Stephen Holden (born July 18, 1941) is an American writer, poet, and music and film critic.
Biography
Holden earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the w ...
in 1963. He worked as a photo editor, staff writer, and eventually became an
A&R executive for
RCA Records
RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also ...
[ before turning to writing pop music reviews and related articles for '']Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...
'' magazine, '' Blender'', ''The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...
'', ''The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'', and ''Vanity Fair Vanity Fair may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Literature
* Vanity Fair, a location in '' The Pilgrim's Progress'' (1678), by John Bunyan
* ''Vanity Fair'' (novel), 1848, by William Makepeace Thackeray
* ''Vanity Fair'' (magazines), the ...
'', among other publications. He first achieved prominence with his 1970s ''Rolling Stone'' work, where he tended to cover singer-songwriter and traditional pop artists. He joined the staff of ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' in 1981, and subsequently became one of the newspaper's leading theatre and film critics.
Holden's experiences as a journalist and executive with RCA led him to write the satirical novel ''Triple Platinum'',[ which was published by Dell Books in 1980. He is the recipient of the 1986 Grammy Award for Best Album Notes for '' The Voice: The Columbia Years'', a Frank Sinatra anthology.]The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' and is included in the anthology ''The New Yorker Book of Poems''.
In the mid-1990s, Holden became a second-string film critic, moving into the role of first-string movie critic by year 2000.20/20
Visual acuity (VA) commonly refers to the clarity of vision, but technically rates an examinee's ability to recognize small details with precision. Visual acuity is dependent on optical and neural factors, i.e. (1) the sharpness of the retinal ...
'', and '' Entertainment Tonight'',National Public Radio
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
.
See also
* New Yorkers in journalism
References
External links
*
Recent and archived ''New York Times'' articles
1941 births
Living people
American music critics
American music journalists
American film critics
Grammy Award winners
Critics employed by The New York Times
American male poets
20th-century American poets
Yale University alumni
Place of birth missing (living people)
Rolling Stone people
The Village Voice people
The Atlantic (magazine) people
Vanity Fair (magazine) people
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers
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