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 six 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.).

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.); and Vis-Ed, a showcase of emerging illustrators, photographers, and designers. Each issue traditionally has hundreds of reviews of various albums, singles, compilations, books, and DVDs.

XLR8R’s website, XLR8R.com, features breaking music and culture news as well as music videos and free MP3 downloads and weekly podcasts. Additionally, back issues of the print magazine are accessible from 2003 to the present as downloadable PDFs.

In March 2007, XLR8R launched XLR8R TV, a weekly internet TV show hosted by Revision3. Every Tuesday, the show goes behind the scenes with the groundbreaking musicians, artists and scenes covered in the pages of XLR8R magazine.