The Austin 100: Anna Burch

By Stephen Thompson

Published March 1, 2018 at 6:00 AM EST

Hometown: Detroit, Michigan

Genre: Rock

Why We're Excited: Anna Burch has sung in a bunch of bands, but she's since come fully into her own as a solo artist whose compositions meet at the midpoint between buzzily triumphant rock and the melancholy but handclap-intensive shimmy of girl-group pop. In "Tea-Soaked Letter," she builds to a grand, harmony-rich recitation of four perfectly bittersweet words: "You're all I wanted."

SXSW Schedule:

March 13: Valhalla (710 Red River St.)

March 15: Cheer Up Charlie's (900 Red River St.)

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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.)

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