Features archive
December 2025
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63 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
- “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
- 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
- "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
- “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
- December 26
- 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