Author. Director. Producer. Editor. Critic.

Jessica Hopper is an author , director , producer , editor , and music critic based in Chicago. In a career spanning more than twenty years, Hopper has earned acclaim as a provocative, fearless music journalist. She has directed and produced music content for MTV, Spotify and This American Life, including Spotify’s 5-part documentary series ROCK THIS – U2 – Songs of Experience and MTV Remembers Prince. She is currently directing Women Who Rock with Network Entertainment, premiering in May 2022 with MGM EPIX and Sky internationally. She created a feature documentary on Lilith Fair with Sarah McLachlan, which is scheduled to commence principal in summer ‘22, and she is in development on a trio of biographical docs on female icons.

In 2021, Jessica co-founded Golden Teapot, a production company specializing in music and culture documentary work, with her sister, former Rookie publisher, Lauren Redding. She has written for GQ, Rolling Stone, The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Elle, and Bookforum. She’s a long time contributor to the Chicago Reader and she was also a columnist for The Village Voice, Chicago Tribune, and Punk Planet, as well as the music consultant for This American Life for eight years. Her first book, The Girls Guide To Rocking (Workman, 2009) was named a Notable Book for Young Readers by the American Library Association. She is the author of The First Collection of Criticism By A Living Female Rock Critic and the 2018 music memoir Night Moves. She was formerly the Editorial Director at MTV News, and Senior Editor at Pitchfork and Rookie. Her essays have appeared in Best Music Writing for 2004, 2005, 2007, 2010, and 2011. She is Series Editor of The American Music Series at the University of Texas Press. In 2019, Hopper served as host and executive producer for KCRW’s popular music history podcast, Lost Notes. Hopper’s forthcoming books, No God But Herself: How Women Changed Music in 1975 (2023) and a revised and expanded second edition of The First Collection (July 2021) are both due from MCD/Farrar Straus & Giroux.