IN HER AUTOBIOGRAPHY The Baddest Bitch in the Room (out September 8), music industry veteran Sophia Chang describes how she first developed the careers of the Wu-Tang Clan and A Tribe Called Quest, before developing her own body and mind through the practice of kung fu. Here, she lets us in on the music she used to get into the write frame of mind.    “I’d Do It All Again” by Corinne Bailey Rae This is the song I listened to non-stop after I lost both my father...

MORGANA Written and Directed by Isabel Peppard and Josie HessOut August 21 Morgana isn’t your typical porn documentary, but its subject isn’t your typical pornographer. After decades of married misery, Morgana Muses decided to hire an escort for one night of pleasure before committing suicide. But that night brought her back to life and kicked off a surprising mid-life anti-crisis. Inspired by porn director Petra Joy, Muses made a short, explicit film about her awakening, which blossomed into a groundbreaking career as an award-winning adult performer,...

The Berlin International Film Festival will no longer feature gendered acting awards, an August 24 press release stated. Instead of the traditional Best Actress and Best Actor awards, nominees at the 2021 festival can win the “Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance” or the “Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance.”  This announcement made by the festival’s directors, Mariette Rissenbeek and Carlo Chatrian, marks the first use of gender neutral awards at an international festival. The directors said, via press release, “We believe that not separating the...

THROWING MUSESSun Racket(Fire Records) Throwing Muses has returned with its 10th studio album, Sun Racket. Kristin Hersh’s vocals and songwriting have always been intense, and nearly 35 years after Throwing Muses’ debut, she and her band aren’t toning things down. From the opener, “Dark Blue,” the band tears into it with its signature melodic, distorted guitar squall. “Bo Diddley Bridge,” “St. Charles,” and “Frosting” rock with the same determination. Hersh’s introspective side is amply displayed on “Bywater,” “Sue’s,” and “Milk At McDonald’s” where she declares, “I don’t...

While in middle school, I found myself in the beam of a youth group chaperone’s flashlight while dancing “too close” to a boy in a Michigan church. “Leave room for Jesus!” the chaperone shouted at us through the crowd of fellow awkward 13-year-olds. The incident was illuminating in more ways than one: it got me thinking about how parts of me didn’t belong in the world of religious repression, but it was also just funny as hell. Which is how I would describe the experience of...

Britney Spears has been in the public eye since she broke onto the music scene in the ’90s. Since then, Spears has become a staple of popular culture. If you pay attention to what people say about the former "Princess of Pop," you might notice that a lot of people are calling for her freedom with the #FreeBritney movement. The #FreeBritney movement is a movement dedicated to getting Spears out of a conservatorship where she's not in control of her finances or her daily life. The...

Happy September! It’s shaping up to be a great month for pop culture, and we’re starting strong with the highly anticipated live-action Mulan, a feminist buddy comedy, and a new book by Sigrid Nunez. Read on for everything that’s on our radar this week.   MOVIES/TV Mulan   Originally scheduled for release back in March, Disney’s live-action Mulan is finally hitting (virtual) theaters. The film, starring Liu Yifei and directed by Niki Caro, is out September 4, and will be available to rent on Disney+. Unpregnant   When Veronica (Haley Lu Richardson) discovers she’s pregnant—and...

COREY FLOOD Hanging Garden(Fire Talk) The Philly indie-pop trio Corey Flood, led by Ivy Gray-Klein, tackles its fears with lo-fi ambivalence. The slightly askew “Heaven Or” takes on disassociation with the affirmation, “I know what I saw.” While the cacophonous “Slow Bleeder” uses Gray-Klein’s anemia as a metaphor for her fear of intimacy. (“Takes time/But I’ll be there.”) There’s a nervousness that permeates the band’s debut LP, which leads to new musical discoveries—the pulsing samba grooves; the fuzzy guitars on album closer “Poppies”—and emotional ones, too. As...

I was so entrenched in The Baby-Sitters Club series when I was a tween, nowadays I sometimes can’t tell if a clothing item in my memory is something I actually owned, or was simply seared into my brain by Ann M. Martin’s detailed descriptions of Claudia Kishi’s outfits. Just looking at the covers of the original books gives me FEELINGS, so when the Netflix reboot hit my laptop last month (from incredible former BUST contrib and showrunner Rachel Shukert!) I took a personal holiday and binged the season in...

Feminist electropunk artist JD Samson has been a favorite of ours here at BUST Magazine since she first appeared on our cover with her band Le Tigre in 2002. Since then, she has traveled the world both with that band and with her other band MEN, creating socially conscious anthems we can all dance to and proving to fans and skeptics alike that feminism can actually be fun. Her new band, Crickets—which she formed with her pals Michael O'Neill (MEN, Princess) and Roddy Bottum (Faith...