Trying to Forget the Crushing Defeats since 2009

Before I start, a quick note (in compliance with Federal Trade Commission rules): the following blog post will plug a product…because it’s awesome. I, however, have not been paid or received any material from this company for testing. It’s actually the other way around- I’ve given them lots of money.

So…Boston. For the 600,000 people who live where the Charles River and the Atlantic Ocean meet, we generally like our city- beneath the gritty and sometimes laughable exterior of the 617 lies a heart of gold.

But that “heart of gold” has been beating a little bit louder than normal lately. For one reason or another, the gas/electric/water/sewer people have all ganged up and decided to decimate the street below my window for the purposes of fixing pipes. Using jackhammers. At 7.30am.

Just as I started to feel myself getting down from all of this construction and noise, I decided to do two things: one was to start drinking Earl Grey, and the other was to start listening to Owl City.

Owl City, for those of you who might not recognize the name, is the band/guy who sings that song about fireflies, the song whose lyrics are all over your friends’ Facebook statuses and is all the rage on iTunes. If you haven’t yet sat back in your chair and gone “aww, I love that song!” yet, you can sample it by clicking here.

Now, if this was a typical music review, all I’d say was that everyone’s all over this Fireflies song and that no one has even bothered to listen to the album, which has many songs that are even better. And…this review IS typical: Fireflies is a great song and a great intro to the Owl City sound, but the album as a whole is definitely enough to make up for the fact that a legion of 11-year-olds in Suburbia just made it their MySpace song.

But I’ve learned something new from listening to Owl City’s “Ocean Eyes” album on endless repeat (the songs are so catchy you will finish the album and simply start it over again, I promise): the album’s biggest draw is that it can make you happy… no matter what. The songs are electronic, over-polished, saccharine productions, but every song is immersive, almost as if the sound is your favorite blanket. And it serves that purpose: grab your blanket (preferably one WITHOUT SLEEVES) and a book, put on the Owl City, and you’re…happy.

That is, until you try to listen to Owl City on the city streets. The first time I listened to Owl City on my iPhone, it just…sucked. The streets were too noisy, forcing me to turn the volume up too high for it to sound good. Showing up to my class no happier than when I had left ten minutes earlier, I got worried that Owl City had lost its charm as quickly as it had gained it.

And then I realized the problem: my headphones.

At the time, I was lugging around a cheap pair of Sony sport earbuds that I could run, sweat, and fall over with without worrying. But the sound (while not too bad for cheapie earbuds) was quickly left behind once “Ocean Eyes” started to play. So I went home, dusted off my pair of expensive, sound-isolating headphones, plugged in, and hit play.

Magic.

In the past two weeks since shelving my Sonys and breaking out my best pair of headphones (the Etymotic Research hf2 iPhone Headset), though, I’ve fallen back in love with many of the songs I thought were only okay under my last pair: Owl City’s surround-sound style has come back, Boston’s incessant construction noise is gone, and the sound quality is amazing. I once called the hf2 “life-changing headphones,” and I still stand behind that.

Granted, the Etymotics aren’t perfect for everyone: buy a pair new from ER and they run you $180 (I snagged a pair on eBay for about $110, my Christmas present to myself), but the hf2 manages to be both worth that sum, and a great illustration of a life-lesson: if you’re walking around with cheap, flimsy headphones, you’re ruining your music.

And when music is what separates your “inner sanctuary” from utter chaos, you need all the help you can get.

Owl City, “Ocean Eyes”: Win

Etymotic Research hf2 iPhone Headset: Epic Win!