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July 2026
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147 articles
- July 31
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- “I’ve always said that if they wanted me to reform, I would do it. I would even play harmonica or do a walk on”: Steve Hackett is still open to a hypothetical Genesis reunion
- Billie Joe Armstrong’s punk rock riff machine, Orange’s mighty micro-amp, and the $150 acoustic that gives us serious John Mayer vibes – it’s MusicRadar’s monthly guitar gear roundup, the July 2026 edit
- “Try to have one in your hand as much as possible, maybe more than girls. Because if you really look at a shape of a guitar, it's really like a woman, you know what I mean?": Richie Sambora offers some eyebrow-raising advice to aspiring guitarists
- “Mick looked at me and said ‘You know you really do need to stick together, that is your future.’ He was right because it could all have fallen apart at that time”: Nick Rhodes says that Mick Jagger once saved Duran Duran from splitting
- SampleRadar: 473 free sub bass samples
- "I’m hoping the reaction won’t be too intense for people, but I know that it will be because it has been for us": Drummer Matt Cameron confirms that a final Soundgarden album is currently being mixed
- “He wrote it in a completely different way simply because of his eyesight problem. He can’t read lyrics if they’re on the piano”: Bernie Taupin on Elton John’s new approach to songwriting on his next album, and why they'll never sell their publishing
- July 30
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- "For me, he will always be everywhere I see a coin spinning into an open guitar case": Bono, Bob Geldof, Bruce Springsteen, Billie Eilish and Finneas mourn Glen Hansard as tributes continue to pour in
- “Its scale and influence remain extraordinary - a defining British record that continues to unite generations, fill stadiums and soundtrack lives”: As the UK album chart turns 70, the biggest seller of all time has been confirmed
- "They said they had David Bowie on board. They had Go West, Natalie Cole.... and they wanted us to write a song for the soundtrack”: How Roxette repurposed a Christmas song for the Pretty Woman soundtrack and ended up with a US number one
- ReFX’s Rippler promises to “emulate acoustic instruments both real and imagined” with its advanced physical modelling engine
- “Brent texted me when that was all stirred up, and he was like, ‘Dude, I can’t believe people think I punched you in the face!’”: Mastodon's Brann Dailor and Troy Sanders on their complicated relationship with the late Brent Hinds
- Olivia Dean, Paul McCartney and Raye score Mercury Prize 2026 'best album' nominations... but Lily Allen and Harry Styles miss out
- Grammys CEO says new 'Asian Pop' category was “created to celebrate the depth, diversity and extraordinary growth of pop artistry coming out of Asia” after BTS rule themselves out
- "It pioneered the long-form pop album as an art form": The Beatles' Rubber Soul Special Edition contains a newly unearthed demo of a John Lennon song no one has heard before
- Flying Lotus to explain his "sketchbook approach" and "where theory helps and where it hurts" in School of Song music-making workshop
- July 29
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- “He placed my fingers on the fretboard and shouted, ‘Grab the whammy bar…’ With his hands free, Jimi wrapped the towel I’d given him around his waist and dropped his trousers”: When Jimi Hendrix’s tech had to play his guitar after a wardrobe malfunction
- Tributes are paid to Glen Hansard, Irish singer-songwriter and star of Once, who has died at the age of 56
- “It rocks!”: Hear Tony Iommi's new single World Alone as the Black Sabbath icon announces his solo album
- "This might just be our most ambitious series yet!”: Harley Benton is making hand-aged relic'd guitars for under 250 bucks
- “Literally for two years, I had one piano with a GoPro that I mounted on it. I didn't touch one synthesizer. I didn't open any machines”: Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter on his reaction to the huge scale and success of Random Access Memories
- Kavinsky, the French artist behind Nightcall, dies aged 50
- July 28
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- “Traces the evolution of a century of sonic experimentation, underscoring the ideas, technologies and cultural movements that shaped electronic music as we know it today”: Jean-Michel Jarre has written a history of electronic music
- Beatbox your ideas into reality with Vochlea's DubBox, an app that converts your voice into drum loops
- "It’s going to be definitively the most real experience ever of us, Queen, in our glory days. I think people will get lost in it and even forget they're watching a film": A restored and remixed version of Queen's final filmed performance is on the way
- “I don’t have an anti-semitic bone in my body, I never did and I never will have”: Rogers Waters answers his critics as he discusses his new version of Comfortably Numb, which features Palestinian singer Mona Miari
- “It is as though the part of the brain that sends out invitations to participate in life has temporarily misplaced the guest list”: Carly Simon opens up about her battles with Parkinson’s, depression and apathy
- “This pedal records what you play and reshapes it into a shifting blend of tones and timbres”: Introducing Textures, the granular synth pedal from MXR that dreamy ambient tones are made of
- "Stop looking at the screen, start feeling the patch": Mach Devices' MD-7 is an open-source mini-synth with motorized haptic controls that "talk back"
- “Everything you need to crank out massive riffs and searing solos without breaking the bank”: Gretsch puts high-gain sounds on the menu as it adds the $249 CVT to entry-level Streamliner series
- "One of the most important legacies in electronic music": inMusic donates vast collection of over 4,400 items to Bob Moog Foundation Archives
- July 27
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- “We had long debates about how long we should keep George's bum on screen”: Director Mike Christie tells us how his revelatory new Wham! film exposes a lot more than just a moment of cultural change…
- "It's magical": Dhani Harrison and Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich form new band and announce debut album
- "This is the real deal": $500k Yamaha CS-80 claimed to have belonged to Vangelis goes up for sale on Reverb
- “I always said I was a genius, but nobody listened”: Previously unseen archive of pre-Smiths Morrissey correspondence heads to auction
- "The NES is basically held together with chewing gum and paperclips – it was a brutal experience": Emo band release chiptune remix album that’s only available on a retro video games console
- "I pulled up the sound, played this chord and thought, 'whoa, I’ve never heard a crazy organ sound like that before'”: Rogét Chahayed on how a Kontakt preset based on a '90s Casio toy keyboard made the intro to Travis Scott's Sicko Mode
- July 24
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- "Put some diapers on next time, y’all": Singer-songwriter Noah Kahan urges fans to take precautions or control themselves amid a growing rise in cases of people relieving themselves at his shows
- One more time: It's MusicRadar's Quiz of the Week #15!
- "You feel the music through your whole body. It's incredibly physical": Sander de Keere reimagines the church pipe organ as an 'ancient synthesizer'
- "Every note delivered as intended": Technics drops limited-edition wireless earbuds in collaboration with the Rolling Stones
- Ever lost a great idea because you forgot to hit record? GhostTape is here to make sure that never happens again
- “We go back a long way with Martin, and there’s always a sense of adventure whenever we get together": U2 join forces with DJ and producer Martin Garrix for new single, Fireflies
- July 23
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- “In loving memory of the Prince of Darkness”: Sophie Lloyd pays tribute to Ozzy Osbourne with a blazing shred cover of Black Sabbath’s Paranoid
- “It was a wild situation Bruce threw me into and I think he knew what he was doing. He’s the only actual genius I’ve ever played music with”: Jay Weinberg on the Bruce Springsteen test that left him “deathly afraid” when sitting in with the E Street Band
- “My plan, which Andy probably didn't like, was based on when Prince wrote Nothing Compares 2 U and no one knew it was a Prince song until it became this big hit”: Razorlight’s biggest song was originally intended for another artist, says Johnny Borrell
- SampleRadar: 493 free Moog synth samples
- “We were running around the studio with as many things plugged in as possible just doing the worst sounds, trying to find the ugliest things”: How Charli XCX's producers ran a jam session through an AI sampling plugin to make No One Lasts Forever
- “I don’t know, but never say never... We have fluctuated between getting on really well and not getting on at all over the years but there’s always been telepathy": Could the Kinks reform onstage? Dave Davies isn't completely ruling it out
- July 22
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- Harley Benton throws a big ol' T party and you are all invited, as the Fusion-T II series debuts 18 new models featuring high-end specs and a sub-$500 price tag
- "I’ve got George singing the track and Elton singing the track so the dream is to make another track": Could a 'new' George Michael and Elton John duet be heading for release?
- "As Ozzy would say, 'when you want to remember me, just yank up the music really loud, as loud as you can get it, and just head bang'": Sharon Osbourne remembers her husband, a year on from his death
- Musik Hack launches HyFi, an online mastering platform powered by the “world-class DSP” behind Master Plan
- "I had pulled up at the traffic lights on Hope Street when who should I see - Sir Paul with Ringo on FaceTime": Beatles fans on a Liverpool tour bus get an unexpected bonus as they end up running into Macca while he's on the phone to Ringo
- “They all came back to me and said ‘What – are you crazy? It’s perfect as it is! You don’t want to add words!’”: The story of the peculiar, chorus-free song that drew the attention of Clive Davis and became a worldwide mid-'90s hit
- “We’ll be in a room with multi-million-dollar speakers and he'll be sitting on the floor with the worst quality headphones and his laptop doing his thing”: Rogét Chahayed on the genius behind Skrillex's production
- July 21
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- “These circuits have a history and personality that I wasn’t willing to compromise”: Dirty Boy partners with Warm Audio to make its Neal Schon and John Frusciante-approved boutique pedals for the masses
- “It’s one of the first classic rock ’n’ roll videos. But we were absolutely freezing. It was about 30 below!”: Carl Palmer on ELP’s greatest hit and their glory years as stadium-filling superstars
- “He started to saw through his strings and we all stood up and cheered! It made a fantastic noise… And he just carried on sawing”: Pete Townshend on how Stevie Wonder's producer inspired him to smash guitars
- “He was a brilliant concert-level classical pianist and also the best rocker you could get, for keyboards. So he was an absolute hero”: Howard Jones on the synth legend who inspired him, and the influence he had on one of his biggest hits
- July 20
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- “As a former Culture Secretary and big music fan, he has a deep understanding of what makes the music industry tick. He also knows the challenges”: UK Music CEO sets out five key tests for new Prime Minister Andy Burnham
- Chase Bliss discontinues the Chompi sampler: "At this specific moment we are not working on or planning any new Chompi products"
- “This is like a bad trip": Liam Gallagher, Wayne Rooney and others share their views on the first ever World Cup Halftime Show
- “A true original who lived entirely on her own terms”: L7 announce that bassist Jennifer Finch has died
- July 19
- July 18
- July 17
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- This free browser-based sampler turns YouTube into an MPC
- “I said, ‘What does it matter? If someone listens to it on their phone, they don’t know it was cut on tape – it doesn’t make any difference’”: Mick Jagger didn’t see the point in using tape on the new Stones album, but producer Andrew Watt had other ideas
- “Hey Spotify, I’m going to go out on a limb and say we don’t want this. Not only is this inaccurate, but reducing a song to an AI-generated meaning right at the source feels like it limits free interpretation”: Lorde slams Spotify's About the Song feature
- SampleRadar: 493 free hardware drum machine samples
- “It's not just about the money – I just wanted my name on there because it was my work and somebody else took the credit”: Rogét Chahayed on signing away his contributions to Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly for "a few thousand bucks"
- July 16
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- “We're happy we can play a part in helping preserve the physical album experience”: Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon officially returns on cassette – Nick Mason has some thoughts on what’s next for the prog classic
- “What happens when one of the key architects of contemporary pop rethinks the supersaw?”: AG Cook and Native Instruments team up for signature synth plugin Super*Saw
- “I dropped my drumsticks and was like, ‘What the hell is happening? This is not the Little Red Corvette that I know'”: Questlove on the moment he discovered what ended up becoming his favourite Prince song, and the profound impact it had on him
- “The final boss of the lost Dual Op-Amp circuit”: Electro-Harmonix gives the Big Muff Pi 2 the “Deluxe” treatment – adding Wicker switch, noise-gate, footswitchable mids and more
- "It was the first time David committed a self-composed song to wax. At the end of the session, Jimmy said 'Well, it's definitely not going to be a hit.' And he was right": When Jimmy Page and David Bowie collided, pre-fame
- Suno scraped millions of songs from YouTube, Deezer and stock music libraries, according to hacked data
- July 15
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- "The merest hint of musical beauty – the merest hint!”: NPR just posted its most brutal Tiny Desk Concert ever as Napalm Death bring blast beats and chaos to the office – and unleash their one-second grindcore masterpiece in its entirety
- Now Fender hits Yamaha with a cease-and-desist as it widens legal campaign over Stratocaster copyright
- “If I didn’t have AutoTune, I probably wouldn’t have a career, to be honest. I certainly would have less hits”: Pop producer Ian Kirkpatrick on the importance of AutoTune, and how it enabled him to use a Dua Lipa demo vocal on a finished track
- "This is is 1000% going on every single mix": Baby Audio's SubCulture is a pitch-tracking bass enhancer designed for "massive low-end"
- “It holds a special place in Gibson history. As one of our earliest limited-edition instruments, it helped establish a lasting legacy within hard rock guitar culture”: Gibson unveils Custom Shop reissue of a Michael Schenker and Kirk Hammett favourite
- Behringer's AKS Mini is a £99 mini-synth inspired by the EMS Synthi AKS, a classic synth used by Pink Floyd and Brian Eno
- “I didn’t even want to put it on the album because I thought it was too mushy. Linda Ronstadt goes, ‘Are you out of your mind? That’s a hit record!’”: Billy Joel on the classic ballad that Paul McCartney wishes he’d written
- Get almost $1k of guitar tuition from our number one online platform for only $99 with this epic Summer Black Friday deal – over 11,000 lessons, plus bonus gifts
- “I remember the three of us thinking that it was an absolute stroke of genius that we'd just come up with the most idiotic idea ever”: Mike D talks about the Beastie Boys’ fallout with Russell Simmons and that hydraulic prop
- July 14
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- “We made it the way you’d make a demo. No click track, mistakes left in… The song, like your life, is in the mistakes. Its imperfections are unbeatable”: Queens Of The Stone Age drop a brand new single out of nowhere and it features Nikki Lane on vocals
- "We are all devastated by the news and are surrounding her with love”: L7 bassist Jennifer Finch diagnosed with brain cancer
- "I said, 'God, you’ve nicked all my things.' He said, ‘Yeah, I know, man. I know. It's like a homage to you’”: David Bowie admitted that he stole the Stones' sound on one classic song, says Mick Jagger
- “Morrissey sent me one of his famous letters which I’ve framed on the wall. It just read, ‘Dear Bernard, I’m sorry - I can’t’”: Bernard Butler shares with us the events that almost led to a team-up with Morrissey
- Novation tops off its Launchkey MK4 range with 88-key MIDI controller keyboard
- “The speaker is the secret weapon. It just has this size and weight to the sound that you don’t expect. That’s the magic”: Blackstar shrinks Doug Aldrich’s fire-breathing tube head into a compact 5-watt combo for the stage, studio and home
- “Pop is getting posher, and that must change. Talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not”: UK government announces national strategy for music to “widen opportunity” and invest in “creative careers”
- "It's basically finished": The wait is almost over for Nopia’s viral chord synth – we got an exclusive first-look demo and can finally reveal its price
- Jake Bowen goes headless as Periphery guitarist officially swaps Ibanez for Strandberg – but what will his signature model look like and when might we see it?
- “He’s the Quincy Jones of the rap world. Working together was like nothing I've ever experienced – it’s like watching Fantasia!”: Hip-hop hitmaker Rogét Chahayed on learning his craft from Dr Dre
- “I’ve thought this through... I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt here, and assuming he doesn’t really think I’m the antichrist”: Phil Collins thinks he might know why Noel Gallagher called him “the antichrist of music” back in the ‘90s
- “This amp is my ride or die. Play fast! Die trying”: A baby blue amp for a Green Day frontman – Marshall launches Billie Joe Armstrong’s “Dookie Mod” signature head
- July 13
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- “We’ll see”: Could a Fleetwood Mac Sphere residency be on the cards? It appears that Lindsey Buckingham isn’t ruling it out
- Have the Stones played their final show? “Maybe I have!” says Mick Jagger. “You never really know, do you?”
- “Hope you will joining us in wishing Simon the speediest of recoveries. And Eden – thanks”: Son of Gallup saves the day for The Cure
- "It's a major step forward in stem separation technology": Zplane's Peel Stems 2 nearly halves the latency of its real-time stem separation plugin
- “As an 8-year-old, I was like, ‘My 5-year-old sister is better than me at guitar? How is this even possible?’ She was like a savant”: Este Haim on how sibling rivalry, parental persuasion, Princess Peach and Tina Weymouth led her to the bass guitar
- "She's a very determined young lady who has pushed herself and keeps going”: Meet the Northern Irish teenager who passed her Grade 8 piano – one handed
- SampleRadar: 207 free '90s jungle samples
- “He’s generous and super funny... he’s a good man”: So which rock frontman with a ‘difficult’ reputation could ex-GNR drummer Frank Ferrer be talking about?
- July 11
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- "Rather than scratching his chin, saying, “I don’t know if this works yet”, he’ll go 'This could be the beginning of something incredible, let’s keep pushing in that direction': David Byrne discusses treating the studio "like a playground" with Brian Eno
- "Everything started from the hand of a human being": Italian DJ and producer Ciauru wins Reply AI Music Contest
- July 10
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- You can now control FL Studio with an agentic AI chatbot from inside the DAW
- "Music was my first desire": Film titan Anthony Hopkins to release album of original compositions
- "Diamond is grown as a crystalline layer before the substrate is removed, leaving a self-supporting diamond dome": Fancy dropping $8,500 on some new cans?
- "Eight and a half years ago, my life changed immeasurably. Music is not part of my life anymore": Huey Lewis reveals the tragic impact of hearing loss
- Korg’s DIY NTS-4 looks like the budget-friendly desktop mixer we always wanted the Volca Mix to be
- July 9
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- "I’ve come to the conclusion that it no longer feels right for me to be part of it": Dutch DJ Franky Rizardo withdraws from Pete Tong remix over dispute with John Summit
- "Paul really misses being in a band": Keith Richards comments on relationship with Beatles legend
- AlphaTheta’s new all-in-one DJ rig aims to provide “a natural transition from home DJing to club environments”
- "The game is gone… this is not a Super Bowl": Justin Bieber to join line-up for FIFA's World Cup final halftime show
- "Although Dylan showed me what I wanted to be, Syd Barrett showed me how I could be it. And I actually wound up sounding like John Lennon": cult rocker Robyn Hitchcock opens up about unique career
- "You are a rock star, young lady": How a Thai teenager blew away America's Got Talent audience covering a '90s rock classic
- “The wood is only wood until it arrives in a master’s hands”: Eric Church teams up with Epiphone for the Hummingbird Dark – and toasts this sweet collab with a whiskey finished in toasted maple from Gibson offcuts
- "Great to see Larry behind the kit": U2 release single 'Street of Dreams' ahead of first new album in nine years
- July 8
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- “I’ve actually performed it with him, and I’m afraid to say that during the soundcheck, I broke down”: The story behind The Beach Boys’ timeless masterpiece God Only Knows, a Brian Wilson co-creation that had a profound emotional impact on Paul McCartney
- "He's not a great keyboard player, he doesn't write great songs. His engineering and technical abilities are limited too. In fact, he knows very little about an awful lot": The Edge on Brian Eno and how he influenced his own "limited" guitar style
- "You can just tell when someone lives and breathes music. There’s just a lot of heart in the way that he plays": Courtney Barnett pays tribute to special artistry of Chili Pepper collaborator
- “The most powerful delay pedal ever”: Strymon supercharges its flagship delay with an all-new reverb engine, a five-minute looper and more – meet the TimeLine MX
- "Lately I have felt so disconnected from everything. I have felt in pain a lot and I don't know why": Artists and fans shower Yungblud with love after emotional response to "industry plant" accusations
- “Seeing my signature model in Shoreline Gold gives it a completely fresh character”: Jim Root’s made-for-metal Telecaster just got more metal as Fender gives it a makeover with a finish from the golden era
- "This is humans versus machines, and today, the humans are rising": The tribute group formed to rival AI band Velvet Sundown
- July 7
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- "They are the blueprint. Punk rock wouldn't be what it is today without them": Star-studded show to mark 50th anniversary of Ramones' debut album announced
- “By fracturing, stretching, and reshaping your signal in unexpected ways, it encourages experimentation and rewards curiosity”: Walrus Audio’s Lüm is a feature-stacked “Texture Machine” for when your tone feels predictable
- "Diversity is a lie": Morrissey launches bizarre tirade against BBC over new single Notre-Dame
- "Absurd, frivolous and harassing": Taylor Swift wins copyright lawsuit over her song lyrics after long legal battle
- July 6
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- “His son actually cleared the sample. I don’t know of him ever approving a sample - it’s quite rare, so I was very honored”: James Blake on sampling Leonard Cohen for Death of Love
- “The percentage of explicit songs on Spotify’s Top 50 chart has fallen from 74% in 2018 to 13% today”: New data reveals that explicit lyrics are in decline - but why?
- “I know we’re making twice as much money as Metallica, but can you please put ’em on after us, because they’re killing us?”: How a hair metal band’s dream gig turned into a nightmare
- July 3
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- "John was annoyed because I didn’t say that he had written one line of this song, Taxman… I also didn’t say how I wrote two lines to Come Together or three lines to Eleanor Rigby”: George Harrison and the questions around his Beatles credits
- “We’ve got a new drummer, his name is Dave, he’s the best drummer in the world!”: How Dave Grohl delivered the incredible Smells Like Teen Spirit drum track
- July 2
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- “I felt kind of bad about it because I should have paid a fair price”: Kirk Hammett felt so guilty about buying Neal Schon's Les Paul on the cheap that he called him to ask if he wanted it back
- DAWs for DJs, rotary mixers and the world's first standalone motorized controller: 5 of the coolest pieces of gear we saw at Thomann's DJ Days
- AlphaTheta’s CDJ-1500X is a WiFi equipped DJ player that lets your audience vote on track requests
- “He's very… Harry Stylish. That's what he is. But that's all that he is. It's very superficial”: Producer Mike Stock explains why he thinks streaming has robbed us of “iconic” stars and great pop songs
- July 1
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- “I was gonna design a guitar that was for soloing specifically”: More frets equals more shred for Brandon Ellis as he unveils signature Jackson Kelly with 27 stainless steel frets and serious Seymour Duncan firepower
- Logic Pro 12.3 is here – and my favourite stock plugin just got even better
- “He said, ‘No, no, no. Paul can do that,’ and he did it. He did exactly what was needed in like, 10 minutes”: Mick Jagger says he had to check with Andrew Watt that Paul McCartney's bass playing was "punk" enough for new Rolling Stones song Covered In You
- An EHX take on a cult Albini-approved fuzz-stortion, a single-pickup PRS, the triumphant return of Squier’s Paranormal series and more! It’s MusicRadar’s epic monthly guitar gear round-up, the June '26 edit
- “Radical” angles? Check. Phase switch? Check. Offset body? Check? Guild’s S-300 is nearly 50 years old but it’s back in stunning metallic finishes and is ready for its close-up
- “We kept trying to write one for 20 years, but they’re not very good, to be honest”: A Skyfall of Stars, anyone? Rare Coldplay recordings are being auctioned, including their early attempt at a Bond theme