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May 2026

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74 articles

May 10
- “Walk on. Press a button. Leave the gear to play a song all on its own. While we piss off back to the booze in the dressing room and chortle to ourselves”: The mistakes and judicious choices that made New Order’s Blue Monday
May 9
- “It was like panning for gold. Amongst the brown murky waters, I saw this track all shiny and glimmery, shining like a big rock of gold. It said, 'Play me, play me!”: How Gorillaz deployed some sublime music theory to build their most beloved tune
- “This cop came into my dressing room. He's like Robocop – helmet, goggles, gun, handcuffs. He says, ‘Those little fellas – do you hang one of them every night?’”: Ozzy Osbourne’s outrageous tales of idiot lawmen, werewolves, chimpanzees and Paul McCartney
May 8
- “Some of the public found Genesis with Peter Gabriel a bit too strange. But there was a lot of fear about whether we could carry on without him”: How Phil Collins became the singing drummer and led Genesis from despair to superstardom
- "Until then, I’d always thought that putting tongues in mouths was disgusting, but when he gave me my first proper kiss, I did indeed ‘have to let it linger’": How the Cranberries bucked '90s trends and made the surprise hit that's become huge once again
- While everyone is mesmerised by its veiled mystery synth, Korg also sneakily launches a new effects-packed performance mixer, the NTS-4, at Superbooth
- “When I’m cooking or playing FIFA or cleaning, I’m listening to records – it’s a great time to work whilst you’re not actually working”: 5 things we learned in the studio with O'Flynn
- “I felt like I was levitating off the ground. I felt like I was in Cream in 1968. The tone was so raw, and I just said, ‘This is exactly where I want to be’”: Jared James Nichols on why he switched to Marshall amps
- "Overall performance is high enough to make you wonder if it’s really worth spending any more": Soundcore Space 2 headphones review
- “The artists are AI. I’m an AI agent. There are no humans in the creative or operational chain”: An AI run record label? Are the robots taking over?!
- Mike D of the Beastie Boys breaks silence with debut solo single, Switch Up
- “Good riffs are good riffs – and good beats or whatever. Usually those are the building blocks. But very seldom are we playing in unison”: How Tool created enigmatic, brain-bursting alternative rock with a late-’90s masterpiece
- “The tools you rely on today will keep working, and the tools you will rely on tomorrow are actively being built”: InMusic confirms Native Instruments acquisition, bringing it under the same ownership as Moog, Akai Pro and many more
- What just happened? It's MusicRadar's Quiz of the Week #5!
- MusicRadar deals of the week: Just in time for Mother's Day, we've found $700 off an unusual Gibson, $500 off a stunning Ibanez Prestige AZ2204, plus heavy savings on recording and live gear
May 7
- “A pro-quality monster with speed and firepower. Everything a headbanger could want from a metal guitar – just as long as you don’t need a neck pickup”: Jackson Pro Plus Pure Metal KE1A Kelly review
- Teenage Engineering’s EP-136 KO Sidekick is part DJ mixer, part interface, part effects unit – and surprisingly affordable
- “It was time to put all that behind us. Then he played me this one part for this new song and I was like, ‘Oh yeah’”: How Calvin Harris and Katy Perry buried the hatchet and crafted their groovetastic 2017 hit Feels
- The most mighty mini amp modelling pedal just got mightier as IK Multimedia offers full MIDI integration and wireless editing on the Tonex One+
- “This version reflects what creators told us they want from AI hardware in real musical contexts”: Project Lydia, Roland’s neural sampling stompbox, moves a step closer to becoming a product you can actually buy
- Meet the $99 stompbox that’ll crush your bits – JHS expands its affordable 3 Series with three exotic effects for your pedalboard
- Is it a filter or is it an instrument? For Erica Synths, the answer is ‘Why not both?’ as it drops Resonant Filterbank at Superbooth 2026
- Superbooth 2026: all the latest synth news from Berlin - LIVE!
- Three years in the making, Bastl Instruments’ quirky Kalimba is a fusion of traditional instrument design and state-of-the-art internals: “Treat it like an acoustic instrument, it will answer like one”
- "The drum machine we would want to use and own ourselves": Polyend Drums combines the best of analogue and digital
- “Blackbox 2 is heir to its own portable sampler throne”: 1010music updates its sampling workstation with a better screen, onboard battery and USB audio streaming
- On the first day of Superbooth, Modal bring expressive synthesis without the complex learning curve with the lightweight Element One: “It doesn’t ask you to learn the rules; it dares you to play”
May 6
- “Built on the rhythmic and pitch drift of legendary drum machines”: Sonicware Deconstruct Minimal is a hardware groovebox designed for ‘hypnotic minimal grooves’
- Eddie Van Halen-approved baked maple necks? Check. Flagship pickups? Check. EVH Gear unveils stunning refresh of the Wolfgang Special
- “An inspiring ideas machine that trades technical theory for intuitive workflow”: Telepathic Instruments Orchid ORC-1 review
- “This is quite a hard guitar to categorise – and perhaps Jacob Collier likes it that way... For the right player, though, it could be the key to experiencing guitar anew”: Taylor Jacob Collier GS Mini 5-String review
- “No compromises. No shortcuts. Just pure, hands-on sampling and sound design”: Kiviak Instruments promises to bring the old-school sampling fun for less with the cut-price WoFi LE
- “Over the past 24 hours, I’ve received hundreds of messages about my current situation. So yes, it’s official: I’ve made the move”: Jared James Nichols switches to Marshall amps
- "It's time to go. It’s like, you're Gwen Stefani. You don't need No Doubt. You're going to be amazing, right?”: What Linda Perry told Gwen Stefani as she channelled the star's negative energy into her explosive debut single
- “The whole thing was so exciting for me – to actually have control of my baby for the first time. I was very nervous, too – because you really wonder if you’re capable”: How Kate Bush created a classic single and became a completely self-sufficient auteur
- “Ringo was from the Dingle, and that was well hard. He said he used to get mugged coming home, because he worked. Even though it was crazy, it was home to us”: Paul McCartney talks about his nostalgic duet with Ringo
- No knobs? No problem – Sterling By Music Man takes bass guitar design minimalism to its logical conclusion with the super-cool Joe Dart Vision
- “I wasn't allowed to do that when I was on a label. They saw success in one song, and they thought, ‘We've got to replicate that’”: Emily Burns on shunning the majors and the freedom of becoming a self-releasing artist
- You’ve seen Fender’s Godzilla Strat, now here the comes the pedal – and it’s a monster op-amp distortion with city-levelling tone (and a seriously cool graphic finish)
- “I think this is the one, after years of toiling in obscurity. This is their time”: Stones launch Foreign Tongues in Brooklyn with Conan O’Brien
- “Then I see the security guard person is eyeing me and it looks like I’m shoplifting when I’m doing the opposite”: Dave Grohl talks about hiding CDRs of the new Foos album around Southern California
May 5
- “If this is the future of guitar, then sign me up”: Strandberg Boden Original N2.6T review
- A sub-$600 shred machine with active EMGs and roasted flame maple neck? Harley Benton expands its Pro Series with 41 hot-rodded but affordable S-styles
- This one-button synth could be the wildest idea to come out of Superbooth 2026
- Julian Lage wants to teach you guitar! The jazz virtuoso announces multi-day masterclass “diving deeply into everything” guitar
- “These songs are played a lot. They’re often not played well”: Top 10 riffs played in-store at Guitar Center revealed
- Ableton Live 12.4 is out now, with Link Audio and updated Erosion, Delay and Chorus-Ensemble devices
- “That song casts such a huge shadow over everything that we’ve done. It’s difficult, but it’s not like I have to beat it": How Johnny Rzeznik overcame writer's block to pen the Goo Goo Dolls' Iris, then saw it become the soundtrack to '90s nostalgia
- Got some loose change? Well, it might just be the starting point of your next electronic masterpiece if you stack it atop Soma’s Enigma – the synth that's controlled by metal objects
- “Isolate or remove instruments from any song… Remove the guitar and step into the player’s shoes”: With AI stem separation, component-level modelling, and access to 200,000+ neural captures, Blackstar says the Beam Mini “redefines” the desktop amp
- “I don’t recognise that name”: What Kacey Musgraves was told when she asked for her album in Walmart… dressed as an armadillo
- “All through our set, pimply-faced young boys wearing Iron Maiden shirts would be giving us the middle finger”: How Stone Temple Pilots fought their way to the top – inspired by Jane’s Addiction and championed by Dave Mustaine
- “I asked Sean and he said, ‘Oh, he would’ve wanted to engage’”: Steven Soderbergh on his John Lennon doc and its use of AI
- “An ‘instrument’ rather than a ‘synthesizer’”: Buchla Ziggy is a desktop analogue West Coast synth available for (just) under $1000
- First Madonna at Coachella, now Stevie Nicks at the Met Gala: when it comes to duetting with music legends, Sabrina Carpenter is winning by a landslide
May 4
- “He let me into the basement with all his secret stuff and he had 10 Dumbles down there. It was the biggest collection I’ve ever seen in person!” Jake Kiszka on the time he went shopping for the world’s most expensive guitar amp in Japan
- “You don’t get the sale price - you’re going to pay the full $150”: Thinking of making your next music tech purchase on a rent-to-own plan? Read this first
May 3
- “Back in the ’70s he got up with us and played Train Kept A-Rollin’. That was amazing, but of course I was intimidated. He’s a genius. He’s Mozart!”: Joe Perry salutes his guitar heroes Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck
- “A bit of EQ tweaking with the Bad setting will get it sounding like a viable substitute for a Klon... there’s a world of drive to be explored”: DOD Badder Monkey review
May 2
- “I love writing songs. I love being in the studio. I love touring. That stuff’s the greatest. All the rest of it is literally the worst thing you could experience”: Why an underground hero is calling time on one of 21st-century metal's greatest bands
- “It's basically like, stream of consciousness, endless pouring out of emotion, intrusive thoughts, blended with metaphor, with discussion, with shouting”: Taylor Swift explains the songwriting trick that she and Jack Antonoff have used multiple times
- “One is the archetypal vintage workhorse, the other aims to be a hot-rodded example that any custom builder might devise”: Fender 75th Anniversary Vintera Road Worn 1951 Telecaster & American Professional Classic Cabronita Telecaster review
- “It was too successful really - we weren’t cut out for it. We were fish out of water”: How the Boo Radleys wrote one of the most optimistic radio hits of the ‘90s, with fresh insight from its singer
May 1
- “The synths only let you play one note at a time, which was great as we couldn’t play chords anyway”: How Depeche Mode launched their career with one of the most important synth-pop records ever released
- “I don’t think it’s normal to have the same collaborators over and over": Jack Antonoff says he has no problem with not being involved on Taylor Swift’s latest album, The Life Of A Showgirl
- “David Lynch used to refer to it as firewood - how ideas are just fuel and if they’re getting in your way, then burn them”: Johnny Jewel on his relationship with synths and working with David Lynch
- Is Beyonce about to release a rock album with a guest appearance from Stevie Nicks? A Bootylicious video callback has fans speculating
- “I was driving and I had to pull over to the side of the road - it blew my mind. It was a shock": Brian Wilson was obsessed with Be My Baby - this is its story
- "I don't know what half those knobs do up there, but you know, I just fiddle with them until they make the right sounds”: Howard Jones takes you on a tour of the synth he’s owned since 1983
- “I guess they can’t sue us because I’m writing about it after it happened”: How Pearl Jam created a powerful signature song inspired by a real-life tragedy
- What just happened? It's MusicRadar's Quiz of the Week #4!
- “From underground beats to high-stakes espionage, get ready to turn the speakers up”: Chase & Status sign up for new James Bond video game
- The ultimate synth shoot-out 2026: Hardware classics vs. their software successors - but can you really tell which is which?
- “I wasn't prepared for what I saw that night”: How a classic song recorded live in London set Bob Marley on the path to global superstardom