Troublemakers playing REM single endlessly (8)
I believe the answer is:
gremlins
'troublemakers' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both people as well as being plural nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'playing rem single endlessly' is the wordplay.
'playing' indicates an anagram.
'endlessly' means to remove the last letter.
'rem'+'single'='remsingle'
'remsingle' with its final letter removed is 'remsingl'.
'remsingl' is an anagram of 'GREMLINS'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for gremlins that I've seen before include "Mischievous sprites, maybe in machinery" , "Mischievous sprites responsible for mechanical problems" .)