XLR8R (pronounced "accelerator") is a magazine and website that covers music, culture, style, and technology. It was founded as a newsprint ‘zine in 1993 by publisher Andrew Smith in Seattle; the magazine currently has offices in San Francisco and New York. While XLR8R’s initial focus was on electronic music, it has over the years widened its scope to include indie rock, hip-hop, and reggae/ dancehall music as well as related trends in style, art, fashion, and technology.
XLR8R is published 10 times per year and distributed internationally. Special issues include a Music Technology issue, a year-end "Best Of" issue, and an entire issue devoted to the music scene of a particular city (Berlin, San Francisco, L.A., Chicago, New York, etc.). Subscribers receive Incite, a free monthly CD of tracks hand-picked by the magazine's editors.
Standout features of the publication include "Audiofile," a collection of short pieces on up-and-coming musicians; "Machines," a section devoted to technology (reviews, recording techniques of various artists, etc.); "Vis-Ed," a showcase of emerging illustrators, photographers, and designers; and "Bitter Bastard," a curmudgeonly rant on various frustrating topics within the music world. Each issue traditionally has hundreds of reviews of various albums, singles, compilations, books, and DVDs.
XLR8R’s website features breaking music and culture news , high-resolution music videos and free weekly MP3 downloads and podcasts. Additionally, back issues of the print magazine are accessible from 2003 to the present as freely downloadable PDFs.
In March 2007, XLR8R launched XLR8R TV, an internet TV show hosted by Revision3, with a new episode appearing every Tuesday. The show features musicians, artists and scenes covered in the pages of XLR8R magazine.