I love music
I listen to all sorts of music. When I’m in the mood. Female vocals, jazz, electronic, dance even classical from time to time. Loud, soft, somewhere in between I’ll play at all levels depending on the mood.
My lair at home is chock full of CDs (and DVDs, BluRays, LPs) built up over the years. Although I’ll admit since getting a Spotify subscription I’ve bought very little music on physical media.
Sonos allows music all over the house. The radio flip flops between Heart (I’m a child of the 70’s/80’s don’t forget) and Radio 4 (I’m convinced my wife would happily listen to nothing else). The kids often prefer daddy music to story CDs in the car.
But not other people’s
We’ve all been there. Next to the person listening to the music, earphones semi-stuffed into their ears, volume turned up to 11. Perhaps a head-bob going on. Often an arrogant pout slapped on their miserable face.
Well, look. I don’t want to listen to your music thanks all the same. It makes my commute (where I’m generally quietly reading) a bloody misery. Ting ting ting. Tsh tsh tsh. STFU.
Obviously my earphones aren’t the bog standard ones that come free with an iPod: they just don’t do it for me. I did some research (I love a bit of research, me) and bought ones that got good reviews and weren’t insanely expensive. And closed back, unlike the generally open backed freebies. Open backed means they’ve got holes in the back (yes, the opposite side to your ear) to give the sound a more, ahem, open quality. There are at least two other consequences:
- Everyone can hear you’re listening to Britney. At least the really annoying tinny beat. Actually with Britney some may say that describes the entire experience. Bleurgh.
- You can hear the outside world, to some extent. Which is why you tend to turn up the music. And end up annoying everyone else even more. See 1.
Closed back ‘phones don’t have these holes. Which means they’re generally better at blocking out sounds from the real world. So they don’t need to be as loud, which is less harmful for your ears. These facts combine to rather excellent effect: you don’t annoy the shit out of everyone around you.
If you’re in a quiet room listening to high quality equipment, open backed ‘phones are almost universally considered better than closed (which is why I have a pair at home). But in the noisy real world the opposite is true.
Of course you have to be careful walking around wearing such things. Because they block out the real world. But then so do loud open backers.
Some people…
… are simply arseholes. They must know their crappy music is annoying other people, they’re just ignoring them. And that’s just plain rude. One bloke I took issue with on a train home had his earphones dangling from his neck.
He was clearly a premier league arsehole because when I asked him (actually pretty politely) to put them in his ears or switch them off he just got aggressive. A packed train and the only backup I got was from one other bloke … and then only a single sentence. WTF people? Do you like listening to this shit?
Be courteous
The last time I had my earphones going in a public place was on a long (a bit over four hours) train journey. It was a pretty empty carriage so it wasn’t exactly a target-rich environment for annoyance. But my assigned seat put me across the aisle from someone reading a book.
I’m not generally a twat so I told her: if you can hear my music please just let me know. She was visibly happy at being given this option and we didn’t disturb each other for the rest of the journey. And I knew I wasn’t annoying anyone.
Clearly it’s not always feasible to do this. Especially on the Central Line at rush hour. So I’m going to get some badges made (with the pic on the right). Just a small badge with a pin.
If you’d like one, let me know. What d’you reckon? £3?
Wear one and let everyone know it’s ok to tell you to turn it down. £3 to let the world know you’re not an arrogant arsehole.
Cheap at twice the price 
I know
The arrogant twunts won’t wear these things.
But perhaps if lots of people wore them it would encourage others to stand up for themselves when confronted by a twunt with tinny ‘phones.
Peer pressure can be a disaster … but it could also be persuaded to work in our favour.
Next product?
Scissors anyone? C’mon it can’t be just me that wants to snip those damn wires 