This past Friday, Beyoncé surprised her audiences with the release of a new song “Black Parade," which she wrote on her Instagram, “celebrates you, your voice and your joy.” The song's celebratory energy is particularly fitting, as it was released on Juneteenth: the holiday observing June 19, 1865, when the enslaved in Texas were informed of their freedom, two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation. A Texan herself, Beyoncé’s song – which opens with the lines, “I’m goin’ back to the South” – is a proud reclamation...

Summer’s almost here and we could all use a sweet escape. And while your mileage might be limited, your imagination doesn’t have to be. Allow Hayley and The Crushers to transport you to their candy-laquered, neon world. On the heels of their third full-length album,Vintage Millennial, (January 2020, Electric Pop Records) the San Luis Obispo, CA-based surf punks are bringing a few more popsicle flavors to the picnic with their latest E.P. BUST is excited to premiere their video for upbeat summer anthem "Jacaranda," off their two-song EP of...

ALICE SMITHMystery (Repost Network)  Alice Smith has made a career of commanding genres—rock, soul, R&B, and beyond—while remaining authentically herself. She’s the rare performer who sounds best live, when the raw, emotive power of her voice is free to strike without studio tinkering. Luckily her new EP Mystery (a follow-up to her Grammy nominated 2006 debut, For Lovers, Dreamers & Me, and 2013’s She), captures the magic of her evocative sound. Smith enlivens ballads like “Mystery” and “The Meaning” with jolts of penetrating range, making electric contact with the soul of the listener....

If only Lana Del Rey could just promote her new music without having to drag other women musicians. Del Rey, who is known for her melancholic songs such as sleeper hit "Summertime Sadness," made her unfiltered thoughts about fame, feminism, and the music industry known in a Thursday Instagram post. "[I'm] fed up with female writers and alt singers saying that I glamorize abuse when in reality I'm just a glamorous person singing about the realities of what we are all now seeing are very...

For the first time in 20 years, I have time to reflect on some of the pictures I have made: for bands, for magazines, for myself. This quarantine is affecting everyone in both individual and collective ways. I feel lucky this is how it is affecting me. Certain images are bringing back my time as a photographer just starting out, and how the culture of New York then has become part of my DNA. As most of us were getting our first emails in the late '90s, the...

SABA LOU     Novum Ovum    (Khannibalism/Burger Records) The daughter of legendary garage rocker King Khan, Saba Lou’s rock roots are free flowing, retro, and raw. But make no mistake, the vibe is all her own. Poetic and a little punk, at once sultry and spunky, it’s garage-soul with beatnik snaps. Much like Lou’s 2017 debut, her second full-length album, Novum Ovum (“new egg” in Latin), is self effacing, yet fully in your face. Each of the 10 tracks celebrate womanhood from a vivid, unexpected angle...

HAYLEY AND THE CRUSHERSVintage Millennial(Eccentric Pop Records) This self-described trio of “poolside glitter trash” retro rockers may have made the most California album you’ve heard in a while. While the oldies-leaning glam pop initially seems simple, subtle complexities build and speak to a spectrum of influences: Shannon and the Clams blended with Lookout! Records, the Go-Go’s, and a dash of the Gun Club—the result being like wearing a favorite vintage ’60s statement dress mixed with some of your new ASOS order. With subjects that range from...

Leave it to SoCal punks Bad Cop/Bad Cop to tell us exactly what the world needs now. No, it's not simply “love sweet love,” but it is at least partly that. The band's new album The Ride (out June 19 on Fat Wreck Chords) trades the band's signature angry roar for a more sweet and sour mix of emotions, even delving into the territory of self-love (don't worry, they can still do it with a guttural snarl when they want to). BUST is thrilled to premiere the band's second single, “Pursuit...

LES AMAZONES D’AFRIQUEAmazones Power(Real World Records)      An innovative and acclaimed supergroup of Malian musicians and activists, Les Amazones d’Afrique assembled around a shared cause for gender equality and eradicating ancestral violence. Their second full-length album, Amazones Power, continues to champion their mission through deeply rhythmic and expressive songs, each sung by a different vocalist. Exploratory in nature, the album combines classic pan-African styles with current pop and electronic elements that break away from basic song structures and put focus on the melodies. There are also...

Peerless percussionist and righteous feminist rapper Madame Gandhi is bringing her music to the masses Madame Gandhi’s record release party for her EP Visions had all the trappings of a cool-as-shit happening—a sick Hollywood location, insanely stylish attendees, Instagrammable neon signs—except one: alcohol. Later, over dinner on the rooftop of a building in downtown Los Angeles where she’s based, Gandhi relays the reason for her rule that band members aren’t to drink before or during a performance. “I want to give the audience the gift of...