Search results for

Ann Powers picks her favorite chart-topping, radio-dominating songs of 2012.

At the end of a year in which pop songs were a constant, provocative part of the national conversation, NPR Music critic Ann Powers sifts through the 100 most popular songs of the year to highlight 10 pure pop pleasures worth remembering.

Dig below the strata of pop songs so ubiquitous you can't stand to hear them anymore, and you'll find plenty of riches in the Top 40, from country crossover to innovative R&B and classic pop.

A host of beloved authors have new books hitting shelves this week, including a memoir by humorist Barry, a Mark Twain bio by Chernow and essays by Richard Russo.

Toni Morrison's 1987 work Beloved is the best American novel of the past quarter-century. That's according to a vote of writers and critics who were invited to weigh in with their choices by The New York Times Book Review.

Apple's agreement with Dubset could ease legal posting of DJ sets that contain copyrighted material. SoundCloud is unveiling a paid service. It's hard to say for sure who is going to benefit.

Drugmakers have been criticized for cost-sharing assistance programs that encourage patients to use brand-name drugs instead of cheaper, generic alternatives. The federal government has frowned on the help, but there are expensive medicines for cancer and rheumatoid arthritis that don't have generic equivalents.

Robert Siegel talks to Laurie Orlov, founder of the market research firm Aging in Place Technology Watch, about the growing industry for seniors and tech.

For some insight into the fighter pilot culture, Linda talks with Captain Rosemary Mariner, a retired Navy Captain Aviator. She was trained to fly planes like the fighter that collided with the US reconnaissance plane. Mariner is now a Research Fellow for the University of Tennessee, Center for the Study for War and Society.

Police are still not saying what motivated the gunman who walked into a crowded Aurora, Colo., movie theater and opened fired. Suspect James Holmes, 24, was apprehended immediately after the attack. Until recently, he was a grad student studying neuroscience.