Ex-Beatle RINGO STARR turns 80 on July 7th - and finally gets the recognition he always wanted

Richard Starkey alias Ringo Starr has been in disagreement - and that for decades. For his fans, he is one of the most important drummers in rock history. Between 1962 and 1970, he recorded twelve albums with the Fab Four and sold 600 million copies. "John, Paul, George and Ringo have turned the world upside down," Lemmy von Motörhead once mused. "Just the way people listened to music and thought about rock bands."

Long Distance Calling remain curious. On their new album "How Do We Want To Live?" the German quartet conquers new sound territories and, in addition, treats a number of complex socio-political themes almost without words.

After two albums with different vocal pieces, the Münster post rockers have been mainly instrumental again since the rather hard "Boundless" (2018). Their latest work is an enormously dense sound journey with a high proportion of electronic elements. Furthermore, although it contains no lyrics except for one song and various speech samples, the group wants to draw the listeners' attention to socially highly topical issues such as the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence, global networking, social media, surveillance, ethics, humanism and cultural standards. We talked to bassist Jan Hoffmann about an album that is above all meant to make people think.

Berlin is fully gentrified. So it's all the more gratifying that the Neubauten are still collapsing: six years after their last album "Lament", Blixa Bargeld and his band will appear on "Alles in Allem" completely purified

To anticipate: "All in all" is a beautiful album. It is perhaps even the most beautiful album Einstürzende Neubauten have ever made. Or, to put it more bluntly: It's the first album of the group with a consistent sensitivity for open and hidden beauty that you can hardly escape. What happened to Blixa Bargeld and the permanent provocateurs of Einstürzende Neubauten?

The career of Green Carnation was anything but stringent. In 2020, we will (depending on the counting method) already experience its fifth incarnation. But it seems more stable than ever. With their new album "Leaves Of Yesteryear" the Norwegians put a bracket around their creative period since their debut 20 years ago. They are also working on the completion of a major project that has been lying idle for a long time. Together with singer Kjetil Nordhus we look into the band's past and future.

40 years ago David Coverdale made the step back to the big stages and into the charts with Whitesnake. His way there was paved by the album "Ready An' Willing" with the hit "Fool For Your Loving" and the live release "Live For Your Loving". In The Heart Of The City". In the course of two conversations, the first of which took place before the Corona pandemic, the second in the middle of the lockdown, Old Cov remembered his fellow musicians of the time and came out as a passionate mixtape composer. The Rock Album", released on June 19, is a result of this passion. In addition, we asked Ian Paice about his memories of his time in Coverdale's band.

Seven years after their last work "Das Geheimnis", the Hessian prog quartet releases a new album. It is called "In Oculis Meis" and has in common with the last Opeth-Opus not only that it has a Latin title, but also that it is available in a mother tongue as well as an English version. The latter is a novelty for Traumhaus. We talked to front man Alexander Weyland about the new opus.

Weyland is in a good mood when we meet him, visibly happy that a new album of his band is finally on the market, and very curious about how the idea of releasing it in two languages will be received..

eclipsed: The last Traumhaus album was released seven years ago and was very well received - so why this long break?

In the middle of the Corona crisis Haken release an album called "Virus" as if they had a premonition of the upcoming pandemic. Lyrically extremely exciting, it follows an extremely hard and uncompromising path musically. Is the band putting their prog claim on the back burner with this? Which virus got Haken there?

The times of Corona are hard enough for all of us. Now, with their new album "Virus", Haken are putting their finger in the wound even more. But unintentionally, because the album was written as a sequel to its predecessor "Vector" (2018) long before the Covid 19 pandemic. It tells the further story of the "Cockroach King", who first appeared on the album "The Mountain" (2013) in the track of the same name, one of the most famous and fascinating songs of the band. We felt songwriter, guitarist and keyboarder Richard Henshall as well as the hook virus.

In Lower Saxony they are shooting musically sharp lately! The band around singer and pianist Simon Moskon thinks in large format. Their progressive folk is putting the pedal to the metal. "Once Upon A Time" lives up to its name as a musical spaghetti western with a lot of pathos, harshness and queen-like choirs. The third album of the North German trio is his most elaborately produced work so far. How much western ethos and campfire romanticism is in "Once Upon A Time"?