The Face surveyed 314 young people aged 14 to 23 across the UK about life in the pandemic. The answer by a 14-year-old Lucy tells a lot and is very, very sad: “Being 12 when this pandemic began and turning 15 this year, it scares me how I’ve had the majority of my life in lockdowns. I got my first period, my first ​‘love’, and although I feel like so many others have had a far worse time than me, I feel like I’ve lost my life to this virus. I think my experience is probably very similar to others, but I always wonder what life would be like if I could have gone out and experienced the things that a 13-year-old does".

Nine in 10 UK musicians were earning less than £1,000 per month, and 22% were considering giving up music altogether, according to UK charity Help Musicians which made a survey among 929 musicians in August. One-third of musicians were still earning nothing after restrictions on live events were lifted this summer, according to Help Musicians, BBC reports.

An interesting chat in The New Cue with the hit-balladeer James Blunt who talks about his life in pandemic: "I've been on the road for 17 years and I was forced to go home. I discovered all kinds of things. I discovered I had children, I didn't know that… Where the hell did these come from?!?". On life post-pandemic: "I suppose people are just excited to be out and able to socialise with each other. And then I've been playing live shows and that's been amazing too because again, people are thrilled that there’s any live music. I can play them Baa Baa Black Sheep and they’d still probably turn up. They might be expecting some other singer, but they'll take what they can get".

"I’m a walker, I love walking. That’s funny" - Steve Gunn says in a Tone Glow interview about his new album 'Other You', which features a few songs about the mundane habit. Why does he like it? - "Partially the walking correlates with being open and exploratory. I do a lot of walking that isn’t to a specific destination. I’m just being receptive to what’s around me, being observational. I’m present in my current space. Particularly with this record, and the fact that it was a very isolated time, walking was really important for me. Being in the park close to where I live was a godsend and it was an important part of my process, an important part of opening myself up a little more".

The New Cue talked to the "psychedelia-lovin' Texans" about putting their last album 'Mordechai' in the middle of the pandemic and not being able to play it in front of people: "It was really hard. We had to do it. We had the music ready and there was no reason not to put it out. It 100% should have gone out. But it was really hard not to be together. It was hard not to know how people were really feeling about it and digesting it. And it was hard to have so much time to read [people talking about it on] the internet". They have a 'Mordechai' remixes album out. They really liked what they got back from the remixers: "I really appreciate freedom when I create. I think it works better when you give artists permission to do whatever they want. They're going to end up doing their best work".

"It's an album that was created during the pandemic but it's not about that" Chvrches singer Lauren Mayberry says in The New Cue interview. She goes on: "I think maybe lyrically and creatively living through those things and being shut inside with your own thoughts makes you have to think about things in a way that you don't want to and I guess that I feel like the 2020s reflected in it in that way, but it's not like the themes of these songs are 'the world as it stands in 2020'. It's more just like it was an enforced lyric-writing camp I didn't want but that I'm grateful to have had".

"As clubs shut down across the world, however, a shift was occurring in China: the sleeping giant of the East was waking to the steady rumble of bass and the snipping of hi-hats. 'Literally as soon as they opened, everyone went to the club; they got really packed, especially in Beijing', explains Ranyue Zhang aka Slowcook, a resident at Beijing’s Zhao Dai Club. 'As soon as you turn on a smoke machine or a flashing light, people start screaming… It’s not even about the music; anything will make them happy'" - Mix Magazine writes announcing a shift in the Chinese electronic music scene which, for a lack of options, turned to itself.

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".

20,000 fans stood shoulder to shoulder for their first star-studded concert in over a year on May 2nd at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. Foo Fighters, Jennifer Lopez, J Balvin, and Eddie Vedder performed for Global Citizen’s Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite The World, at the first large-scale music event for a Covid-compliant audience in the US. It wasn't exactly like before - the show’s attendance was far lower than the 70,000 the L.A. stadium can seat, attendees had to show proof of vaccination, they were masked and alcohol and concessions weren’t available. The goal of the concert was to raise money to send vaccine doses to India, Africa and other places. Rolling Stone is happy to report from it.

In Australia, the road to recovery for live music is happening six to nine months ahead of the world, promoters say, according to Rolling Stone. Clubs are pumping in Brisbane, where venue capacities have been entirely lifted. Artists like Courtney Barnett, Keith Urban, Guns N' Roses and others are announcing tours on a daily basis. Festivals have resumed with all-local lineups, venue capacities are slowly lifting, and dancing is now permitted. By late April, Australia recorded 910 deaths due to Covid, with fewer than 30,000 confirmed cases among its population of 25 million. Community transmissions have been close to zero for months. Visitors aren't really welcome yet - a 2-week quarantine in a hotel room is compulsory.