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.
Maybe you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'playing rem single endlessly' is the wordplay.
'playing' is an anagram indicator.
'endlessly' means to remove the last letter.
'rem'+'single'='remsingle'
'remsingle' with its final letter taken off 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" .)