Variety's music writers pick 2025's best songs, from Lily Allen, Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Dean, Dijon, Hayley Williams, ...

The sequencer on the 808, a row of 16 color-coded buttons, offered artists a way to store beats they programmed. Courtesy of Roland Even if you don't know the Roland TR-808 drum machine by name, ...

In 2005, when the singer-songwriter Ryan Davis was 20, he left Chicago for Glasgow. It was part of an exchange program between the Art Institute of Chicago, where Davis was a junior, and the Glasgow ...

'Starchild'! Mark King, the slap bassist and lead vocalist in iconic '80s group Level 42, fell in love with music after hearing the late Cream bassist and rock icon Jack Bruce. King doesn't think he ...

For nearly two decades with Rage Against the Machine and six years with Audioslave, Tim Commerford has navigated a never-ending quest for the ultimate distortion tone. He's built his own stompboxes.

This year’s NAMM trade show has opened up its doors, so that means there will be a wealth of new musical doodads to lust over. Case in point? Polyend just dropped a hybrid device that combines the ...

NAMM 2025: Billed as “the first fully programmable drum machine in guitar pedal form,” Polyend’s Step is the beatmaking box that you can control with your feet. If you want to really take the creative ...

As you walk into Elray’s, your ears are just as surprised as you are. It’s not the usual hip-hop artists like Sexxy Red or Lil Baby. An electric beat fills your body: fast-tempo, heavy bass, ...

The inventor of this soon-to-be ubiquitous signifier was Earl Young, a studio-based drummer who since around Autumn 1971 was regularly booked by Philadelphia International producers and songwriters ...

Travis Stewart has detailed his eleventh LP as Machinedrum. The American producer will share new album 3FOR82 on May 24 via Ninja Tune. Stewart's first Machinedrum LP since 2020's A View of U, the ...

The 23-year-old British musician is a breakout star of a dance-music revival largely led by Black women artists. Her new EP, “Sunrise Bang Ur Head Against Tha Wall,” is out Friday. By Alex Marshall ...