There was some day long ago when I became too busy to stop everything else, turn down the lights, and listen to music in the open air. If I plugged in cheap ear buds to listen to WinAmp or iTunes it was good enough as a background for Quake or reading online travel brochures for Asheron’s Call. Standing in front of the giant speakers at dance clubs screaming back at The Prodigy probably lost some subtlety. So now that I got some decent speakers and I unpacked my tuner I have rediscovered the qualities of my music collection. I had forgotten the mortified despair of listening to The Pink Opaque in the dark; the deep, hollow barrage of the synthetic percussion filling and haunting my walls. (Guess who’s goth). Electrafixion is kick ass, and Esthero should not legally be a red-headed Canuck with that kind of soul. That was just up to ‘E’. These records I’d half ignored scores of times sound completely different when I’m actively listening to them.

It’s not lecture time, but I hope you can appreciate the difference between active and inattentive listening. Music has a superficial register to coax you with a catchy tune, or to irritate you like a bucket of rusty bolts scraping along wood flooring upstairs (how many buckets of rusty bolts does my upstairs neighbor need to scrape along her wood floor above me?) Unless the artist is a shallow sell-out they probably have some deeper message or some innovative delivery in their music. Stop, focus, and let it affect you on a level below the surface. Listen for more than verse-chorus-verse and thump-screech-thump. The joy of listening to a familiar record on better than average equipment is like going from a Hershey’s bar to one of those Dove dark chocolate covered dark chocolate ice cream bars. I can’t attempt to explain that degree of chocolate to you. If you’re not already looking for your keys and wallet now I can’t help you.