ROSALÍA MOTOMAMI (Columbia Records) On her third album, MOTOMAMI, Rosalía leaves all inhibitions at the door. Her meteoric rise has brought her to a place of creative liberty as she experiments with different sounds and styles, from start to finish. Opener “Saoko” is immediate proof, as the sonic switches signal a new era for Rosalía. She brings the Weeknd into her world on the sultry “La Fama” (which usually happens in reverse when it comes to Abel); “Bulerías” is a stripped-down masterpiece, along with “Chicken Teriyaki” and the...

The Linda Lindas played a killer show to an adoring all ages audience last night at NYC’s Bowery Ballroom. Fans ranging in ages from 7 to 70 danced and grooved in sync through out the night. The four young women (ages 11-17) are very musically accomplished to say the least, and really give it their all on stage. The evening’s set featured songs from their debut album, Growing Up (Epitaph Records), like “Talking To Myself,” “Why,” “Oh,” and the ever favorite “Racist, Sexist Boy. They also delivered...

Will pro-choice songs make a splash in the music industry given the current political climate? This year, we’ve seen a significant rise in demonstrations linked to abortion in the U.S, with an increase of 51% since 2021, as presented by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. This research shows that pro-choice protests far outnumber pro-life demonstrations, with a ratio of 3 to 1. How do we keep the momentum going and get pumped for a revolution? With music, of course. Here is a compilation...

GIRLPOOL Forgiveness (Anti-) Girlpool’s maximalist fourth LP feels like a series of taxicab confessions in which Harmony Tividad and Avery Tucker aren’t afraid to say the quiet parts out loud. Both Tividad and Tucker bare their destructive kinks (hypnotizing opener “Nothing Gives Me Pleasure”) and dance with classic car-driving devils (the NIN-esque “Country Star”). But it’s not all hedonistic; with sweet strummer “See Me Now,” Tucker, who transitioned in 2018, unambiguously works through his relationship to masculinity. By mixing self-love with dreamy pop decadence, Girlpool debuts an ambitious...

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...