“You go in, and they give you an iPod. You listen to the album, the new album, which hasn’t been released yet. It’s a hesitant album—you can tell it was made by a star who is unsure if they’ll go on being a star or not, whether they’ll make a comeback or fade away. You listen to the songs, and you wonder if they’ve lost the fight. You hope the artist will make it; you hope it works it out for him. Lenny Kravitz is roaming around the room holding out his laptop, trying to connect to the wi-fi so he can see how many views his new video has on YouTube. He’s shorter than you think. The artist is tired and kind and twitchy. They’ve made it, and now they face the problem of having to account for it. Maybe they act tough for the camera but not for the interviewer. ‘Can we start with the first question? What’s the first question? Can we start from the first question?’ As if they’re in a trance.”