Coffee runs are among the most hum-drum, beautifully predictable parts of the day. Any hint of surprise or excitement comes only when the line is unexpectedly long, or they’ve run out of your favorite drink. Singer and current BUST covergirl Kehlani certainly expected nothing more as they waited in the Starbucks drive-thru—that is, until conservative influencer and self-described “free-speech radicalist” Christian Walker, armed with a phone camera, approached their car, howling into the rolled-down window. “You don’t need to tell baristas that I’m an asshole because...

   Before the Bikini Kill show in NYC on June 7, one question rang in my head — what does a Bikini Kill show look like in a post-Roe v. Wade world?   The answer? Not much different from what regularly would have gone down, save for some slightly bleaker between-song banter. The band appeared to be in good spirits as they played to an appreciative crowd, with a tight setlist sticking to classics like “DemiRep,” “Feels Blind,” and “Carnival.” When I first saw the band live in 2019,...

SHARON VAN ETTEN We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong(Jagjaguwar) Sharon Van Etten is one of the best songwriters working today, and she’s also a fierce proponent of the old-school album—no skipping around, just listening straight through in the order she intended. Nowhere is that more apparent than on her sixth record, which Van Etten meticulously tracked and released without any advance singles. It’s not exactly a concept album, but all 10 songs taken together present a gorgeous meditation on love, loss, motherhood, and the grief of surviving a...

Bad-ass Americana music sensation and activist, Margo Price, is, like many Americans, enraged and outraged by the recent SOCTUS decision to overturn Roe v Wade. Ms. Price and husband, Jeremy Ivy, have written a song, “Fight To Make It,” affirming the perseverance and solidarity for those whose human rights continue to be taken. This stellar track includes vocal contributions from singer-songwriter, Adia Victoria, and Gospel music legend Mavis Staples. Margo declares that “Every day I see more of our rights stripped away in America. The right...

SUN’S SIGNATURE  Self-titled (Partisan Records) The latest release from dream-pop and trip-hop legends Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins) and Damon Reece (Lupine Howl, Massive Attack) may have been years in the making, but it was worth the wait. Partners in both life and music, the duo meticulously crafted and collaborated on every intricate arrangement of this five-track EP. Some of the songs (“Golden Air,” “Make Lovely the Day”) materialized when Fraser did a rare live performance in 2012, while traces of others (“Underwater”) have been floating around since 2000. Pretty...

This month, Kate Bush broke into the US Top Ten for the first time in her career with the hit song “Running Up That Hill (Deal With God),” after it was centrally featured in season 4 of Netflix’s Stranger Things. This makes the 63-year-old Bush the oldest woman to ever appear on this chart, thereby usurping that title from Cher (who, in true Cher style, tweeted in loving support of Bush after seeing her record broken). Bravo Kate🙌🏼Records Are Meant 2 Be Broken‼️Remember Back In...

Queen B, you sly minx, you have done it again. After creating 2016’s Lemonade, an album that many consider a masterpiece and left many wondering, “where does music go from here?”   Since the release of Lemonade, Beyonce has come out with Homecoming: The Live Album to accompany her Netflix documentary of the same name and voiced Adult Nala in the remake 2019 retelling of The Lion King, which she compiled and was featured on the accompanying soundtrack of, The Lion King: The Gift. In 2018, Bey...

Tank and the Bangas say their third studio album is “coming straight for your heart and your neck.” Like the New Orleans-based group themselves, Red Balloon brazenly blossoms into a rambunctious, free-flowing celebration that dives soul first into a heady nu-funk groove. Conceptually tied to Green Balloon, their latest release was intended to be a companion piece to its pensive 2019 predecessor. Post touring hiatus, a joyously colorful jam fest ensued instead, and each track came together in real time. At one with otherness and living-in-the-moment-centric,...

Sometimes it takes life-altering events for an artist to reach the pinnacle of their creative identity. This is the heart of Angel Olsen's Big Time. While the singer/songwriter always had a layer of vulnerability in her work, she's exploring its depths like never before. Opener "All the Good Times" is an idyllic entry as Olsen coos with nostalgia, and she continues that emotion with "Dream Thing". Having lost her parents in tandem, she taps into that grief on "This Is How It Works", where her feelings are...

Although worshipping at the altar of Kate Bush is nothing new to us here at BUST, Bush gained a new fanbase this month after her song “Running Up The Hill (A Deal With God)” was featured at a pivotal moment in the new season of Stranger Things. Subsequently, the song has re-entered the public consciousness in a big way, spawning a viral TikTok trend and breaking into the Top 10 on the Official UK Singles Chart. Remarkably, this song's resurgence has put Kate in the #1...