“I know sometimes there’s chaos and you’re running around kind of stressed out, but I’m just reveling in the fact that I have no idea what I’m doing” - CoS' Artist of the Month Arlo Parks says in an extensive interview. London singer (20) is about to release her debut album 'Collapsed in Sunbeams', which took a while to make - "Build things slowly, and don’t expect to immediately feel better or be better. And in the meantime, find enjoyment where you can as well".

"When I was young and did a set at a jazz club called the Tin Palace, there was a bass player named Richard Davis who saw me singing, and he told me, 'You have to talk to your audience, people like to be talked to'. And I think he's right" - Suzanne Vega explained to AllMusic her latest live release, 'An Evening of New York Songs and Stories', which brings together 15 songs with Vega explaining the stories behind many of the songs. "Imagine a setlist full of songs like 'Cracking' and 'Luka' and 'Gypsy' with no stories and no explanations, it would feel really weird. The shows that I've done where I don't speak, it quickly has a weird atmosphere" - Vega explains, adding - "I had so much weirdness that I thought, if I wanted applause at the end of the show, you've got to talk to your audience".

Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello and alter-rock singer interview each other for Interview Magazine about favorite music, movie characters, their beginnings, identity, silence etc. For starters, they define rock'n'roll: "an attitude more than a particular instrument. Rock and roll will constantly be re-contextualized" - Grandson; "There’s something that taps into the reptilian brain, and our human DNA of a combination of rhyme and reason, and aggression and power and the communal gathering of the tribe that is the rock and roll show that’s unlike anything else" - Morello.

“The heaviness comes from our ancestors. I am Black and Indigenous. There’s been so much that has happened to us, and I feel this. I don’t feel like I could not make heavy music” - guitarist and saxophonist Takiaya Reed says about her band Divide And Dissolve. She is of Māori descent, and Sylvie Nehill, the other half of the duo, Cherokee. Together they play really intense instrumental ambient metal which aims to "destroy white supremacy”. Their newest album 'Gas Lit' is published by Portishead's Geoff Barrow who said “It totally freaked me out with its beauty and extreme heaviness”. The Quietus speaks to the ladies, and reviews the album - "a powerful, impressively unconventional, predominantly instrumental suite, linking sludge and doom metal with a desolate reading of jazz".

“There are people who are alive, but live like they’re dead. They don’t strive to go further. But I know life is really short because I’ve seen people die just like that, in the street. So this question speaks to me: how can we be absent from our own lives?” - Belgian rapper Damso says in the Guardian interview about his musical goals. Although mellow sonically, his lyrics touch on serious subjects as well, such as suicide, and paedophilia. Generally, he aims high as well - "The questions that I ask myself about death aren’t about dying, they’re about death in this life".

"An essential read" - Music Journalism Insider says about the new book 'Ten Cities: Clubbing in Nairobi, Cairo, Kyiv, Johannesburg, Berlin, Naples, Luanda, Lagos, Bristol, Lisbon, 1960–Present', a big international project about club music in these ten African and European cities. The authors say that "through 21 essays, playlists and photo sequences the book shows the pursuits and practices that assembling around and communing over music generated in the time before COVID-19. It is a retrospective testimony to the spirit of creative communities, a rhythm-analysis mediated by sound and night".

Australian indie-pop musician Ben Lee went into 14-day quarantine in a Sydney military hotel when he returned from Los Angeles, and he used that time to make a 30-minute podcast a day (find them all here). Rather than talk about his music, he discussed himself, as well as some general themes like conspiracy theories, blockchain, death, gurus, marketing etc. What he tried to do, as he's told the Guardian, is to answer questions like "What am I about? Why have I been attracted to all these things? What are the common threads?”.

'Fetch the Bolt Cutters' is one of the most critically acclaimed albums this year, but it wasn't so assuring for Fiona Apple when she was making it, as she's told the Guardian: "I started everything over once and then over again feeling like it wasn’t going in the right direction. There were times when I felt, I love all the work that we’ve been doing and I don’t regret any of the time that we spent, but maybe I just don’t wanna deal with this. Maybe I’m in a good place to call it quits and go live a different kind of life. But then it started feeling right. I didn’t have any idea that it was gonna be loved so much". While making it she said she had provided herself with "the right environment and getting to a place where – it sounds strange to say – I could believe myself as I was performing". Being so validated like herself with this album isn't that great either: "I’m happy that I feel respected in a way that I wasn’t before but it also messes with your idea of yourself... I don’t know how we get out of letting other people tell us who we are".

"I’m glad to end these terrible, difficult times [knowing] that people have genuinely had joy-filled experiences with our music. I got so many calls and videos from homies that were at protest sites where people would take breaks, give each other water, and you would hear 'Oh La La', 'Walking in the Snow' or 'A Few Words to the Firing Squad' in the street. It brought me joy to know that we were there at the times we were needed" - Killer Mike told Spin, after being chosen as the publication's Artist of the Year. His partner in jewelry admits, however, they aren't that serious a band - "we’re the anti-heroes. We’re stumbling around, and we’re crashing cars, slapping babies and getting stoned as fuck and saying the wrong thing. I’d like to think that at the end of the day, those types of heroes are obtainable for people".

The days of the traditional stage set-up are numbered, "at least in theatres and concert halls the size that I would normally play" - David Byrne says Mark Beaumont in an NME interview about the future of shows. He elaborates: "The fact that we can get the music digitally [means] a performance has to be really of value. It has to be really something special, because that’s where the performers are getting their money and that’s what the audience is paying for. They’re not paying very much for streaming music, but they are paying quite a bit to go and see a performance, so the performance has to give them value for money… It has to be really something to see”. Byrne also talks about social media and technology.

It’s been a wild 10 years for Reznor and Ross, one that began with a deafening bang with 'The Social Network', high-pointing this year with David Fincher’s 'Mank' played only on 1940s instruments, and with the score for Pixar’s latest feature film 'Soul'. The Consequence of Sound named them Composers of the Year and made an extensive interview with the pair.

When she found out she was nominated for Grammy in the best new artist category, Phoebe Bridgers jokingly tweeted that she and Megan Thee Stallion could get swords and fight for the trophy. Actually, as Bridgers told BBC, there's one person who should get the award - "Like, we are not battling. Not that I want to jinx myself here but Megan Thee Stallion is the best new artist, by far". Her song 'Kyoto' is also up for best rock performance, and all the nominees in that category are female for the first time, but - "I don't think it's virtue signalling because I can't think of a male rock album this year that really shook me up". She also told BBC how the making of her last video 'Motion Sickness' with Phoebe Wallace-Bridge changed how she saw fame - "Like, hanging out with the guy who taught me how to drive the tractor was just a blast. It changed my perspective on fame being a curse".

British actor and MC Riz Ahmed is critically lauded for his portrayal of a drummer who goes deaf in movie 'Sound of Metal', but the role also broadened himself. "When I started talking about things in my life or even in [the character] Ruben's life that were emotional, I found myself really physically getting emotional, tearing up at times in a way that I would not have if I was just verbally communicating", Ahmed said, adding - "in some ways, a fuller kind of communication — a more embodied kind of communication — is possible within deaf culture and signing culture".

British bird-enthusiast and producer Cosmo Sheldrake recorded his latest album 'Wake Up Call' with pieces composed entirely from recordings of endangered British birds. Created over a nine year period, the aim of the album is to make people conscious of bird sounds and the loss of wildlife from our lives. Guardian talked to the lovely eccentric: “Once you can identify them as species or individuals, it just turns into this completely insane conversation across huge amounts of time and space. You have these themes essentially rippling through the woods. Everything that happens in a woodland is like a stone dropping into a pond. It sends out these ripples as those birds respond and then respond to those responses … there are so many layers and levels to it".

Snoop Dogg, who had an album named 'Doggystyle' which began with a sketch about bathtub coitus, thinks that Cardi B's 'WAP' is too sexy, as he said in an interview on the newsmag program Central Ave. Snoop, who also once rapped, “she will get G’d if she don’t suck dick,” added of their vaginas, “that’s like your pride and possession. That’s your jewel of your crown". Where did the change come from? -  "I’ma older man”.

“We have all the data that confirms and statistically proves that Brazil is a racist country. We are a country that was built on slavery” - Brazilian singer Luedji Luna says in a Guardian interview about her country. But there's more to Luna and her home-country than racism - “We’re expected to sing about hunger, pain, hunger, sadness. But we can sing other things. We live other things, too. That’s why I talk about love, to escape this stereotype, this expectation of pain when you think about a Black woman. I’m talking about love as healing. I’m talking about love as power”.

An interesting interview with Rico Nasty in the New York Times:

“You don’t have to dress a certain way and you don’t have to sound a certain way to be a female rapper”

“To survive stan culture, you have to understand stan culture — you have to have been a stan. If anything, it makes me want to open up more”

“Being a mother taught me to go get some money. Once you become a mom, it’s just like, ‘OK, strategy. How are we going to pay for this?’ You do what’s necessary, and sometimes you get creative”

“I believe the best revolution will come from the mind. It will come from thinking. It will come from rediscovery" - multi-instrumentalist Made Kuti told in a Spin interview announcing his debut album 'For(e)ward'. Made is third-generation Kuti to play music - his grandfather Fela Kuti was an Afrobeat pioneer, his father Fela Kuti continued the tradition, and Made Kuti now is pushing for change in society and politics through music. Made's album 'For(e)ward' is coming out in conjunction with Fela's 'Stop the Hate'.

Billboard talked to Cardi B about being named their 2020 Woman of the Year based on the influence she made with her song 'WAP': "I know I’m a role model because I know there’s a lot of women like me. At the end of the day, I know I’m a bitch that made it through because I work my ass off, not because luck fell on my thighs. I want to show people that you can do positive things, but you can also be yourself. I’m a very sexual person. I love sex, and I like to rap about it... I’m just a naughty girl, and I’m not hurting nobody because I love my p**** and want to rap about it".

Foals keyboardist Edwin Congreave is suffering from eco-anxiety due to carbon footprint of their global tours. "I don't want to fly ever again" the 35-year old told BBC about touring far-flung places like Asia and Australia. "The actual impact that driving gear across Europe has compared to flying, in the big picture, is relatively low" he added, "but, yeah, I think that a lot of musicians and a lot of DJs and bands should just stop touring".

"£10 a month for access to all music is too little" - Elbow's Guy Garvey told the Guardian, suggesting music fans should pay more, otherwise we face a risk of losing the next generation of bands. "It’s not sustainable and the emergency is we’re losing artists because they’re demoralised and they can’t afford to live" - Garvey said. Elbow frontman is pushing for equitable remuneration in which streams are split 50/50 between labels and groups.

A great "time-capsule" video-interview with Billie Eilish for Vanity Fair, with media outlet interviewing her for the fourth year in a row (BRAVO! for VF for recognising a future star in 2017). Eilish talks earnestly about her identity: “For a while now, I’ve been really having an identity crisis a little. I think it was December, I did some radio show performance, and the entire show I felt like I was pretending to be Billie Eilish. Like, I felt — I completely wasn’t looking at myself as myself. I was totally seeing it from not-my-own perspective and it was so weird. Happened multiple times at award shows and whatever. I felt like a parody of myself”.

UK collective UKAEA is made of "superheroes" of UK experimental and alternative music, who are deeply influenced by immigration and sounding global. UKAEA have just released their debut album 'Energy is Forever', coming deeply from techno and industrial background, with Middle Eastern and African influences also prominent on the record. “I think ultimately the goal is to make music that sounds like it's from nowhere” - collective's leader Dan Jones told the Quietus. (Not overly) unusual music with a substance.

There's a clear divide between the old industry and the new industry when it comes to gender and race issues, publicist dr. Lucy O'Brien says in Music Journalism Insider interview. "Power in the old industry was consolidated in a very male-dominated network across the major labels and in live music. It was a kind of power that put the onus on women to use their sexuality to increase sales, and in that sort of reductive environment women found it difficult to progress as artists" - O'Brien says about the "old industry", whereas "the new industry that has grown with the arrival of the internet is much more exciting and diverse, with women less reliant on major labels to get their music heard. Now all kinds of voices are coming through".

"I think of Metallica as being a pop band. A lot of metal is just metal to be metal - but Metallica write real songs" - Phoebe Bridgers told Rolling Stone in their Musicians on Musicians series, while talking to Metallica's Lars Ulrich. She also said how she thought Motörhead's Lemmy Kilmister was already dead when she heard the news of him passing. Some other bands that she liked - "I have dabbled in the Slayer world. And then, weirdly late for me, I got super into Nine Inch Nails".

The luxurious nature of rap music could be a factor in the increase in support for Donald Trump among Black male voters - Barack Obama suggested in The Atlantic interview. "People are writing about the fact that Trump increased his support among Black men, and the occasional rapper who supported Trump” he said, adding - "I have to remind myself that if you listen to rap music, it’s all about the bling, the women, the money. A lot of rap videos are using the same measures of what it means to be successful as Donald Trump is. Everything is gold-plated. That insinuates itself and seeps into the culture”. Election polls saw an estimated 20% of Black men voted for Trump this year, two percentage points higher than the 18% who voted for him in 2016.

English pop-rock star James Arthur was inspired to write 52 songs after doing Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in lockdown, as he says to the Evening Standard. Arthur - who struggles with social and health anxiety, as well as various different forms of depression - has a "fear of dying young” and admitted his anxiety heightened amid the coronavirus pandemic, "and then I made music again. I wrote 52 songs - that helped me through”.

"I just miss it [going on tour and playing live] because it's almost like a physical need. Your body kind of expects it, once you go out there on the road and make contact with everybody. And for this year, having it cut off is kind of weird, which is probably why I'm talking too much" - Keith Richards says in a GQ interview about life in lockdown. He says he spends time in quarantine "writing some songs because I do that anyway. That sort of happens without even trying. Not that they're any good, but, you know, it's what you do". Plans for band's 60th anniversary - "to still actually all be alive".

Whatever new music comes out, it’s viewed as the devil’s music. I remember when Elvis came out everybody said he was Satan. And then in the ‘60s and ‘70s he became America’s national treasure. It happens with every new wave of music. Like metal, obviously. The Christians were going mental when Sabbath came about. And then when rap came about, people were up in arms about that and certain words that rappers were using" - Black Sabbath's Geezer Butler says in a Kerrang interview. The thing is he doesn't really like 'WAP', but he, it seems so, defends Cardi B's right to write such a song: "I have to say, though, that Cardi B pisses me off with that WAP song. It’s disgusting! But there you go... Then again, I’m 71. A bloody old goat!”.

Tool singer Maynard James Keenan, a winemaker in his spare time, plays certain albums to certain types of grapes while processing, as he's told in a new Discogs interview. "During vintage, I choose whole albums to play to the grapes while processing,” he says - “some playlists are played year after year to the same fruit. We note what music was played to what grapes and then these playlists are included with the tasting notes”. Discogs was shown a chart indicating exactly which music is played to specific types of grapes - it varies from Portishead, Massive Attack, and Tricky to Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, AC/DC, and Kiss, with some Devo, Spiritualized, and Low as well. No Tool, A Perfect Circle, or Puscifer in his cellar.