New Arcade Fire single makes me happy.

The absolutely wonderful Arcade Fire have been teasing fans with news of a new single for weeks now. On their website they shared a postcard with fans announcing the new single was finished and was set for a release rather soon. Fans eagerly waiting to hear the fresh new 12" can breathe a sigh of relief because the single is up!

Here's "The Suburbs/Month of May"

Click on "Month of May" to flip the single!

EDIT: head here for the full song!

One of the best covers I've ever heard.

For a couple of white fellas, The Black Keys do blues and R&B right, but we already knew this. I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that when they did a cover of Jerry Butler's crooning classic, "Never Gonna Give You Up", it would be good. Not only is it good, but it's absolutely amazing. It just sounds perfect, even BETTER than the original. Dan Auerbach's voice is brimming with soul in this track. This is going to be in my playing rotation forever. FOREVER I TELL YOU! Please listen to this song if you have a soul, or soul.

New albums out, YAYYYYYYY!

In other brief news, NPR is currently streaming some outstanding new albums by some great artists. Standing out for me is Treats, by Sleigh Bells and Brothers, from The Black Keys. The Sleigh Bells album is a tour de force of sound and one of the strongest debut albums I've listened to in recent memory. For The Black Keys, this is their 6th album. It is also possibly their best work yet. The confidence that exudes from Dan Auerbach's voice is simply wonderful to hear. Definitely give these a listen when you have the time! Let me know what you think.

The Gucci Gucc is freeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Time to put your "Free Gucci" shirts away, white boys. As you folks may have heard, the great southern rapper, Gucci Mane, was freed from Fulton County Jail late last evening/early morning. He served 6 months out of a possible 12 for a parole violation. Before heading to prison, Gucci was just about the hottest rapper out there, and the release of The State vs. Radric Davis just before his imprisonment only helped his cause. He also released the rather decent Burrprint 2 mixtape while IN jail, so we can only hope Gucci will be giving us something to bop our heads to in the very near future. With new stuff from our favorite, iced-out, crack dealing rapper to look forward to, we should only celebrate his freedom with one of his classics. Off his debut album, Trap House, the song "2 Thangs" was the first Gucci song I ever heard. It's hard bumping anthem with bragging Gucci laying down some clever double entendres all the way through.

A band you all should know about.

Phantogram is the best band you don't know about. A duo hailing from Saratoga Springs, New York, Sarah Barthel and Josh Carter create synthy, guitar-riddled hip-hop beats topped with some fairly clever lyrics. It all adds up to something pretty special on the their debut album, Eyelid Movies. They spilt up the singing duties about 60-40, with Barthel's soft, almost erie voice creating an auditory balancing act over the strong beats. She doesn't have the most incredible range, but when she is doing the singing it sounds rather fantastic. When Carter sings it's not particularly good, per se, but he does well with what he has: altering his voice and meshing it into the framework of the songs themselves. All in all, they are an excellent duo who have deservingly started to make a mark on the music scene.

At the start of Eyelid Movies is the single, "Mouthful of Diamonds", an awesome song that has probably already been thrown on the background of some show on the CW. Its good stuff, and I suggest you clowns take a listen. Video is kinda creepy too, so thats a plus.

Time for your pap smear.

Crystal Castles, the loud, in-your-freaking-face electronica duo, have a new album out titled Crystal Castles. This may sound familiar because their debut album was released under the same name just 2 years ago. To prevent confusion we can just call it CC '10. CC '10 starts with a loud and cranky Alice Glass, but on parts of the album she actually sounds like an angelic woman. With a soft, almost soothing sound, she croons over the erratic beat in "Pap Smear". A song seemingly about thoughts on abortion (agree with them or not, the song sounds great), Crystal Castles are at their best here. I know CC isn't for everyone, but this is a very accessible song for a first time listener of the group. Enjoy!

Sunbathing T-rex pimps it poolside.

The video for The Black Keys new single is glorious. Off their upcoming album, Brothers, the track is titled "Next Girl". The video is a simple concept. Lots of bikini clad hoochies vying for the love of one lucky Tyrannosaurus Rex. The singing dino struts his stuff amongst the ladies, while they scratch and claw their way through each other for his attention. It all adds up to a fairly wonderful video. Enjoy.

Test your speakers with "Tell 'Em"

Super distorted duo, Sleigh Bells, have released the single for their debut album. The song is called "Tell 'Em", and it knocks the socks clean off. Warning, be careful with your speakers, because this one gets loud (usually the case with a SB song). Lucky for us, Sleigh Bells sound best when they're loud. If the rest of the album is as awesome as this skull-thumping delight, then we should all hope to be applying for hearing aids at an early age.

"Get rowdy as Roethlisberger in a bathroom stall."

I'm a couple days late on mentioning the great news, but everyones favorite white emcee is back. In a big way. Freestyling over a couple beats, Eminem drops about 7952847359248375 amazing one-liners in a matter of 2 minutes and 18 seconds. In doing so, he reminds his listeners to never sleep on him. He sounds like his old self, pre Encore, primed and ready to rip any schmucks head off that gets in his way. This makes us all very, very happy. It also makes us look forward to his Recovery release that much more. Here's his "Despicable" freestyle. Enjoy!

He has apparently released his new single as well! Titled "I'm Not Afraid", Em sings a little, and raps a lot. It's not the scariest stuff he has ever dropped, but it's also not some goofy single to get airplay like he has done with all his other albums. It's another promising step towards Recovery.

Yes, Deftones still make music. Yes it's still badass.

For me, Deftones is a band that had always kicked ass. However, since the band mostly went their own ways since their last album in 2006, Deftones as a whole has suffered. Therefore, with Chino's dedication to his other project, Team Sleep, they have unfortunately produced jack shit. That means if you didn't like the direction Chino went with Team Sleep (I for one did, and I may be the minority), then you have eagerly awaited something new from Deftones for years now. To be honest, when I heard that Diamond Eyes was being released, I had a sinking feeling. The kind of feeling that you get when you are 100% sure something is going to suck. I'm not sure if that was because I really didn't think Chino, or any of the members for that matter, were going to give it their all, or because this album wasn't titled Eros. Turns out, I was way off, and boy, oh boy does that bring a smile to my face. The title track, "Diamond Eyes" is the first single, and man, it kicks some massive ass. After some brief listens to other songs on the album, this may be their best work since White Pony. Now I know I may be going overboard, but this album is exactly what Deftones fans needed. So I say, welcome back, Deftones, welcome back. After all the blabbing, here is their new single, and my Song of the Day, "Diamond Eyes".

P.S. The album releases May 4th! Go buy it.

Phoenix is awesome. I am not.

Last evening, my girlfriend and I attended a private artist showcase which I won from our favorite radio station, WRNR in Annapolis. The showcase was basically a free pass to the sound check of Phoenix's Monday night DAR Constitution Hall show. I was under the impression that the show was sold out, so we wouldn't be staying for the actual concert, but just being able to see a snippet of them playing live already had me excited. After all the do's and don'ts were sorted out with management we took our seats right up front while Tommy Mars and the rest of the group were just finishing up some touches on "Lisztomania". They played for roughly forty minutes (with a back-up drummer, mind you!) and then we took some pictures, thanked them and we were on our way. The performance was just short of bonerific for me (nohomo) and seeing the band really at work, just tinkering away until their sound was just right made the night for me. It was a music lovers dream. Then, while walking out of the place I spoke to the box office attendant and he informed me they had 10 tickets left for the show. Literally 10 left. Other than that the place was sold out to capacity. They were $40 and I'm not sure how many of you are broke college kids, but thats a little steep for me. I contemplated for what seemed like hours, but decided to just go watch the Caps game somewhere and get some dinner, save some money. The Caps lost the game, I ended up spending a good amount of money anyway, then headed home pissed/drunk to get some sleep. I wake up the next day and head to class. Then the news hit that the concert was nothing short of spectacular and that I missed this:

Thanks to the gfs coworker for the link to this vid!!

Needless to say I was not happy with myself for being a cheapass and passing up on getting tickets for the show. It's times like this when I hate myself and I deserve a swift kick in the arse for missing something so glorious. Phoenix, you guys are awesome. I am not.

Our first Song Of The Day

One thing I want to start doing is posting a Song of the Day. It may be from any genre or time frame. It all just depends on how I may be feeling that day. As with anything else on here I may take suggestions on what this song may be, as long as it's not a big pile of auditory dogshit. With that being said, our friend James Murphy and his marvelous, critically acclaimed musical project LCD Soundsystem have a new album coming out titled This Is Happening. The opening song to the album, which was streaming on their website somewhere, is titled "Dance Yrself Clean", and sweet lordy is it a doozy. Murphy is an absolute wizard at creating a fantastic buildup in some of his songs, then letting loose with an absolute explosion for the eardrums, and does he ever display this in "Dance Yrself Clean". Here it is ladies and gents, the Song Of The Day:

And so it begins...

I started this blog in hopes to give my friends and family a better picture of the vast amounts of truly great music which is out there, waiting to be heard, hummed, air-guitared and finger-tapped along to. I consider myself to be a fairly well-informed and rounded music enthusiast, but even I know there is much to be heard and discovered constantly, so thats what I try and do on a daily basis. This is one of the many reasons for Info For Your Eardrums inception. I am fairly new to this, but as it goes on I will hopefully be updating this fairly regularly with some great stuff from all genres for you to hear. With that being said, here we go...

Normally I wouldn't start with such an explosive post, but this really caught my eye as one of the more powerful videos I've seen in a long, long time. It's for M.I.A.'s new song "Born Free" off her upcoming, yet-to-be named album which is scheduled to release in June. This video is highly violent and possibly offensive. It also contains some nudity which will also lend to its NSFW tag. The song itself is a sprawling epic with thumping drums and brief guitar riffs scattered throughout, all topped with M.I.A.'s echoing voice. Here it is:

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.