music and Pop Culture Happy Hour. He appears frequently on All Songs Considered and NPR newsmagazines.
Washington, DC - May 03, 2016: Stephen Thompson CREDIT: Matt Roth
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Stephen Thompson

Matt Roth/NPR
Washington, DC - May 03, 2016: Stephen Thompson CREDIT: Matt Roth
Matt Roth/NPR

Stephen Thompson

Writer/Editor, NPR Music and Host, Pop Culture Happy Hour

Stephen Thompson is a host, writer and reviewer for NPR Music, where he speaks into any microphone that will have him and appears as a frequent panelist and guest host on All Songs Considered. Thompson also co-hosts the daily NPR roundtable podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour, which he created with NPR's Linda Holmes in 2010. 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 — alongside duties as The Onion's copy editor — until December 2004. In the years since, he has provided music- and pop-culture-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, their three cats and a room full of vintage arcade machines. (He also has two adult children who've headed off to college but still call 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.

Story Archive

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Directors Daniel Kwan (left) and Daniel Scheinert pose with their best director trophies for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

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Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

Friday

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Monday

Michelle Yeoh is the first Asian woman to win the Oscar for lead actress. Emma McIntyre/Getty Images hide caption

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Emma McIntyre/Getty Images

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Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images

Thursday

We rank the nominees for the Academy Awards category: best original song

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Wednesday

Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio was nominated for an Oscar for animated feature film. Netflix hide caption

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Netflix

Monday

"Naatu Naatu" from the film RRR is up for best original song at the 95th Academy Awards. The tiger flying in the air toward Ram Charan (right), however, is not. DVV Entertainment & Variance Films hide caption

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DVV Entertainment & Variance Films

The 2023 Oscars' best original song nominees, cruelly ranked

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Ram Charan and N.T. Rama Rao Jr. in RRR. The film's song "Naatu Naatu" was nominated for an Oscar. DVV Entertainment & Variance Films hide caption

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DVV Entertainment & Variance Films

Monday

Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick. Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures hide caption

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Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures

Monday

Rihanna performs onstage during Super Bowl LVII. Gregory Shamus/Getty Images hide caption

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Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

We recap the 2023 Super Bowl

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Friday

Salma Hayek Pinault and Channing Tatum star in Magic Mike's Last Dance. Warner Bros. hide caption

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Warner Bros.

Thursday

Rita Moreno, Jane Fonda, Sally Field and Lily Tomlin star in 80 for Brady. Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures hide caption

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Scott Garfield/Paramount Pictures

Tuesday

Monday

Beyoncé accepts the award for best dance/electronic music album during the Grammys. Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy hide caption

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Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for The Recording Academy

Friday

Wednesday

Has the screenlife format of the new thriller 'Missing' gone stale by now?

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"The crowds chasing us in A Hard Day's Night were based on moments like this," McCartney writes. "Taken out of the back of our car on West Fifty-Eighth, crossing the Avenue of the Americas." Paul McCartney/1964: Eyes of the Storm hide caption

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Paul McCartney/1964: Eyes of the Storm