As you may have expected, I care a lot about sound quality. Nothing makes me happier than a high bit rate and my Sennheiser HD 595s. But, as you also may have expected, I’m a pretty busy guy. Sometimes, I’ve got to multitask. In terms of Swole Ear, this means that I have to listen to a record out of my laptop speakers every now and then. Believe me, this always causes great amounts of distress. As I found out tonight, it can also cause me to misjudge music. We learned something today: high audio quality isn’t just an OCD thing, it actually matters for effective music listening!
So I was walking around my room, probably putting clothes away or something, and just not getting Before the Dawn Heals Us. It sounded like a big mess of static and synthesizers. I got to the sixth track (Asterisk) without my headphones, ready to write an angry post about how weird =/= good, when I plugged my sennies in. It sounded like a big, glorious mess of static and synthesizers.
Looking back, I probably plugged my headphones in at the perfect moment. I can’t think of a place for a better transition from crap to good sound quality on this record. That’s not to say that makes Before the Dawn any less impressive, though. It’s an odd grab bag of indie electronic, with something that’ll probably please, as well as piss off, every music listener out there.
What am I going to take away from this? Always, always, listen to music on a system that doesn’t sound like crap. It’s very easy to misjudge something heard through crappy speakers. You can turn that into an analogy for life or something; just make sure that you give me credit.
Swole Ear 
Hey, Mr. Ear, I’m no math wiz (actually, I am when it comes to dividing 365 by 2), but aren’t you about half way through this special project? What are you going to do to mark this milestone? Maybe it is time for a special week (ala Wilco Week and Minnesota Week). Maybe albums/bands/songs with “half” in their name. I don’t know. It would be a shame to let this pass unmarked.
No one can forget Cher’s “Half Breed” (try as we might), and there’s always punk legends Half Japanese (they make every other punk band sound better).
I know it is a sucky idea, but you need to do something.