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April 2026

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127 articles

April 21
- “We reject Eurovision being used to whitewash and normalise Israel’s genocide, siege and brutal military occupation against Palestinians”: Brian Eno, Paul Weller, Massive Attack and others call for Israel to be kicked out of Eurovision
- “Prince invited us to Paisley Park studios to jam – and he’s playing guitar and piano at the same time! You can’t compete with that”: No Doubt were thrilled to work with Prince – but their first meeting with him was a humbling experience
- No rig? No problem – this website lets guitarists design amps and effects tones by text prompt
- “The features on this bad boy are very different”: Budget gear giant Harley Benton goes high-end for BassTheWorld signature bass
- “I have carried this song with me for so many years. To now hear his version, shared for the very first time, feels truly special”: Celine Dion reacts to the release of Prince’s version of With This Tear, the song he gave to her back in 1992
- "It’s been a very long time in the making": U-he releases Zebra 3 after more than a decade of development
- “I’m hoping and praying that some kind soul will find these items and reach out”: Madonna lost her clothes at Coachella over the weekend
- "Don't play scales just to get faster. Speed is a happy by-product of playing more accurately": Beginner Guitar Lessons - nailing scales
April 20
- “It’s like… what do you do after that? I need a drink”: Sabrina Carpenter sings Like A Prayer with Madonna at Coachella, as Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, Billy Idol, Steve Stevens, Zara Larsson and SZA also deliver second weekend cameos
- “We strongly believe that in the coming years, writing code manually won't be a thing. What will be left is the fun stuff”: Inside the new wave of AI tools turning prompts into plugins
- “I was like, ‘Oh my God, he graffitied on this shirt. Am I going to go out in this shirt that has this thing on it?’”: Olivia Rodrigo reveals Robert Smith's Glastonbury prank, and says she didn’t play her Cure-referencing new single to him
- “I’m curious about this new technology”: Jose González has collaborated with ChatGPT on his new album
- Tame Impala's synth company releases Pistil companion app for Orchid
April 19
- “I said to the band, ‘The good news is that we’ve got a hit, but the bad news is that you’re not on it!'”: The surprising story of the Blow Monkeys’ AIDS crisis-inspired Digging Your Scene, with new insight from its writer
- “Lately I’ve been trying to think, ‘Where could you go with guitar if you decided there were no limitations at all?’” Eric Johnson on the $400,000 rig he hardly played, the Dumble that got away, and his masterplan for setting his playing free
April 18
- "We get so many requests from people wanting to use our tracks but we normally say no. This is only the second time we have given permission”: How Madonna created a dancefloor classic - with a sample that other artists could only dream of using
- “When I was growing up, there was peer pressure on you to conform to be a certain way. And as an English boy at the time, you’re encouraged not to show your emotion”: How the young Robert Smith created one of The Cure’s definitive songs
April 17
- “We’re pirates really, just plundering then moving on”: Re-create the sound of the powerful Where’s Your Head At bassline - which Basement Jaxx nabbed from Numan!
- “He hummed the initial melody for When Doves Cry into my answerphone – saying, ‘Don’t erase this!’ – so he’d remember it”: Prince’s Purple Rain co-star recalls the moment he had the idea for one of his greatest songs
- “A man walked into the party with a big long scarf. He looked at the mirror, whisked his scarf around his neck and tilted his hat slightly to the left. I thought, ‘Wow, he’s really vain’”: The No 1 song that propelled Carly Simon to stardom
- "This is the closest thing I've had to a religious experience in a long time": Boards of Canada are back with their first new music in 13 years
- “You know all the words to Just Like Heaven, and I know why he wrote them now”: Olivia Rodrigo still has The Cure’s Robert Smith on her mind on new single, Drop Dead
- You might want to open a window before using The Crow Hill Company's filthy new synth, but Radiohead and Aphex Twin fans should give it a sniff
- MusicRadar deals of the week: We've found $200 off an accessible Yamaha turntable, $100 off an iconic Korg synth and healthy discounts on guitars and much more
- It's MusicRadar's Quiz of the Week #2!
- “Reverb, delay, chorus and even Bluetooth capabilities right at your fingertips”: Yamaha expands TransAcoustic lineup with more guitars that look like regular acoustics but are anything but
April 16
- "As a vocalist, every word I sing in the Van Halen songbook, I wrote. I wrote every line, every melody, every harmony stack. For better or worse, if you're singing it – Roth was bringing it": David Lee Roth has clarified his creative role in Van Halen
- “I was already a fan, but after that I just had so much empathy for her and her humanity and of course her talent”: Anne Hathaway on what changed her opinion of Taylor Swift – and how she inspired her while playing a “dominant pop presence” in Mother Mary
- One of our favourite Les Pauls just got more affordable as Gibson gives limited run Double Trouble the Studio treatment – but is it the more versatile guitar?
- Splice launches generative AI tools that fairly compensate sample creators
- “I can get the best voice from AI. I don’t need anybody to sing the song anymore”: Diplo urges musicians critical of AI to “adapt or just give up and become an Uber driver”
April 15
- “These rare birds combine period-accurate features with some modern twists”: Gretsch's exquisite, limited run Penguin and Falcon are a pair of fine-feathered guitars to crow about
- “The ability to save multiple scenes for content creation, podcasting, and other creative endeavours makes it a very powerful interface indeed”: Yamaha URX44V review
- “I’d become involved in an anti-drug programme in New York. So in my mind I had to write that song. But oh, it was terrible! It was laughed at”: The crazy song that Neil Diamond wishes he hadn’t written
- “They’re built to move, pushing feel, sound and style forward”: Epiphone’s Futura Series reimagines Gibson classics with Chromashift finishes, all-new ProBucker Ignite humbuckers – and stainless steel frets as standard
- “Evidently not content with redefining what was technically possible on the guitar, he also managed to rewrite pretty much the whole of music theory”: How Allan Holdsworth blew Eddie Van Halen’s mind and inspired the next generation of virtuosos
- “I think it's one of the greatest pop songs ever made. It makes me feel nostalgic, but also if it came out yesterday, it would be an absolute smash”: Dua Lipa’s favourite Britney Spears song was a massive hit, but the writing process was "torture"
- Universal Audio is giving away eight of its most popular plugins for free in the UAD Explore FREE bundle
- “I was always uneasy about the fact that it was a bright, perky pop song about a nuclear holocaust, but it was insanely catchy”: How OMD recorded one of the best anti-war songs ever made
April 14
- Moog celebrates the legacy of its founder with special limited-edition reissue of the Minimoog Model D - but only 500 will be made
- “We set out to capture the defining moments that shaped Fender’s legacy”: Historic neck profiles, reverse-engineered pickups – Fender’s Vintera III series promises historically accurate specs and “golden era” tones for all
- "I started getting all these Google alerts about this group Bon Iver, because Justin Vernon was shouting me out in the press”: Bruce Hornsby explains how he first heard about Bon Iver, and reveals the song of theirs that he considers to be “transcendent”
- “Lyndon was not only a founder, but also a creator and innovator”: UK amp pioneer Lyndon Laney has died, aged 77
- We’re getting excited about this mysterious new keyboard from Auxy and Cuckoo
- “I wasn't sure about it. And then we started playing it in rehearsals, and some of my band were like, ‘This one's good, you know’”: Olivia Dean says that her biggest hit “wasn’t supposed to be a single”, and names the Motown legend who inspires her
- “She sang like an angel. She walked through this world like an angel, and now she’s back with her own kind”: Bono and others pay tribute to Clannad singer Moya Brennan
- “I was in the restroom when Isaac called out, ‘Come on, David, get out of there.’ I yelled back, ‘Hey man, hold on, I’m coming!’ Before I even buttoned my pants, it hit me”: How a classic Stax soul anthem was written on the fly
- “Ever since I was a little kid and singing in the shower I'd dream about one day being in the RnR hall of fame”: Oasis to be inducted into the Hall Of Fame and Liam Gallagher seems… delighted
- “Tours are so brutal and taxing, and I like to have a puppy room for the guys to go chill in”: Trailer for Billie Eilish’s 3D James Cameron-directed concert film is out and contains some unexpected canine chums
April 13
- "It's giving let's smoke and watch YouTube": Zara Larsson clarifies her thoughts on Justin Bieber's divisive Coachella set, as fans compare and contrast it to Sabrina Carpenter's
- “Some of these recordings, on crappy little cassette tapes from the early '90s, sound incredible”: Meet the fan who has recorded over 10,000 gigs and is now letting everyone download the audio
- “Joni hates the word ‘confessional’ as she thinks it implies you’ve done something wrong”: Brandi Carlile names her favourite Joni Mitchell album – and hails Joni’s 1971 classic as a record that “changed songwriting forever”
- "The good news is, I can still play music. I can still play guitar": No Doubt guitarist Tom Dumont reveals that he has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease
- “I began writing a song in my head about the drudgery of being an astronaut. An entire verse fell out of my mind and onto the page”: The classic song that transformed Elton John into a global superstar
- “Is it cool if I bring some rock royalty on the stage right now?”: Billy Corgan suffers mic malfunction as he makes his first ever appearance at Coachella alongside Sombr to sing a Smashing Pumpkins classic
- “Let It Happen is prog in its purest form. I stand by that one as decidedly progressive”: The inventive music theory of one of Tame Impala’s most dazzling songs
April 12
- “It has a super catchy riff, but it is a song that you have to hear a few times. I don’t think it would’ve been given the time of day without the enormous impact of the video”: How to recreate one of the most infectious synth riffs of all time
- “It’s not really about a blackbird whose wings are broken, you know”: The story of the Beatles' 1968 acoustic gem and its powerful subtext
April 11
- “When the computer came along, the magic was over because we didn’t play together anymore”: How technology ultimately killed Kraftwerk
- “It makes my productivity faster, better, more creative”: 5 production tips we learned from watching house producer Hammer create a track from scratch
- “It was the way for me to learn to approach the guitar a different way, because Jeff Beck was not an early influence”: Robben Ford on rearranging John Lennon, iconic collaborations and paying tribute to Jeff Beck and amp guru Alexander Dumble
- “It’s like you are witnessing the fading of your own memories”: How Boards of Canada brewed a serene genre-blurring classic
April 10
- "Danelectro’s finishing falls noticeably short of what the market now expects at this level": Danelectro Dan O. Cool 12 String review
- "Record everything all the time – and keep it all": 8 pro techno producers explain how they create their tracks
- “It was too long, too slow, too boring and it had a viola solo... It was the antithesis of a single”: Midge Ure talks us through the making of Ultravox’s iconic Vienna
- Hip-hop progenitor Afrika Bambaataa dies at 68
- Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan on her bad guitar habits: “I have so many!”
April 9
- It's MusicRadar's Quiz of the Week!
- “Own a piece of grunge history”: Could your next amp be Kurt Cobain’s stage-played Fender Twin? Nirvana’s Bleach-era touring backline goes up for sale
- “The story he’s never told — the band, the fame, the heartbreak, the healing. And yes, the astrology”: Tears For Fears’ Roland Orzabal writes his first-ever autobiography and it's an astrological memoir
- Calling all guitarists! Guitar Center's legendary Guitar-A-Thon sale has finally dropped including up to $700 off a Gibson - here's 9 of the best deals selected by an expert
- SampleRadar: 250 free bass synth samples
- “He struck it big, and we were all green with envy. It was terrible: we fell out for about six months. It was ‘He’s doing much better than I am.’”: When T. Rex opened the floodgates of glam rock with the riff-driven groove of Get It On
- “Because it is my neck and brain, our hands are tied”: Phoebe Lunny reveals neck fracture and "acute brain injury" forcing Lambrini Girls to pull out of Coachella
- “They’ve been turning up unexpectedly at random people’s houses”: Cryptic VHS tapes mailed to fans hints at a Boards of Canada revival
- "It's the DAW you love, redesigned around the only thing that matters – your tracks": Reason 14 launches in public beta
- “We are about to do something insane… and you're the designer!”: Guitar Center is launching its own guitar brand and it wants players’ input with its design
- “It’s blasphemy on about ten levels at once”: How Madonna transitioned from pop to the profound with the Vatican-enraging Like a Prayer
April 8
- “What I will say is the Cable Tone feature is too good to turn off”: Blackstar AirWire i58 guitar wireless system review review
- “Easily one of the most inspirational and accessible Elektrons we've used”: Elektron Tonverk review
- “Always a pleasure to host BFG in my office, and even better when he decides to take one of my CEO builds on tour!” Gibson CEO Cesar Gueikian has made a stunning custom Explorer – and Billy Gibbons is playing it onstage with ZZ Top
- "It's unlocked a new sound and side to my writing": Misha Mansoor reveals signature Jackson Custom Shop Baritone Surfcaster
- "This is the beginning of a more ambitious journey": Elektron acquired by investment company Bonnier Capital
- “It’s become one of our favorite woods to work with”: PRS launches 6 limited mango top guitars
- “I was a little uncomfortable, to be honest. I gradually convinced myself that it was okay”: Myles Kennedy on what it was like to play Jeff Buckley’s Telecaster – and how he felt unworthy to play it
- "There isn't one correct answer": 6 things you need you need know about how to clean and condition your guitar fretboard
- “He said, ‘Yeah, you know, it’s kind of harder to play that way’, but he just loved the way it sounded”: Eric Johnson on why pick choice and picking style are fundamental to your playing – and how his favourite jazz player got his sound by using his thumb
- “Japan was part of the zeitgeist - we were on the BBC, in the tabloid newspapers and part of culture”: We speak to Japan and Porcupine Tree synth polymath Richard Barbieri
- "He started trying to play chords on it and he said ‘Malcolm! Bob! What’s wrong with this instrument? It only plays one note at a time!’": Dissecting the musical magic of Superstition, the song Stevie Wonder just couldn’t let go
- Universal Music Group, home to Taylor Swift, Drake, Elton John and other stars receives record $63bn buyout offer
- DrumBot is an AI-powered chatbot drum machine that “listens, learns and talks back” – but who is it for?
April 7
- Wireless Festival cancelled and tickets refunded after UK Government blocks Kanye West’s entry
- “Six room sizes, a gated reverb patch and a reverse reverb patch for your consideration”: Catalinbread launches compact reverb pedal with inspired by the Neil Young and Daft Punk-approved Alesis Microverb
- "The truth is that your studio has as much potential to get in the way of your creativity as it does to unlock it": 5 creativity-boosting studio workflow tips
- “I hate to break it to you, but your favourite artist records my old songs”: Sky Ferreira seemingly fires shots at Charli xcx on social media
- “I absolutely hate synthesizers. They're really bad - horrible. I can take their existence from a live point of view now, but if they didn't exist, I'd be delighted”: The surprising music theory that underpinned a Talk Talk classic
- “There was a back door to the studio that led out to the street. I went out and I'm not kidding you, but this guy pops out of a trash can – it was Ginger Baker!”: Jimmy Douglass on his early days working for Atlantic Records
- “He’s plugged a Les Paul Columbus in 40 years ago at maximum volume and now his ears are done”: Gary Numan claims to be “90% deaf”
- “The beat goes on, but the pocket will never be the same": Bandmates, friends and stars pay tribute to James Gadson
April 6
- "There's something about it that you just don't get with soft synths": Jasper Tygner on why he loves his Moog Grandmother
- “We're all fragile little creatures. You sit down, lick your wounds and think - is there any point in going through this whole process again?”: We speak to Midge Ure
- “He would blow in and say, ‘I don’t like the horns. Take them out. We’ll do more later. Okay, bye.’ Then he’d return later. ‘Oh I love it! Do more harmonies!’”: The genius of Giorgio Moroder in an ’80s classic
- “I can’t believe I did that. I wish I still had it”: Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan on her beloved red Strat she sold for just $25
April 5
- “It feels more like a DIY creator building something weird for themselves”: Beetronics Pollinator Hazee Delay review
- “I’m not anybody’s best guitar player. I’m not the fastest, the most knowledgeable, the shreddiest. I’m none of those things. But I play and it sounds like me”: Mark Morton on the chemistry behind Lamb Of God's twin-guitar groove and what he owes ZZ Top
- “We were very secretive about the song title. It was such a great idea and we didn’t want anyone else to know about it. So for a long time we called the song Burger King!”: The story of controversial ’90s pop banger Barbie Girl
- “I knew my folk music would take off, if I put hip-hop beats behind it”: How one song turned the self-confessed “worst rapper in the world” into an alt-rock icon
April 4
- “Rick had a lot of pain in him and it came out in his more cynical songs, while the hurting and questioning in The Logical Song came from me”: How Roger Hodgson and Supertramp fought their way to the top – and how the multi-million-selling band imploded
- SampleRadar: 142 free yacht rock samples
- “Ken, our producer said ‘Look up there lads, look at the stars’. He literally said ‘Look at the stars’”: The fateful circumstances that led to Coldplay’s biggest ever song
- “Look at AC/DC. Whatever was popular, it didn’t matter. It’s like McDonald’s. ‘We make the Big Mac and we make fries and we don’t care about doing sushi’”: Zakk Wylde on musical identity, jailhouse rocking with Ozzy and the return of Black Label Society
- "They refused it and told me, either change the beat, change the tempo, take the talking out, take the whistling out, or we won't release it”: How Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo had to fight to release their 1983 classic
April 3
- “There was this guy who lived in the dorm, he was a great friend and an awesome artist and he actually made cool music with the computer, and it was like… ‘wait, you can do that?’”: Flying Lotus on early musical adventures, AI and more
- “Anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic. But because it is sugarcoated, it is accepted”: The song John Lennon called “the best I've ever written” – and Yoko Ono’s uncredited contribution
- “Mac’s death was an extremely traumatic experience for me. That was definitely a very key element and fundamental in my sobriety”: Thundercat on how losing Mac Miller made him change his life
April 2
- “He obviously wanted to do something like that for Billie Jean and he did his own version of that groove”: John Oates agrees with Daryl Hall that I Can’t Go For That was the inspiration for one of Michael Jackson’s greatest hits
- "We didn't sit there and go, 'Let's make an album that's going to last 45 years or become a cornerstone of some rock music.' We were just having a great time”: Vinny Appice remembers his time with Ronnie James Dio
- “I spent my entire career searching for this, but it didn’t exist – so I built it for myself”: Can this $149 deck of cards help you write better songs?
- "She goes, 'No, I want to play you the songs on my guitar. Let's just go out to the parking lot, and I'll sit in the back of your truck’”: Back in 2006, a “fearless” Taylor Swift took a hands-on approach to getting her music played on the radio
- “Who the F are the Cockroaches?”: Just the greatest rock n’ roll band in the world… perhaps
April 1
- This free plugin captures the shrill and squeaky sound of the most irritating musical instrument known to man... just in time for April Fool’s Day
- “Oh, wow! See, that’s something I only do on stage. That’s not a part of the record”: Lindsey Buckingham reacts to TikTok covers of Fleetwood Mac’s Never Going Back Again, and says one of them is “better than I do it”
- “Our intention is that, at the end of the program, the listener will find himself alone, in hell”: Archive footage from 1983 reveals the BBC Radiophonic Workshop’s chilling plan to put a modernised musical spin on Dante’s Inferno
- “If you love Hendrix, Jack White, Gary Clark Jr, Beck, Black Keys, or the octave fuzz on John Mayer’s Belief – you already know you want this”: JHS Pedals’ turns loose the Coyote, a fuzz pedal tribute to a “lost” cult classic and its maker
- “Just like when you get a new distortion pedal it makes you want to play guitar, I wanted that same feeling for DB-30”: XLN Audio wants to put the fun back in drum processing with DB-30 Drum Butter
- “Seeing people actually make music with mayonnaise and turning it into a real track has been wild. It shouldn’t work, but somehow it does”: A British university just classified mayonnaise as an instrument. And this isn’t an April Fool
- “Each effect has been recreated using detailed component-level modeling, faithfully capturing the behaviour of the original analogue circuitry”: Electro-Harmonix launches six of its most-famous pedals as plugins