Goodness me, this one gave me some problems and took me over an hour for the third consecutive day this week. Right at the outset I fell literally into a bear-trap (probably of my own making rather than one intended by the setter) and never really recovered because it put me on the wrong course for several other clues. Even when I sorted out the mess my confidence was shot to pieces. But for all that, once again this week we have a very fine puzzle. For anyone noticing that I am posting somewhat later than in recent weeks, no, I have not been struggling on this since midnight; I went to bed at a sensible hour and then got up very early.

Across
1	PARADIDDLE - A RAP (a popular music - rev) + DIDDLE (do). It's a sequence of strokes in drumming.
7	BEAR - Double definition. 'Hack' = 'bear' as in to tolerate, manage or cope with something. Putting 'jade' (an alternative double definition) here as my first answer in the grid gave me endless problems q.v. 7dn. A veritable bear-trap!
9	BROKEN IN - ROoK (bird half-heartedly) inside BENIN.
10	COWARD - RAW (not cooked - rev) inside COD.
11	SHOWER - Double definition. The one meaning 'worthless group' reminds me with joy of the wonderful Terry-Thomas as the Major in 'Private's Progress' (1956): "You're an absolute SHAAAR!".
13	IDEALIST - Anagram of 'sailed' inside 'it'.
14	FRONT OF HOUSE - In a theatre this is everything on the audience side of the curtain as opposed to 'backstage'.
17	CRACKBRAINED - CRACK (go) + BRAIN (head) + ED (man on newspaper). 'Out to lunch' is slang for 'unbalanced' or 'stupid'.
20	INVEIGLE - Anagram of 'living' and EasE.
21	ARGOSY - lARGO (heading off slowly - in music) + SlowlY.
22	MANTUA - MA (graduate - Master of Arts) + NT (books - New Testament) + U + A. It's a 17th century gown named from the city in Lombardy.
23	NOTIONAL - 'National' (citizen) with one of its As (American capital) replaced by 0 (love - tennis).
25	Double definition deliberately omitted.
26	ENTICEMENT - twENTIes (two couples in mid twenties) + CEMENT (bonding).
Down
2	AYRSHIRE - IRe (endless anger) inside anagram of 'her say'. Last blog I had Angus cattle as the first Down answer; today it's a different breed.
3	AUK - A+UK. Stumped me for ages! Finland, Norway, Sweden? What other countries are there in NW Europe?
4	INNER - dINNER
5	DONNISH - NNI (pub - rev) inside DOSH (money). Wasted ages trying to think if 'mash' might be slang for money.
6	EXCHEQUER - Sounds like 'ex-checker'.
7	BEWILDERING - WILDER (rather extravagant) inside BEING (creature). So having convinced myself that 7ac was 'jade' I had J?W?????ING here and came up with 'jawdropping' for 'stunning' which seemed perfectly reasonable, give or take a hyphen, until I tried to untangle the wordplay. Many a moment was lost here.
8	I'm deliberately omitting this Down clue.
12	WINDCHEATER - WIND (turn) + C (cold) + HEATER (radiator?).
15	ORANGEADE - Anagram of 'an edge or a'.
16	MESSIAEN - MESS (jam) + I hAvE + N (new). Olivier of that name, 1908-1992, was a French composer, organist and ornithologist. I'm glad the setter didn’t require us to know his third claim to fame.
18	KEEPNET - TEN PEEK rev.
19	INMATE - IN (ruling,  'in power') + MATE (China plate - CRS).
21	ARTIC - ARTICulate (say clearly stopped half way).
24	OHM - H (Henry - unit of inductance) inside OM (high honour - Order of Merit).