RECOMMENDS
OUR TOP POPCULTURE PICKS OF THE MONTH
MOVIE
1. ‘Scream’
For the fifth installment of the genre-bending franchise, Ghostface terrorizes a new generation of hot Woodsboro teens. Luckily, Neve Campbell, David Arquette, and Courteney Cox are also back to meta-explain horror-movie survival.
DOCUMENTARY
2. ’Carole King & James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name’
The pair reflect on their decades-spanning friendship, while weaving in footage from their 1970 Troubadour show and their 2010 reunion tour.
TOUR
3. The War on Drugs
The transporting indie rockers added Eightiesarena heft on their new album, I Don’t Live Here Anymore — and if their recent livestream is any indication, their return to the road should be a lighter-waving good time.
BOOK
4. ‘Rise: A Pop History of Asian America From the Nineties to Now’
With essays, cartoons, and contributions from NBA trailblazer Jeremy Lin and Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu, among others, this scholarly-yetfun history of the Asian American experience touches on everything from politics to pop music.
PODCAST
5. ‘Gone South’
The first season of Cadence13’s new podcast focuses on the unsolved murder of Margaret Coon, a sex-crimes prosecutor who was found dead in an upscale subdivision in Louisiana. Journalist Jed
Lipinski talked to investigators, DEA agents, and those close to Coon to try and find some answers.
TV SHOW
6. ‘The Afterparty’
At the class of 2006’s 15year reunion, a ska-head turned pop star ends up dead, and everyone’s a suspect. This Apple TV series is part country-house mystery, part rom-com — tied together by Tiffany Haddish as a detective with secrets of her own.
ALBUM
7. ‘Only an Octave Apart‘
Whether melding Dido’s “White Flag” with a 17thcentury aria or covering “Under Pressure,” queer cabaret icon Justin Vivian Bond and countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo blow up gender and genre over 12 tracks, creating harmonies you never even knew you were missing.
DOCUSERIES
8. ‘The Murders at Starved Rock’
Starved Rock State Park is both an idyllic woodland getaway and the site of a 1960 triple murder. This three-part HBO series follows the 15-year investigation by David Raccuglia — son of the prosecutor who put suspect Chester Weger away for life — as he questions the official story.
TIKTOK ACCOUNT
9. Francis Bourgeois
The biggest star on TikTok isn’t a 17-year-old dancer or even Jason Derulo:
It’s Francis Bourgeois, a young man with nearly 2 million followers whose infectious enthusiasm for trains has captured the world’s imagination.