Features archive
December 2025
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67 articles
- December 31
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- “Everybody used to say how great Clapton was, but I remember saying to Eric, ‘You try playing that one riff for eight minutes!’”: How rock legends Status Quo stole a riff from The Doors and built an entire career out of it
- “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
- “I contend that I was the first person to actually have a Super Fuzz Big Muff – before the rest of the boys”: How Courtney Love created the grunge classic that was released during her darkest hour
- December 30
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- “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
- “I’m still disappointed when people hear the chorus line as ‘got to’ rather than ‘get to’”: How One rescued Achtung Baby and saved U2
- December 29
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- Music technology gear of the year 2025: Our favourite new synths, drum machines, plugins and more
- “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
- “I just sat down at my piano in Scotland, started playing and came up with that song. It's a sad song because it's all about the unattainable”: The story of the ballad that sparked the breakup of The Beatles
- December 28
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- “We all adored BB, and he asked us to write something for him. But when we listened back to the demo we agreed we should keep it. Sorry, BB!”: The classic song that Whitesnake wrote for the King of the Blues – but didn’t give to him
- “If we had stuck together we could have been as big as Led Zeppelin – or at the very least, Deep Purple. We had the stuff!”: The heavy rock innovators whose hard-hitting drummer was a star before John Bonham
- December 27
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- “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
- “In the ’80s, everybody came out with a power ballad – and we had a great one. It was never a No.1 record, but it’s a song that defines that whole era”: How an incredibly unlucky band finally got a break with a soft rock classic
- “I threw a party for John Lennon one night, and he sat there at the Moog for four hours making flying saucer sounds”: They set the boyband template, but also introduced the world to the synth
- "The greatest pop record ever made. A record that never dates, because it lives outside time”: How The Beatles created Strawberry Fields Forever – the experimental masterpiece that John Lennon regarded as the best song he ever wrote for the band
- “When we went to record it, the record company said, ‘Man, they won’t play that, it’s too long.’ But we said, ‘We don’t care!’”: How the young Lynyrd Skynyrd turned a simple love song into a southern rock epic
- December 26
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- “I had a No 1 single with a song about a robot prostitute and no one knew”: You’ll never listen to this Gary Numan classic in the same way again
- “She sang it once. That was it. That’s the record, that’s the vocals. From a vocal standpoint, no one has that much courage. And of course it was spectacular”: How Alanis Morissette made You Oughta Know – with a little help from two Red Hot Chili Peppers
- December 25
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- Got a new e-kit for Christmas? Transform it with 15 day one upgrades that will make it sound better and play quieter
- “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
- “I don’t want to talk about it anymore, if that’s all right. I feel like the dust hasn’t settled”: The devastating personal pain behind one of Radiohead’s most affecting songs
- December 24
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- “I think we’re on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying”: When David Bowie predicted how the internet would change the state of music and content forever
- "The answer might sound a little boring, but it's probably my iPhone": Modeselektor on their go-to instrument, this year's DJ-Kicks mix and why the 808 is still the "sexiest drum machine ever built"
- "There is no getting around the fact that he repeats the phrase 'simply having a wonderful Christmastime' 17 times": A music professor breaks down the theory behind Paul McCartney's Wonderful Christmastime
- “The greatest rock ballad of all time!”: The classic song that set a record by holding the number two spot in the US for 10 weeks without ever hitting the top
- “There’s something to that song that touches people. I don’t know what it is but I’m really glad it happened”: The classic Fleetwood Mac hit that Stevie Nicks wrote in just 10 minutes!
- December 23
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- “He said ‘Look, I want you to take all those albums and destroy them'”: Why did Prince abruptly retract his new album days before release in 1987?
- “I have only flashes of making it. I was personally going through a very bad time”: How a disillusioned and drug-addicted David Bowie reinvented his music with a groundbreaking song he could barely remember recording
- December 22
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- “If I want a sound, I usually feel better if I've chased it and killed it, skinned it and cooked it”: The DIY attitude that drove Tom Waits’ finest album
- “I was just playing along, and then, when the music stopped, I found myself still playing that riff”: How Tori Amos created her otherworldly hit song Cornflake Girl
- “When we were mixing, he used to get so excited that I used to have to hold him down with one hand and try and carry on the manual mix on the desk with the other": The making of the Clash’s mature masterpiece, London Calling
- “Writing a Bond song is a bit of an accolade. I always had a sneaking ambition to do it”: How Paul McCartney reunited with ‘the fifth Beatle’ George Martin to create the classic Live And Let Die
- December 20
- December 19
- December 18
- December 17
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- “For me, the amplifier is even more important than the guitar. And then the speakers are more important than the amplifier!”: Joe Perry on the evolution of electric guitar tone
- “David was a nice guy, obviously with a certain amount of talent, but never a superstar”: 54 years on, how Hunky Dory rebooted Bowie’s career
- December 16
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- "It’s just the most emotive piece of music": Alter Bridge's Mark Tremonti on the greatest guitar solo of all time – and how alternate tunings are the key to unlocking his lead playing
- “It had a swing and a weird swagger to it that can’t really be duplicated. Kind of like lightning in a bottle”: Ex-Guns N’ Roses drummer Josh Freese says that nobody can play those classic GN’R songs like OG drummer Steven Adler did
- December 14
- December 13
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- “I wrote the song in about 15 minutes, then I went home because I realized there was no point in working the rest of the day”: The quickly-written Death Cab for Cutie masterpiece that became a generational meditation on loss
- “They had no monitors, but when you listen to the recordings it’s so damn good. It was stunning how good The Beatles were live”: Aerosmith’s Joe Perry on The Beatles and the Stones – and why rock stars were not supposed to last beyond 30
- “Omnisphere’s like a Korg Wavestation on crack – you press one button and 16 things happen at once”: Bicep on soft synths, sampling glaciers and club-focused new project CHROMA 000
- December 12
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- "You're not just a music producer, you're also an event manager, to some degree": 'Immersive first' electronic musician Halina Rice on creating unique live experiences and producing new album, Unreality
- How a song rejected three times by The Beatles became the emotional and musical centrepiece of George Harrison’s classic solo album All Things Must Pass
- December 10
- December 9
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- “There was a guy checking out people who were coming in, and he’d go over the microphone, ‘Now here’s Elton John and his band!’”: Davey Johnstone on guitar shopping with Elton John – and how he ended up with his iconic Les Paul Custom
- “It's been a real emotional thing bringing this back”: Native Instruments Absynth returns – here’s the inside story, with developer Brian Clevinger
- “One night, I decided to be the DJ in Rage Against the Machine - but I was going to do it all on the guitar”: How Tom Morello used his guitar to drill into the off-limits domain of the turntablist
- “It was like getting hit in the head with a baseball bat. I fell in love with her instantly. And when that happened, it sparked something”: The new wave classic and No.1 hit that was written in one hour and recorded in one take
- December 8
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- “You wouldn’t know it’s slowed down unless I told you. But it is. Because of what I’m singing you have to have something that’s not right about it”: The elegant simplicity of Radiohead’s second biggest song
- Lennon was clutching the tape of the final mix from this session as he and Yoko left for the Dakota: The story of John Lennon’s final creative act
- December 7
- December 6
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- “It's amazing what you can do with a drum machine - and two of the most expensive sampling and production workstations ever made”: Unpacking the technical genius behind one of the most iconic rock songs of the 1980s
- “Nobody can play better than that guy, man!”: In a new in-depth interview, guitar virtuoso Steve Morse discusses the supernatural powers of John Petrucci, Eric Johnson, Angel Vivaldi and Deep Purple legends Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore
- December 5
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- “I used to accommodate him. I'd isolate him, put him in a booth and not record him. The others, particularly Mick and Keith, would say 'Just tell him to get the hell out'": Beggars Banquet, the album that was the turning point for the Rolling Stones
- “I was sitting there with my four-track and there was this riff that I had. I started singing this melody and saying that line, ‘I want to be yours…’ And I remembered the poem”: How Arctic Monkeys’ most popular song was created from early-’80s punk poetry
- "One of the hardest things I ever had to do was mix that song": A music professor breaks down Steve Cropper and Otis Redding's (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay
- "What were the skies like when you were young?": How The Orb's Little Fluffy Clouds showed the world that sampling could be an art form
- December 4
- December 3
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- "It's the most influential drum machine ever created – and has likely featured on more records than any other": A history of Roland drum machines, from the TR-77 to the TR-1000
- “We’re in an era of conformity in electronic music – very few people get celebrated for doing anything outside of it”: How TEED went back to basics with a bedroom set-up and a borrowed synth for third album Always With Me
- December 2
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- “If I’d had a producer and I was simply an artist, I don’t think they would have had the patience to listen to what I wanted to do”: We catch up with the man who rewired the charts in 1979 - and is now blowing up on TikTok - with Pop Muzik
- “It’s the biggest song in the set and it wasn’t a single. It wasn’t anywhere close to being a single”: The classic track that defines John Mayer as a guitarist and a songwriter
- December 1
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- “I said to her, ‘I think people love you and root for you more than you know or believe’”: We speak with Lily Allen’s co-songwriter and executive producer about the storm of creativity that led to West End Girl
- “Miles Davis and all those guys would just record right to the vinyl. And I was fascinated by that. So I got that feeling in my stomach – butterflies”: Why Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry loves to record with no safety net
- “He wanted it to sound tinny, so he literally put the mic in a tin. That’s the way he would chase ideas”: When Justin Hawkins and The Darkness teamed up with Queen’s eccentric producer, strange things happened with champagne buckets, panpipes and more