Features archive

May 2025

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46 articles

May 31
- “I thought, ‘He’s given me the riff of the century!’”: The classic song that Stevie Wonder wrote for Jeff Beck — but ended up saving for himself
May 29
- “Synths are kind of like a maze you know? It can take forever to really understand them - I still don't understand synths”: Pachyman on the gear behind his characterful and sun-kissed sound
- “Whole Lotta Love was clearly the track that everybody would go to. That riff was so fresh — and it still is”: A classic interview with Jimmy Page
- “That was the last straw, really. I didn't form a group to perform Cilla Black songs”: How a frosty band meeting in a fish and chip restaurant signalled the end for the Smiths
May 28
- “It’s unfamiliar, intimidating, and seemingly impenetrable for producers raised on DAWs like Ableton Live - but it can unlock a whole new world of creativity”: I tried a music tracker and it rewired my brain (in a good way)
- “I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m here to take the New York Stock Exchange. Is that a right or a left?’ And he hits the panic button and the riot police come and the riot doors slam shut”: The day Rage Against the Machine caused chaos on Wall Street
- “I have a very identifiable voice. It’s a unique sound, the divinity of my vocal cords. So everything I built around it was to protect the integrity of that voice”: How Perry Farrell defined alternative rock with Jane’s Addiction
May 27
- “I just really needed to play this part as hard as I could, as fast as I could, or my brain would start screaming at me”: Ethan Ives on playing nasty, searching for melody and unleashing “indie Motörhead” energy on Car Seat Headrest’s epic rock opera
- “He was the only one who found it necessary to perform - which was useless”: The Beatle who had to be cut from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon
- “David Lynch said, ‘I’m using this song in a movie. Hey, why don’t we have a video?’ I said, ‘David, because I don’t have any money'”: How Chris Isaak's Wicked Game could have been lost if not for David Lynch
May 23
- “The last thing you want to do is play a widdly-widdly riff that’s getting in the way of the vocal”: Those Damn Crows’ Ian ‘Shiner’ Thomas on how to write a No.1 album, what he learned from Nirvana, and the Slipknot riff he wished he wrote
- “Don’t get too precious about your songs. We’re probably going to tear them apart”: Legendary producer Mutt Lange’s first words to the young Def Leppard
May 22
- “Algorithms have sort of turned every playlist into grocery store background music”: We speak to the maker of a game putting the humanity back into music discovery
May 21
- “On Thursday we were at number 2 – then Beyoncé beat us on the last day”: The K’s speak to us about leading the guitar band fightback
- “When he stopped, the hubbub in the studio was like, ‘Oh my god. Oh my god, what’s happening?’”: When Elvis Costello terrified Saturday Night Live by launching into an unplanned song
May 20
- “I didn’t even want it on the album. I remember a lot of people going, ‘Please, please, please’. So I said, ‘OK…’”: How Alanis Morissette created her biggest hit
May 19
- “That was a huge moment for me. It put me back in my place”: The insult that brought David Bowie down to Earth
May 17
- “Some people act like that line is nonsense, and I just don't understand that”: How the Killers’ misunderstood classic drew on a struggle with faith - and an MTV presenter’s time with Iraq war veterans
May 15
- “He went into this trance state as he played. I’d be sitting there at the console and he would lean on me while he was playing. And it was kind of weird – it was like it was coming through me”: A close encounter with the genius of Eddie Van Halen
- “I sit at my piano and watch skies moving and trees blowing and that’s far more exciting than buildings and roads and millions of people”: The strange story of the Kate Bush classic Cloudbusting
May 14
- “Mick looked peeved. The Beatles had upstaged him”: When the Beatles stole the Rolling Stones’ thunder and dropped Hey Jude at the Beggars Banquet launch party
- Underworld, Basement Jaxx, Groove Armada and William Orbit: PinkPantheress has sampled the cream of '90s and '00s UK electronic music on new mixtape, Fancy That
- “Use as a little gain as you can to get the idea across, which may still be all the gain in the world”: Periphery’s Misha Mansoor on exploring “absurd” tunings, his friends' genius, and why he is looking for someone to teach him guitar
May 13
- “I was watching an episode of Friends and someone was wearing a Motörhead T-shirt. Literally an hour later, I got a call to work on their record!”: Romesh Dodangoda on how he became one of modern rock's most in-demand producers
- “Making music is like constructing a machine whose function is to dredge up emotions in performer and listener alike”: How becoming more in-tune with our feelings when listening to music made us better creators - with a little thanks to David Byrne
- Serum 2, Pigments 6, Phase Plant, Vital and Massive X: The ultimate soft synth showdown
May 12
- “Prince was really excited and kept pumping us up, saying ‘We’re making history tonight’”: How Prince summoned one of the greatest guitar solos of all time from thin air
- "I remember in the studio thinking: ‘Oh my God, how am I going to deliver this to the label tomorrow?’ I’d totally lost sight of its potential": A music professor breaks down the theory behind All Saints' Pure Shores
May 6
- If you’re struggling creatively, don’t make owning that $2,000 synth your primary objective: Why tech isn’t to blame for your lack of inspiration
May 5
- “I was frightened, but I was like, ‘ok, big boy pants time. Step up to the plate, here comes the pitch and you can either knock it out or you can strike’”: Bob Dylan's live engineer Jason Frankhouser on mixing front-of-house for The Never Ending Tour
- "I have a very emotional relationship with my machines”: Djrum on how a catastrophic technological failure led to one of 2025’s best electronic albums
May 4
- “The groove was so thick, and what am I playing? A simple, Boom-Bop-Tish-Bop-Boom-Bop? It was unbelievable”: The making of Robert Palmer's Addicted To Love
May 3
- “It’s one of the most affecting responses to death ever put on record”: 9 fresh long reads on tracks with astounding musical moments
May 2
- “Listen closely to your mistakes, are they really mistakes? Many of the best ideas on our album came from these happy accidents”: 50 production secrets from the pros
- “We’d do a soundcheck and everything would be great, but when we came to do the show, it wouldn’t turn on”: 10 more things producers can learn from our In The Studio With... series
- “When I started I didn't really know what a producer was. I just thought artists would produce themselves, because that's what I would have done”: Adele, Stormzy and Kae Tempest collaborator Fraser T Smith on the shifting definition of a ‘producer’
- “I’d urge anyone wanting to make music to avoid waiting around for others to give you permission”: Eli Keszler on staying true to yourself as an artist, working with Skrillex and Oneohtrix Point Never, and his self-titled new project
- “The whole essence of why the sound was so interesting is because it is going from all to nothing in milliseconds”: The classic hit that defined the sound of the ’80s — and features the most famous drum break in rock
- “PC Music was just two guys in a room making stuff and uploading it to the internet - that’s where it starts”: Danny L Harle on self-discovery, success and helping unsigned artists find their sound
May 1
- “One of the concepts we are exploring is whether an artist could continue to create work after they have passed away”: The groundbreaking tech that will shape the future of music production
- “If you messed something up on a production, admit it, fix it, and move on”: 8 cost-free tips to improve as a producer in 2025
- “He’d start, ‘You’ll never guess what I dreamed last night…’ and the groaning would begin”: How Rush marshalled Alex Lifeson’s dreams to write a bona-fide prog-rock classic
- “Whether you’re looking to liven up a dull snare or beef up a lacklustre bass sound, these plugins are extremely handy”: Our resident platinum award-winning mixer and producer shares 10 of his go-to plugins
- “After every take, Mutt would say, ‘Check the tuning, man!’ This went on and on for almost a year. One day, I just gave him the guitar and said, ‘You tune it. I can’t take this anymore!’”: How legendary producer Mutt Lange drove the Cars half-mad
- “We could see John begin smiling. At the end of the first verse, he gave an exuberant thumbs-up and McCartney and Harrison began slapping each other on the back”: How one Beatles track spawned a recording technique revolution
- “All the albums I did with Metallica were recorded on 24-track analogue tape. There’s not a computer in sight”: How Flemming Rasmussen produced Metallica’s classic Master Of Puppets