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July 2026
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125 articles
- July 16
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- “We're happy we can play a part in helping preserve the physical album experience”: Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon officially returns on cassette – Nick Mason has some thoughts on what’s next for the prog classic
- “What happens when one of the key architects of contemporary pop rethinks the supersaw?”: AG Cook and Native Instruments team up for signature synth plugin Super*Saw
- “I dropped my drumsticks and was like, ‘What the hell is happening? This is not the Little Red Corvette that I know'”: Questlove on the moment he discovered what ended up becoming his favourite Prince song, and the profound impact it had on him
- “The final boss of the lost Dual Op-Amp circuit”: Electro-Harmonix gives the Big Muff Pi 2 the “Deluxe” treatment – adding Wicker switch, noise-gate, footswitchable mids and more
- "It was the first time David committed a self-composed song to wax. At the end of the session, Jimmy said 'Well, it's definitely not going to be a hit.' And he was right": When Jimmy Page and David Bowie collided, pre-fame
- Suno scraped millions of songs from YouTube, Deezer and stock music libraries, according to hacked data
- July 15
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- "The merest hint of musical beauty – the merest hint!”: NPR just posted its most brutal Tiny Desk Concert ever as Napalm Death bring blast beats and chaos to the office – and unleash their one-second grindcore masterpiece in its entirety
- "I was able to forget that they were not my usual set of in-ears and just enjoy the gig": Beyerdynamic DT 30 IE review
- Now Fender hits Yamaha with a cease-and-desist as it widens legal campaign over Stratocaster copyright
- “If I didn’t have AutoTune, I probably wouldn’t have a career, to be honest. I certainly would have less hits”: Pop producer Ian Kirkpatrick on the importance of AutoTune, and how it enabled him to use a Dua Lipa demo vocal on a finished track
- "This is is 1000% going on every single mix": Baby Audio's SubCulture is a pitch-tracking bass enhancer designed for "massive low-end"
- “Peter and I were in a car and he started humming this melody. ‘What’s that?’ ‘Oh, that’s a song I wrote.’ I mean, Peter never wrote a song in his life! But he sings, ‘Beck, I hear you calling…’” Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley on the Kiss classic Destroyer
- “If anything, it was tamed down... he wasn't at 100% - that was maybe 60%”: We speak to Future Islands about THAT Letterman performance, the internet's OTT reaction – and their new collection of rarities and B-sides
- “It holds a special place in Gibson history. As one of our earliest limited-edition instruments, it helped establish a lasting legacy within hard rock guitar culture”: Gibson unveils Custom Shop reissue of a Michael Schenker and Kirk Hammett favourite
- Behringer's AKS Mini is a £99 mini-synth inspired by the EMS Synthi AKS, a classic synth used by Pink Floyd and Brian Eno
- “I didn’t even want to put it on the album because I thought it was too mushy. Linda Ronstadt goes, ‘Are you out of your mind? That’s a hit record!’”: Billy Joel on the classic ballad that Paul McCartney wishes he’d written
- Get almost $1k of guitar tuition from our number one online platform for only $99 with this epic Summer Black Friday deal – over 11,000 lessons, plus bonus gifts
- “I remember the three of us thinking that it was an absolute stroke of genius that we'd just come up with the most idiotic idea ever”: Mike D talks about the Beastie Boys’ fallout with Russell Simmons and that hydraulic prop
- July 14
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- “We made it the way you’d make a demo. No click track, mistakes left in… The song, like your life, is in the mistakes. Its imperfections are unbeatable”: Queens Of The Stone Age drop a brand new single out of nowhere and it features Nikki Lane on vocals
- "We are all devastated by the news and are surrounding her with love”: L7 bassist Jennifer Finch diagnosed with brain cancer
- "I said, 'God, you’ve nicked all my things.' He said, ‘Yeah, I know, man. I know. It's like a homage to you’”: David Bowie admitted that he stole the Stones' sound on one classic song, says Mick Jagger
- “Morrissey sent me one of his famous letters which I’ve framed on the wall. It just read, ‘Dear Bernard, I’m sorry - I can’t’”: Bernard Butler shares with us the events that almost led to a team-up with Morrissey
- Novation tops off its Launchkey MK4 range with 88-key MIDI controller keyboard
- “The speaker is the secret weapon. It just has this size and weight to the sound that you don’t expect. That’s the magic”: Blackstar shrinks Doug Aldrich’s fire-breathing tube head into a compact 5-watt combo for the stage, studio and home
- “Pop is getting posher, and that must change. Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not”: UK government announces national strategy for music to “widen opportunity” and invest in “creative careers”
- "It's basically finished": The wait is almost over for Nopia’s viral chord synth – we got an exclusive first-look demo and can finally reveal its price
- Jake Bowen goes headless as Periphery guitarist officially swaps Ibanez for Strandberg – but what will his signature model look like and when might we see it?
- “He’s the Quincy Jones of the rap world. Working together was like nothing I've ever experienced – it’s like watching Fantasia!”: Hip-hop hitmaker Rogét Chahayed on learning his craft from Dr Dre
- “I’ve thought this through... I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt here, and assuming he doesn’t really think I’m the antichrist”: Phil Collins thinks he might know why Noel Gallagher called him “the antichrist of music” back in the ‘90s
- Broken strings? Lifeless tone? Terrible playing? It’s not you… It’s your strings: How to restring a guitar fast to play and sound great again
- “This amp is my ride or die. Play fast! Die trying”: A baby blue amp for a Green Day frontman – Marshall launches Billie Joe Armstrong’s “Dookie Mod” signature head
- “It’s a piano chord, but I played it with my arse. I was singing and I just wanted a rest, and the piano lid was open. So I sat and I played that chord”: The Police’s classic breakthrough hit – with the ultimate bum note
- July 13
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- “We’ll see”: Could a Fleetwood Mac Sphere residency be on the cards? It appears that Lindsey Buckingham isn’t ruling it out
- Have the Stones played their final show? “Maybe I have!” says Mick Jagger. “You never really know, do you?”
- “Hope you will joining us in wishing Simon the speediest of recoveries. And Eden – thanks”: Son of Gallup saves the day for The Cure
- Who needs Logic or Ableton Live when free browser-based DAWs are becoming this good?
- "It's a major step forward in stem separation technology": Zplane's Peel Stems 2 nearly halves the latency of its real-time stem separation plugin
- “I sat on that song for two decades. I knew that I got something special”: The powerful anthem by Five Finger Death Punch and the dramatic video that shook America
- “As an 8-year-old, I was like, ‘My 5-year-old sister is better than me at guitar? How is this even possible?’ She was like a savant”: Este Haim on how sibling rivalry, parental persuasion, Princess Peach and Tina Weymouth led her to the bass guitar
- "She's a very determined young lady who has pushed herself and keeps going”: Meet the Northern Irish teenager who passed her Grade 8 piano – one handed
- SampleRadar: 207 free '90s jungle samples
- “He’s generous and super funny... he’s a good man”: So which rock frontman with a ‘difficult’ reputation could ex-GNR drummer Frank Ferrer be talking about?
- “Would any other rock band in the world make a track like this?”: The story of the Rolling Stones-sampling anthem that has won over a new generation
- July 12
- July 11
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- "Rather than scratching his chin, saying, “I don’t know if this works yet”, he’ll go 'This could be the beginning of something incredible, let’s keep pushing in that direction': David Byrne discusses treating the studio "like a playground" with Brian Eno
- “What makes this album so interesting is the fact that there are guitars that are not totally in tune – but good luck trying to get a take as good as that!”: The creative genius and ‘insane’ methodology in Van Halen’s biggest selling album
- "Everything started from the hand of a human being": Italian DJ and producer Ciauru wins Reply AI Music Contest
- July 10
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- “I was so shocked and sad when he died. At the time, we were recording in Montserrat with George Martin. That night, I wrote a song about Bon”: Cheap Trick guitarist Rick Nielsen’s heartfelt tribute to legendary AC/DC singer Bon Scott
- “It's extremely easy to use, but only once you’ve got to grips with what is quite an esoteric control interface”: Donner DBM-100 metronome review
- You can now control FL Studio with an agentic AI chatbot from inside the DAW
- "Music was my first desire": Film titan Anthony Hopkins to release album of original compositions
- "Diamond is grown as a crystalline layer before the substrate is removed, leaving a self-supporting diamond dome": Fancy dropping $8,500 on some new cans?
- “He called me and said, ‘There’s a scene in this film which is going to make it a hit all over again.’ I saw it and said, ‘Oh my God!’ When I played that song in England it would go down like a lead zeppelin”: The story of Elton John’s classic sleeper hit
- "Eight and a half years ago, my life changed immeasurably. Music is not part of my life anymore": Huey Lewis reveals the tragic impact of hearing loss
- Korg’s DIY NTS-4 looks like the budget-friendly desktop mixer we always wanted the Volca Mix to be
- Simply the test: It's MusicRadar's Quiz of the Week #13!
- July 9
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- “I decided to give up the guitar when I heard Eric Clapton, the way people are put off playing tennis when they watch Roger Federer”: Jethro Tull legend Ian Anderson on why he plays the flute – and why Ritchie Blackmore is ‘definitely not mad’
- "I’ve come to the conclusion that it no longer feels right for me to be part of it": Dutch DJ Franky Rizardo withdraws from Pete Tong remix over dispute with John Summit
- "Paul really misses being in a band": Keith Richards comments on relationship with Beatles legend
- AlphaTheta’s new all-in-one DJ rig aims to provide “a natural transition from home DJing to club environments”
- "The game is gone… this is not a Super Bowl": Justin Bieber to join line-up for FIFA's World Cup final halftime show
- "Although Dylan showed me what I wanted to be, Syd Barrett showed me how I could be it. And I actually wound up sounding like John Lennon": cult rocker Robyn Hitchcock opens up about unique career
- “I just had shivers right up my spine. I couldn’t wait to actually get in and record it”: Bonnie Tyler on the classic song for which she will always be remembered
- "You are a rock star, young lady": How a Thai teenager blew away America's Got Talent audience covering a '90s rock classic
- “The wood is only wood until it arrives in a master’s hands”: Eric Church teams up with Epiphone for the Hummingbird Dark – and toasts this sweet collab with a whiskey finished in toasted maple from Gibson offcuts
- "Great to see Larry behind the kit": U2 release single 'Street of Dreams' ahead of first new album in nine years
- July 8
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- “I’ve actually performed it with him, and I’m afraid to say that during the soundcheck, I broke down”: The story behind The Beach Boys’ timeless masterpiece God Only Knows, a Brian Wilson co-creation that had a profound emotional impact on Paul McCartney
- “One day I was in an elevator with Miles Davis and he said, ‘Hey, do you got a wah wah yet?’ ‘No, I don’t play a wah wah.’ He says, ‘You gotta get a wah wah!’”: Carlos Santana on Miles and McLaughlin, Hendrix and SRV, and his quest for eternal melody
- "He's not a great keyboard player, he doesn't write great songs. His engineering and technical abilities are limited too. In fact, he knows very little about an awful lot": The Edge on Brian Eno and how he influenced his own "limited" guitar style
- "You can just tell when someone lives and breathes music. There’s just a lot of heart in the way that he plays": Courtney Barnett pays tribute to special artistry of Chili Pepper collaborator
- “The most powerful delay pedal ever”: Strymon supercharges its flagship delay with an all-new reverb engine, a five-minute looper and more – meet the TimeLine MX
- “We knew it didn’t need another lyric, so I just went ‘la, la, la…’”: The songwriting theory and modest gear behind Kylie Minogue’s 2001 pop gem
- "Lately I have felt so disconnected from everything. I have felt in pain a lot and I don't know why": Artists and fans shower Yungblud with love after emotional response to "industry plant" accusations
- “I spent hours in the studio on this one song. Pummelled it to death! I probably spent $10,000 trying to get it to work”: Joe Satriani on his biggest waste of money, his most humiliating review, and what he taught Kirk Hammett
- “Seeing my signature model in Shoreline Gold gives it a completely fresh character”: Jim Root’s made-for-metal Telecaster just got more metal as Fender gives it a makeover with a finish from the golden era
- "This is humans versus machines, and today, the humans are rising": The tribute group formed to rival AI band Velvet Sundown
- July 7
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- "They are the blueprint. Punk rock wouldn't be what it is today without them": Star-studded show to mark 50th anniversary of Ramones' debut album announced
- “He called me in ’87 and said, ‘There’s this band from America called Guns N’ Roses. They’re really good. We should take them on tour with us’”: Billy Duffy recalls the shenanigans and stupidity of The Cult’s tour with Axl & Co as their opening act
- “By fracturing, stretching, and reshaping your signal in unexpected ways, it encourages experimentation and rewards curiosity”: Walrus Audio’s Lüm is a feature-stacked “Texture Machine” for when your tone feels predictable
- “In the ’80s, MTV buttered our bread. But after Kurt Cobain wore his grandfather’s sweater in the video for Smells Like Teen Spirit, there was no place on MTV for bands like us and Mötley Crüe”: The life and death of the thinking person’s hair metal band
- "Diversity is a lie": Morrissey launches bizarre tirade against BBC over new single Notre-Dame
- "Absurd, frivolous and harassing": Taylor Swift wins copyright lawsuit over her song lyrics after long legal battle
- "Transcription Studio promises to turn audio into notated transcriptions, lead sheets and guitar tabs – but does it actually work?": Klang.io Transcription Studio review
- “When he sang the chorus for the first time, I just said, ‘No, you can’t do that – it sounds ridiculous!’”: The classic 2000s hit inspired by Queen and Def Leppard – with not one but two killer guitar solos
- Do you know that there's a right and wrong way to hold a guitar pick? How to best handle your plectrum while playing
- “These are better sine waves. They just are”: We meet the people using test equipment to make music
- July 6
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- “With a gritty textured edge to its fuzz/distortion, this is a pedal for big riffs and endless sustain”: Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi 2 Dual Op-Amp Fuzz review
- “His son actually cleared the sample. I don’t know of him ever approving a sample - it’s quite rare, so I was very honored”: James Blake on sampling Leonard Cohen for Death of Love
- “The percentage of explicit songs on Spotify’s Top 50 chart has fallen from 74% in 2018 to 13% today”: New data reveals that explicit lyrics are in decline - but why?
- “It’s a transcendental collision between American prog rock and Thai folk charm, straight from rural Phetchabun”: How Khun Narin pioneered Thai sound system rock using former US military loudspeakers
- “With both Swim and Please, after the initial hour or two of writing, I took a step outside, listened to them and they felt special”: We speak to Tyler Spry about producing and co-writing for K-pop sensations BTS
- “We were on tour with Linkin Park when Chester Bennington got hold of Ivan and told him, ‘Bro, you’re going to rehab right now. You can do it’”: Zoltan Bathory recalls the intervention that saved Five Finger Death Punch and the life of singer Ivan Moody
- “I’m very excited by AI if the person using it is also creative and not just lazy”: We catch up with Swedish house legend John Dahlbäck
- “I know we’re making twice as much money as Metallica, but can you please put ’em on after us, because they’re killing us?”: How a hair metal band’s dream gig turned into a nightmare
- “It’s one of those moments - and it doesn’t happen very often - where the hair stands up on the back of your neck. You just know that this is going to be a huge song”: How Eminem made the ultimate motivational anthem
- July 5
- July 4
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- “Listening to him had an effect on me similar to what I might feel if I were to meet an alien from outer space”: How Eric Clapton’s mission to spread the blues gospel was the making of the first guitar ‘god’
- “You could do a medley of It’s a Sin with The Final Countdown by Europe; in fact, I don’t know why we haven’t done that”: How the Pet Shop Boys took on the church with their most iconic, most “heavy metal” song
- “I can’t stand it – it feels like a cheap psychological trick”: How negative marketing in music production is destroying creativity
- July 3
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- “A strong update overall that introduces many features to boost your creativity and streamline your workflow”: Steinberg Cubase 15 review
- "For me, the real strength of the Baum Guitars Verve lies in its playability": Baum Guitars Verve review
- “I think it was a very important lyric for Michael. His lyrics were very poignant. He didn’t have to say very much, but you knew exactly what he was talking about”: The classic INXS ballad with deep meaning for Michael Hutchence
- "A compelling and well-rounded entry-level piano that prioritises accessibility and sound quality over features": Kawai CX102 digital piano review
- "John was annoyed because I didn’t say that he had written one line of this song, Taxman… I also didn’t say how I wrote two lines to Come Together or three lines to Eleanor Rigby”: George Harrison and the questions around his Beatles credits
- Everybody's got to learn sometime: It's MusicRadar's Quiz of the Week #12!
- “We’ve got a new drummer, his name is Dave, he’s the best drummer in the world!”: How Dave Grohl delivered the incredible Smells Like Teen Spirit drum track
- July 2
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- “Acoustic guitars are loud enough to use at home without an amp, so what is the point here?”: Orange Outlowd ES3 Ed Sheeran signature amp review
- “I felt kind of bad about it because I should have paid a fair price”: Kirk Hammett felt so guilty about buying Neal Schon's Les Paul on the cheap that he called him to ask if he wanted it back
- DAWs for DJs, rotary mixers and the world's first standalone motorized controller: 5 of the coolest pieces of gear we saw at Thomann's DJ Days
- AlphaTheta’s CDJ-1500X is a WiFi equipped DJ player that lets your audience vote on track requests
- “The fun had gone. The spirit had gone. That album was a final attempt to see if something could be salvaged. It couldn’t”: Why Roger Hodgson had to quit Supertramp in the ’80s – after writing and singing their biggest hits
- “He's very… Harry Stylish. That's what he is. But that's all that he is. It's very superficial”: Producer Mike Stock explains why he thinks streaming has robbed us of “iconic” stars and great pop songs
- July 1
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- “An effortlessly usable unit that delivers dynamically playable amp sounds and complementary effects”: Blackstar ID:X Floor Three review
- “I was gonna design a guitar that was for soloing specifically”: More frets equals more shred for Brandon Ellis as he unveils signature Jackson Kelly with 27 stainless steel frets and serious Seymour Duncan firepower
- Logic Pro 12.3 is here – and my favourite stock plugin just got even better
- “Rather than simply writing scary music, I wanted to express loneliness, sadness, anxiety, and the psychological aspects of fear”: We speak to video game horror soundtrack godfather Akira Yamaoka about the legacy of Silent Hill
- “He said, ‘No, no, no. Paul can do that,’ and he did it. He did exactly what was needed in like, 10 minutes”: Mick Jagger says he had to check with Andrew Watt that Paul McCartney's bass playing was "punk" enough for new Rolling Stones song Covered In You
- An EHX take on a cult Albini-approved fuzz-stortion, a single-pickup PRS, the triumphant return of Squier’s Paranormal series and more! It’s MusicRadar’s epic monthly guitar gear round-up, the June '26 edit
- “Radical” angles? Check. Phase switch? Check. Offset body? Check? Guild’s S-300 is nearly 50 years old but it’s back in stunning metallic finishes and is ready for its close-up
- "I avoid Splice as that's what everyone else uses – I prefer to dig on the internet or rip from old sample CDs": Yung Singh on his viral Boiler Room breakout and the Punjabi-influenced sounds behind debut EP Bloom
- “An affordable and flexible Neumann U47 FET-inspired mic”: Warm Audio WA-47jr SE review
- “We kept trying to write one for 20 years, but they’re not very good, to be honest”: A Skyfall of Stars, anyone? Rare Coldplay recordings are being auctioned, including their early attempt at a Bond theme
- "At this price, it is hard to find a more complete portable digital piano": Kawai ES120 digital piano review
- “I’d argue that it was the single most important thing that happened in the history of MTV, because it saved young people’s lives”: The story of Soul Asylum’s classic ’90s hit Runaway Train and its amazingly powerful video
- “I never even got as far as Riverside. But I lost her. She married some other guy. We’re still friends”: How Jimmy Webb's classic song By The Time I Get To Phoenix found the right interpreter