Features archive
October 2025
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40 articles
- October 22
- October 21
- October 20
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- “I went to the label and said, ‘This song sucks. This is not the song I wrote.’ They said it sounded fine. I did not agree”: When a songwriter went to war with her producer and record company over the track that became a ’90s anthem
- “In the hands of lesser musicians, this would simply sound sloppy. In D'Angelo's hands, it’s perfectly imperfect – the precise right amount of wrong”: A music professor breaks down the genius of D'Angelo
- “I would come into the studio with my guitar and notepad and people didn’t want to listen to me. They tried to just give me songs – and I hated that”: Avril Lavigne’s fight to create the smash hit that would inspire Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish
- October 19
- October 18
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- "She was in that cavewoman outfit, doing her dance with a big wig and the two dancers going at it. I’m like: ‘This is really not me.’”: Heaven 17 on their unlikely role in Tina Turner’s comeback
- “Each of our albums had a synth that really excited us. The first was a Prophet ‘08, the second was the MS-20, and this time the Moog Matriarch is on every track”: Maribou State on Hallucinating Love
- “For about three days, just listening to this thing, I was looking at Kevin and the other two guys saying ’What have we created? This is brilliant’“: The difficult bossa nova birth and enduring brilliance of 10CC’s I’m Not In Love
- October 17
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- “All I did was crank it up to 10 and start to rock and roll. When you stand in front of a Marshall stack and crank it, nothing sounds better!”: The 10 greatest Ace Frehley songs from his glory days with Kiss
- “That song wanted to be written! You don’t plan something like that”: Nena speaks to us about the making of her era-defining classic 99 Red Balloons
- “When the record company heard it, they said, ’This is a number one smash record. Let’s not put it on a B-side and lose it’”: The low-budget recording story of one of Madonna’s most iconic hits
- “We lost our minds at various stages of this”: How the Avalanches gradually constructed the stunning follow-up to Since I Left You over 16 years
- October 16
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- “I said, 'Fred, I don't know if this is going to be possible to sing,' And he went, 'I'll do it, darling’ - downed a vodka, and went in and killed it”: How Freddie Mercury took on death itself for Queen’s majestic final single
- Just why are some producers so obsessed with tape?
- “It’s the sound of a pro-level studio within a tiny, portable shell”: IK Multimedia’s new ARC ON·EAR finally allows headphone-based producers to mix with a pro studio sound, wherever they are
- October 15
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- “All contemporary pop utilising computers and samplers owes something to the innovations of Trevor Horn”: How Trevor Horn’s anonymous electronic group - the Art of Noise - revolutionised sample culture
- Singular Sound’s BeatBuddy 2 is here, your drummer just got an upgrade
- “We said, ‘We’re calling the band Leonard Skinner!’ And everybody laughed and clapped and thought it was cool. So we kept it”: The early days of Lynyrd Skynyrd recalled by legendary guitarist Gary Rossington
- “You don't need all the latest plugins and everything else. I think that my best instrument is the mind”: Adam F on making '90s DnB classic Colours
- “The average upright contains around 12,000 parts - and 80% of those are moving”: How to record a real piano perfectly
- October 14
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- “I never realised just how difficult it was for Alex. He had to rethink everything”: When Geddy Lee’s obsession with synthesizers made Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson feel sidelined in his own band
- How Beck and Nigel Godrich’s “simple and clean” philosophy produced one of the best-sounding albums of the 21st century
- “Everybody knew Jeff was a great drummer. It was the same when I joined The Who to replace Kenney Jones – and when I was with Mick Jagger, playing the Stones tunes that Charlie played”: How Simon Phillips succeeded in replacing Jeff Porcaro in Toto
- October 13
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- “Before we knew it we had a sound no one had ever heard before”: How David Bowie created one of the greatest songs of all time via a range of innovative recording techniques
- “It's an arcane 18th century German form of rap. I really enjoy it because it's an opportunity to say some quite bizarre things that I wouldn't necessarily be able to sing about”: The inside story of the Gorillaz classic Feel Good Inc.
- “A user-friendly investment into a world-class monitoring arena”: Why EVE Audio’s all-new EXO Series is the ultimate modern monitoring solution
- “Dolly turned it down - and I’m glad that she did because what Kate did on it is brilliant”: How Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush brought one of the most emotive songs of the 1980s to life
- Echotown Studio: A world class recording studio in the stunning Dorset countryside
- October 10
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- "I brought the synth into the studio with Harry, flicked through the presets and there’s one called Harpoon Dream. I took the delay off and we were like… ‘yeah!’": Kid Harpoon on the Moog One preset that made Harry Styles' As It Was
- “I remember asking if there was another way of expressing whether God was ‘just a slob like one of us’ – but he insisted that line would grab people’s attention”: How a catchy and idiosyncratic track became a ’90s classic covered by Prince
- October 9
- October 8
- October 6
- October 4
- October 3
- October 2
- October 1
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- “I woke up in the morning and found John watching the sunrise and still listening to the song. It was as if we were both haunted by it”: How Yoko Ono’s disco-infused classic Walking On Thin Ice captivated John Lennon in their final, poignant collaboration
- "The 808 is still one of the sexiest drum machines ever built": Modeselektor on classic Roland gear, their new DJ-Kicks mix and why the iPhone has become their go-to instrument
- “When Ronnie sang about Neil Young in that song, that was kind of a joke lyric about him. We loved Neil Young!”: The true story of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama