Yesterday (July 9), Years & Years frontman Olly Alexander became a cover boy -- and a provocative one, at that -- when he graced PAPER magazine in a silken Versace shirt while sensually resting his head on a model’s bare thigh.

In the interview, the singer gets serious, firing shots at the passive homophobia that he still sees lingering around the music industry.

"In many ways, this is the very best time to be a gay artist ever," he says. "We wouldn't be where we are today without all the gay artists that have come before us and broken down so many barriers. But barriers aren't gone. Particularly for less privileged members of the queer community. There is this very insidious casual homophobia that exists in the fabric of everything including the music industry.”

Last month, Rita Ora released "Girls," a sexually charged pop chorale based on the singer's own experiences with women. The single -- one of the most anticipated music collaborations in recent memory -- has all the makings of a perfect summer smash: shimmery synth pulses, pristine production and A-list features from Charli XCX, Bebe Rexha and Cardi B. However, some considered its lyrics problematic.

Ora meant for "Girls" to be a celebration of bisexuality, but the song drew ire for its depiction of same-sex attraction with critics -- including prominent LGBTQ artists -- arguing that it perpetuates stereotypes. Hayley Kiyoko, known to fans as "Lesbian Jesus," called Ora's effort "tone-deaf," while Kehlani, who identifies as queer, branded the song "harmful" in a since-deleted tweet.

The solo artist says it's only ever a good thing to talk about your feelings

James Blake has posted a heartfelt message to Twitter, urging people to stop labelling him a “sad boy”

Hip-hop has always been a culture that thrives off of young, controversial figures, but with the information that’s already available on the aforementioned artists, it’s impossible for listeners to support them in good conscience. In order to properly reckon with our roles in their success, we really need to stop entertaining and listening to them.

According to Cardi, it’s not just the musicians and performers who deal with sexual harassment. Video models, often seen and not heard, are typically silenced when they discuss what they deal with, she said. "A lot of video vixens have spoke about this and nobody gives a fuck," Cardi told Cosmo. "I bet if one of these women stands up and talks about it, people are going to say, 'So what? You’re a ho. It don’t matter.'"

There is a pervasive trope that the rock star male musician is dangerous, brutish, and lionized for his sexuality. (We’ve seen this cliché in rap and pop music, too, like with XXXtentacion or R.Kelly.) We, as consumers of the culture, and marketers who have sold this idea, have allowed stage personas be real life and let it continue because they identify as rock stars. There is little effort to make a distinction between the two. And this is what makes it exceptionally hard to have a productive conversation about consent, boundaries, and accountability.

Bono admits he had previously thought he’d “let go” of his fear of death, but reveals it was the exact opposite.

“I thought I already had, but this was the next installment in trust. You know, people of faith can be very annoying,” he said. “Like when people on the Grammys thank God for a song and you think, “God, that is a shite song. Don’t give God credit for that one – you should take it yourself!” I am sure I have done that myself. And someone’s like, “I got this directly from the mouth of God!” And you’re thinking, “Wow, God has no taste!”

VICE: What initially made you decide to write this book?

Darryl W. Bullock: I wanted to write a book about LGBTQ people making records, but to be honest, it was a bit dull. It was starting to look a bit like an encyclopedia, an A-to-Z of gay musicians. Then, maybe three or four months into the project, David Bowie died, and his death struck me really viscerally.

But it was while I saw how others reacted to his death, especially the stars I grew up with—the Boy Georges and the George Michaels and the Madonnas—that I realized I was going down the wrong track. I realized the book shouldn’t just be about LGBTQ people making records, but how they influenced each generation that followed. You start to build up this timeline, and it stretches back over 100 years, almost back to the birth of commercially available discs.

It was also a definite decision to include voices you don’t hear of. It would be easy to write a book just about Elton John, George Michael, Boy George, Freddie Mercury, those kinds of people. But I really wanted to document the lives of people like Patrick Haggerty, Blackberri and John “Smokey” Condon (pic above), people who have made incredibly important contributions to music and to LGBTQ lives but have been basically ignored by the mainstream media.

London artist Sakima was first attracted to a boy when he was 6: “I remember very distinctly a group of girls laughing at me and weirded out that I fancied a guy,” says the electro-R&B musician born Isaac Sakima. Though the feelings weren't reciprocated (“He was straight, as far as I know”), his childhood crush serves as the namesake for the 26-year-old’s Ricky EP (out Oct. 13). Through the seven songs, the singer-producer fetishizes daddies, rejects heteronormative traditions and explores the lexicon of Polari, a coded language used by gay men in Britain in the 1950s and ’60s, when homosexuality was illegal.

Tori Amos' mind is one of the greatest wonders of the music world. For over three decades, via an oeuvre as unpredictable as the muses that guide her, that very mind has been a trove of lyrical salvation and a divine mélange of eccentricities, insight, imagination and, as I discovered during our illuminating exchange, even "Mean Girls" references.

Before last year's political turn of events, the piano virtuoso took a summer road trip through North Carolina's Smoky Mountains to reconnect to her familial roots, setting into motion her nature-influenced 15th studio album, "Native Invader." Featuring some of her best music in years, as influenced by these divisive times and a speech-crippling stroke her mother suffered in January, the album's emotional core is resilient and healing despite "a cluster of hostile humans who side with their warlords of hate," as she brazenly sings, calling for us to "rehumanize."

Amos, 54, took me to every remote corner of her meandering mind during our recent interview, name-dropping everyone from Persephone to Regina George and the two gay men who helped transform her into the Tori Amos. But there's more: "the new invasion of the body snatchers," exercising to rap, being postmenopausal in 2017 America, the prospect of a Vegas show with hot male dancers and also Washington D.C., the "underworld" where she launched her career, unknowingly performing for political players who would set the stage for crucial issues Amos and the entire country are now facing.

U2 musician Bono has spent years reading and learning from the poetry of the Psalms, a book of the Bible that contains ancient hymns.

If there’s one thing Bono has realized from his studies, it’s that art always requires honesty.

During a conversation with Fuller Studio, the rock star spoke at length about the intersection of faith and art, particularly art that is produced by Christians.

“I would really like this conversation to unlock some artists,” the singer, a devout Christian, said. “Because I think there are trapped artists and I’d like them to be untrapped.”