Billie Eilish has defended her controversial friendship with Drake saying - “A grown man can’t be a fan of an artist? There are so many people that the internet should be more worried about". In an interview with the Vogue, she also discussed the topic of mental health - “As a fan growing up, I was always like ‘What the fuck is wrong with them?'. All the scandals. The Britney moment. You grow up thinking they’re pretty and they’re skinny; why would they fuck it up? But the bigger I get, the more I’m like ‘Oh, my God, of course they had to do that’.”

“I hate LA" - Kelis says in a Guardian interview, because - "There’s nowhere to go after 10 at night. So I thought, if I’m going to be in California, I should be where I can appreciate how beautiful it really is, not stuck in LA and pretending it’s a city that’s fun”. So, she moved with her two sons and husband to a 10-hectare farm deep in wine-country California, next to rocky hills. This spring she is going on a world tour to mark 'Kaleidoscope', her debut album she is very proud of - “the femaleness of the album, of the freaking outspokenness of it, the blackness of it, the alternativeness of it”.

A great interview by the UK grime rapper Stormzy for Tidal, where he talks about his sense of responsibility of being the representative of UK black culture, saying he feels pressure, but - "I have purpose and the purpose makes the pressure way lighter". Also, he talks about how proud he is of his Banksy Glastonbury vest and being relaxed about his Wiley beef because, as a grime MC, he feels "most comfortable in conflict".

Taylor Swift has opened up about her struggle to overcome an eating disorder in a new documentary 'Miss Americana', which received a standing ovation after its gala screening in Utah on Thursday night. She said that photographs and comments about her appearance had triggered the condition. Swift said she struggled with the condition for several years. Some days, she would "starve a little bit [and] just stop eating". The rest of the time, she kept lists of everything she ate and exercised constantly. And now? - "We do not do that anymore because it's better to think you look fat than to look sick".

British soul singer Yola grew up in poverty in Bristol, England, was discouraged from making music over concerns for the field’s financial instability, and was indeed homeless for a short while, but she didn't give up. As an adult, she fronted the country-soul band Phantom Limb, toured with Massive Attack, worked behind the scenes as a session singer, and then in 2016 her big break came - she made her debut at Nashville’s AmericanaFest with a rapturously received set. Footage of her performance reached producer Dan Auerbach, who soon got in touch about collaborating and ultimately co-wrote almost every song on her debut album 'Walk Through Fire'. It got four Grammy nominations, including nods for best new artist and best Americana album, and it got her some new friends - “It’s really normal for me to get a text from Brandi Carlile or Sheryl Crow,” says Yola - “This was not normal eight months ago”.

Billie Eilish’s 'When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?' was produced by her brother Finneas, and he also co-wrote 12 of its 14 tracks with Eilish, while penning the other two on his own. When asked about the songwriters that have inspired him he answered thusly - "I have always loved Ben Folds, he's like an idol of mine, a hero of mine. The last couple years I've been really obsessed with Sara Bareilles. I just think she is, bar for bar, unbelievable at her songwriting... I've always loved Bill Withers. I've always loved John Mayer. And then, you know, I grew up on a lot of bands. So, The Strokes, Julian Casablancas' lyrics have always inspired me. I've always been inspired by My Chemical Romance's lyrics and melodies". Next thing for him? - a solo album.

Consequence of Sound chose alter hip-hop artist 070 Shake as their Artist of the month for January, because - "her voice is stacked with layers of emotion, filled with grit and rawness and pain. It’s gripping, visceral, and inescapable. It captivates you entirely". 070 Shake says she wants people to understand her, and then to listen to her music. Music she listens to? Last year it was - Radiohead, Frank Ocean, Amy Whinehouse, and Pink Floyd.

Speaking in a new interview, Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor took aim at exploitive royalty rates - “A million streams on YouTube is 0.04 percent of a penny. On a million streams you get $400". He thinks it's bad business for everyone, including the companies: "The streaming services are not willing to pay the talents who write the songs and makes the music and yet they are sitting on billions of dollars. They are buying whole blocks of buildings and then taking over floors in there and yet they don’t want to pay the people who made the money for them".

“If you’re hopeful without pessimism it’s quite naive, and if you’re just pessimistic, it’s fucking cynical” Ryan Mahan, bassist in Algiers, says about band's new album 'There Is No Year' (out today). This idea permeates the album sonically, as frontman Franklin Fisher explains - “there’s a larger theme of sound that’s revisited throughout the record. Sound as something that is redemptive and threatening and soothing and everything in between”.

Producer Diplo it turning country, and as a first prerequisite for a country artist, he sports a - gold tooth. The original got knocked loose in a fight when Diplo was younger and eventually turned gray, and then, by the time he had to get veneers, he figured, what the hell, why not go for gold? - “I don't have a job, so it didn't really matter. I'm doing a country album, so I think having a gold tooth is fine”.

"There's enough stuff to go on forever with my music, to do compilation albums, to do, actually, new and original stuff, and I am purposely trying to put songs down for that very purpose" - Dolly Parton said in her podcast. She explained she plans - "to have a click track and my vocals, to […]

There is a title of "the Metal Ambassador of the Decade", given by the Loudwire, and for the 2010s it was - WWE Superstar and NXT founder Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque, because - "throughout the decade, Triple H and his NXT team elevated up-and-coming metal acts more than any other mainstream outlet". Loudwire talked to him about […]

"If I was going to name a favorite record that has been a favorite for all my life it would probably be either 'Beggars Banquet' or 'Let It Bleed' from the Rolling Stones. Actually, 'Sticky Fingers', 'Let It Bleed', 'Beggars Banquet', 'Exile on Main St.' — those four records in a row are pretty much my favorite music of all time" - Slash said about […]

"I maybe had smoked a joint and then went in the booth and I was kinda out of it, and I just started rapping with my normal voice, like my speaking voice, and Ric said 'That's it!' And that was it" - Andre 3000 tells Rick Rubin in a Broken Records podcast about how he struggled […]

"I have so many things in my life now that I dreamed about when I was younger, so the fact I can’t go anywhere is OK to me because I’m busy doing my own shit. Also, I can fucking buck up and go places anyway and just be fine with getting recognised all the time" […]

"I don’t like the idea of being settled. I find it very hard to imagine permanence in any way, and I can’t really get to grips with why. I have a deep need to keep myself alert, and to make sure I’m seeing all the time. I always have to find these ways of uprooting […]

Working with visionaries, and spreading their gospel has become harder and harder to do but when it does happen, it happens even bigger than it used to. Lizzo and Billie Eilish are perfect examples; real artists are breaking very big, very fast because there’s a thirst for superstars - Brandon Creed, manager of Mark Ronson, […]

"When I think about artists who grew up in a time where you could only have one genre and one look, and couldn’t change that ever ... that must have been torturous. It’s really cool that I get to do this in a time when it’s more freeing" - Billie Eilish said in a recent […]

An impressive project by the Los Angeles Times – a 50-song mixtape attempting to locate musical intersections both physical and thematic.

Loudwire chose Ghost mastermind Tobias Forge for the Metal Artist of the Decade. Loudwire discussed Ghost’s progression from underground doom favorites to an arena phenomenon, as well as development of Papa Emeritus II character to Papa Emeritus III to Cardinal Copia. Watch below Forge playing his favourite riffs.

"If they’re blaming the music, then a lot of us wouldn’t be here – we’ve changed our lives, so it would be bad for us to watch them ban a form of music knowing that it’s how we got off the streets” Konan from the London drill rappers Krept & Konan tells the NME about […]

"Rock isn't where the punk spirit is anymore really. It’s in hip hop, it’s in Cardi B" - Kim Gordon told the Quietus in a lengthy interview (they picked her solo album as one of the records of the year). tQ wondered how it is to be introverted and a performer - "talking about yourself […]

"When I stopped drinking it felt like I’d been away and come back. It felt intense after I stopped drinking. It felt like I had been away and I don’t know what had been there in between but it wasn’t altogether me. I think alcoholism is possession, like spiritual possession" - Jaz Coleman, the Killing […]

Producers Pharrell and Rick Rubin interviewed each other in a wide-ranging interview, covering various subject - favourite music, racism versus the hip-hop, technology, as well as 'Blurred Lines' lawsuit which changed what makes a song different - "now there's a question on what a song is". Pharrell feels he's the one to blame for that. […]

"She sits bolt upright, doesn’t slouch, and speaks carefully and with great consideration in a soft, southern American accent. She’s fiercely intelligent and quietly assured. She drinks black coffee and frequently cracks her knuckles, which snap so loudly you wonder if there’s a metal skeleton in there after all" - NME writes about Poppy, singer-songwriter, […]

A story in the Guardian about an amazing project - album 'Home' made by Brazilian-British duo Mixhell. They are keyboardist and singer Laima Leyton, an art-gallerist and techno DJ, and drummer Igor Cavalera, a drummer in metal bands Sepultura, Nailbomb and Cavalera Conspiracy. While at home with their five children, Leyton would record poems over […]

Soundgarden could easily finish a new album if they just had the demo files of Chris Cornell’s vocal recordings, band's guitarist Kim Thayil said. But the problem is - "we don’t have those files”. So, will the album happen? "Yeah, definitely", he said, "and I think that will happen. It would be ridiculous if it didn’t. […]

By the age of 12, Flea was smoking joints regularly, had acquired his nickname, based on his fidgety nature and diminutive stature, which made him develop - "an undying sense that something was wrong with me, that everyone else is clued into a group consciousness from which I am excluded”, he writes in his new […]

"Music has the power to make people feel what you want them to feel. Music can be manipulative, enriching, oppressive. It’s good that people use it for the best reasons" - Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett says in a Rolling Stone interview with St. Vincent. She described her amazement by people being amazed by her music: […]

Last year British singer-songwriter Eliza Shaddad released her first album 'Future', which she toured this year that felt like an "achievement and joy" because she met people "who've traveled from far away to hear you sing, that's magic, and it feels especially personal because of being a solo artist". She released her new single 'Girls' […]