“I think Rick has created something really special. From what I’ve gathered, he’s really serious about communicating an energy and creating a space for people” Ron the Jewels' El-P says to Complex about Rick Rubin's Shangri La studio situated in his home in Malibu, California. “That’s all based on his ethos. That’s all based on his experience of what makes a good record. So everyone there is really focused on making sure everybody is comfortable and there’s a creative energy. It’s an empty palette you can really just fill with new energy" - El-P adds. The versatile producer "would come by, barefoot, cross his legs, close his eyes and just listen and really take it in and really give feedback".

Wickedly funny, as per usual, Noel Gallagher in The New Cue interview talks about the lockdown, his new studio, and a certain "fat c***". He went on to compare touring to being in lockdown: "You do live a bit of a Groundhog Day when you're on tour. It's kind of the same but it's different because you're traveling. You live in the same day but in a different country. This is living the same day in the same fucking house. I think I've seen the same dozen people for a year". Apart from watching the telly, he says he's been wasting his days by - wasting himself: "The biggest thing was the drinking... I'm on the go slow at the moment but there's nothing else to do".

“This is to announce my retirement from touring and from working in the record business. I’ve gotten older and I’m tired” - Sinéad O’Connor wrote in a series of tweets. The Irish singer-songwriter’s upcoming album, 'No Veteran Dies Alone', will be her final release, she said, Deadline reports. TNC, inspired by the announcement, remembers her 1990 interview: "By the time 'Nothing Compares 2 U' happened I was almost in a state of shock. I was zapped mentally. I wasn't eating properly, just drinking coffee and smoking hundreds of cigarettes and getting totally stressed out... man, I just didn't know how to deal with the fame and the American fans and the horseshit British press. 'Shoeless Sinead' and all that bollocks. I was never prepared for what it did to me. I couldn't have been prepared for that kind of success. Let's face it, what other record has really done that? I thought it might do OK? But not this".

"Having lived most of my life under military occupation – and therefore lockdown – music has always given me a place to escape from reality, as well as a safe space to express myself. Whether I’m creating, listening or dancing to it, music has the power to take me somewhere else mentally and I’m forever grateful for that" - Palestinian DJ/producer Sama’ Abdulhadi told The Face about what music means to her. She had also trouble because of it - she was arrested by Palestinian authorities on Dec. 27 and held in a Jericho jail for eight days after coordinating and playing a livestream event for Beatport at a site called Maqam Nabi Musa, the tomb of the prophet Moses.

"Morrissey -  I’m proud to be one of what he calls his seven friends - says being alone is a great privilege. Not only is it a privilege but it is a great privilege of an affluent society because two thirds of the world you cannot be alone because you have to be in a huge team just to survive daily" - The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde tells to The New Cue looking back on how she wrote the song 'Alone'. However - "let us not in any way diminish the fact that loneliness is an epidemic in our society. I have been alone most of my life. As has Morrissey and I know for a fact that he fucking hates it too. We hate it but it is a privilege. We hate it and we don’t want to be alone but on the other hand we accept it because it affords us a lot of freedoms that otherwise we wouldn’t have”.

"If you have financial privilege, you’d better be paying it forward — and if you are a white, straight person who is making money from music, you’d better be donating money to LGBTQ causes and Black Lives Matter and others that help marginalized people, because without marginalized people, music is gonna get really bad, really quick" - Justin Tranter says in a very interesting Variety interview. Tranter is the author behind Justin Bieber’s 'Sorry', Selena Gomez’s 'Lose You to Love Me', Imagine Dragons’ 'Believer' and dozens more. They also founded and run Facet Records and Music Publishing, which launched late in 2018.

"We know all the economics in the touring business are at 85% of ticket sales. So it's a crapshoot, and you cannot buy insurance against it. So many artists are just wishing for this to end, they need to pay themselves and their crews" - music mogul Irving Azoff says in Hits Daily Double interview. He's not really completely optimistic, but he's hopeful: "We're all in the business of gambling. So if I had to handicap it, I feel 75-25 that we're on the road to prosperity. And when it is 100% open, I think we're going to see unprecedented demand. Oh my God, I can't even imagine what it's going to be like at some of these early first sold-out shows—people are going to go nuts".

"I want to supply my people with some theme music so that they can feel self-confident, self-possessed; something to keep their heads up high" - 37-year-old vocalist, songwriter and producer Georgia Anne Muldrow says in the Guardian interview about her latest tape, 'Vweto III'. She made it to weather the “traumatic events experienced as a community online and offline”. It's not just racism that she's fighting against, there's also misogyny, which has given her some resilience - “It’s made me fierce. And what better obstacles than those of chauvinism, misogyny and racism to be a catalyst for becoming fierce?”.

"The aim of artists is to put information out there, and when people are ready, they can come to it - and hopefully further themselves" - Sons of Kemet frontman Shabaka Hutchings says in Downbeat interview about their latest album 'Black to the Future' and sending messages with music. "If you have a surface-level understanding of racism or the legacy that we’re referring to, then if you encounter the music and suspect there is something deeper [with] the rhetoric around the album, and the message behind the album, it gives you clues and hints of ways to explore. For me, that’s the best thing, in that it gives people a way of going forward".

"I'm not naturally competitive but the hardest lesson I learned was that there are a lot of people in the music business who are extremely competitive and will sometimes do things that could be problematic" - Daniel Miller, the founder of Mute Records who published Depeche Mode, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, New Order, Can and many more says in The New Cue interview. One of his fondest memories comes from "when Moby made Animal Rights, a pure punk rock record, and everybody had written off his career and then he came back with 'Play'. When he did his first tour around 'Play', he was playing the Scala, and it was kind of semi full. The album started getting some airplay and, about a month later, he came back to play the Scala after a month on tour. And I've never had more guestlist requests than for that gig. Every celeb was there, wanting to be part of it, lots of other musicians. Nobody was interested three weeks before! The album got a full page zero out of 10 review in the Melody Maker".