The Unblinking Ear Podcast 8/30/12

(In a world... where this apparently fucking exists)

It's rough out there, folks. You just don't know who you can trust. Just in the past couple of weeks, we've had the P4K "People's List" (submissions without any Radiohead were thrown out for assumed trolling/implausibility), an article tracing punk's lineage back to Scandal's "Goodbye to You" and some kind of plea to listen to more Foo Fighters, I guess. Also, there's something called Rosco Bandana. The point is, some people are just dying to give you bad information.

The Unblinking Ear Podcast is here to rescue you from this conundrum. This edition of the podcast features nothing but new releases. That's a whole bunch of new music plus a new reissue. We filter it all so you don't have to. And you don't even have to thank us. The glory of being the best is enough.

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The Unblinking Ear Podcast: Plausibly the Best of 2011

The year is nearly over. But before we put 2011 in our rearview, let's take a moment (or roughly 47 and a half minutes) to reflect on the year that was.

Below are selections from what I consider the best records of 2011. For those of you with obsessive compulsive disorder, don't fret. I'll be putting them in list form in the near future, along with many "honorable mentions."

I welcome all agreements/disagreements, Either post them in comments section or tweet them at me. But before you work yourself into a frothy rage over my selections, do try and remember that these things are subjective.

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The Unblinking Ear Podcast: Zeitgeist, Baby

Here at Unblinking Ear HQ, we've noticed over the last couple of months a large amount of music press/internet babble devoted to deluxe reissues of albums that came out 20 years ago*. There's nothing wrong with that as we here at Unblinking Ear celebrate rock history as well and have also been known to have something of a 90s fetish.

However, what use is nostalgia when it overshadows the vital work happening in the here and now? There has been such a deluge of terrific new releases over the past few weeks and months that we've been struggling to keep up. In fact, the amount of fine new records has been so great that we've decided to eschew the past temporarily and devote this edition of the podcast entirely to brand new music. With so much, so good coming out recently, it was actually rather easy to acompliish.

The next podcast will surely feature some fine music recorded many years prior mixed with equally fine music of the present. But for now... dig the now.

*Incidentally, the actual best album of 1991 was Eleventh Dream Day's Lived To Tell.

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The Unblinking Ear Podcast: 2010 (Again)

(Above: another thing I somehow missed in 2010)

Welcome to this edition of the now weekly Unblinking Ear Podcast.

In our previous installment, we heard some of the best rock music of 2010. Here, we hear the music I missed 2010 but is worthy of your attention. For the past month or so, many have been publishing their best of the year lists. I've spent that time going through the ones from people I respect and listening to their picks which I hadn't heard. I'm not even close to done and I've already found enough stuff to fill an entire podcast. And there's more where that came from. Hopefully, I'll be done with 2010 by the time Pazz and Jop rolls around. Expect the next couple of podcasts to be peppered with previously unheard (by me) 2010 releases, along with a bunch of new records and, of course, the old stuff from when curmudgeons like me thought music really had it going on.

For now, I'll tip my hand and cite these fine people with fine taste as sources from which I'm swiping content. I have the feeling that some of the more waggish of you will comment that this podcast is better than my actual "best of" podcast. You know what? I might agree with you. Full credit goes to these folks:

Nate Knabel
Doug Mosurock
Jay Hinman
Brushback
WFMU's Terre T (Coming Soon)
WFMU's Evan "Funk" Davies
WFMU's Jason Sigal
WPRB's Jon Solomon
Matador Records Staff and Artists
Goner Records Staff
Chunklet Staff


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Or Subscribe via iTunes