How cheap earphones can sound great

Earphones. They don't need to be expensive to be great. A middle range in-ear ones that fit your ears well will give you that super bass, noise cancelling sound that those crazy expensive ones offer (To be honest I never really tried them expensive earphones but unless you have super high quality files on your iPod, these are pretty useless).

One of the most annoying things to me is earphones can't last 4 months before you have to move the wires around so sound would come out from both earbuds. The last few years alone I think I probably went through at least 10 pairs if not more. They are unnecessarily expensive thus I suspect all the world's earphone manufacturers build in a secret self-destruct timer so that we keep spending money on new pairs.

A couple of years ago I went to get a pair of in-ears at HMV, and discovered the best thing ever. They suggested I buy this insurance thing for £2 I think it was, which allows me to return a broken pair and get a new one of the same price. It was most triumphant! For broke music enthusiasts like me. That first purchase was a £15 blue Philips kind (£5 cheaper than the black ones. I guess blue paint is cheaper) and I must've broken about 4 pairs of earphones and managed to always get free replacements (cos I buy the insurance every time I exchange a broken one).

One time, I paid an extra £5 so I can get it replaced with a £20 one, thinking that it's more expensive hence better. Man, was I wrong. It was the worst of the bunch! It's designed a bit funny so it didn't fit my ears, and just sounded awful. Wish I can remember the make or model, but all I remember is it said it was a 'surround sound' earphone, which is already an obvious sign that this was a piece of monkey turd.

You know how earlier I said earphones don't last 4 months? Well, this shitty one lasted a freakin year! After thinking that I could either shell out £20 for another pair or be stuck with these ones forever, it was finally busted. Excited, I went and exchanged it with a nice £20 Sennheiser ones. They were perfect... and I LOST those at a gig after only a couple of weeks. Now my insurance is useless cos they only accept faulty returns, not loss on the grounds that you're an idiot. Heartbroken, I started accepting charity earphones from friends and after 3 pairs breaking on me in 3 months, I decided to buy a new pair. I bought the same kind as the blue Phillips ones that I used to have, cos I remember they were good enough, and how I used them as earplugs (we had loud neighbours) so it must've fit well. Plus, now it was only RM35 (£7) and when I put them on, lo and behold, everything was INCREDIBLE! Now, maybe I've been using bad earphones for too long, but I thought it was actually as good as the £20 Sennheiser.

What did these 2 pairs have in common? They fit well. That equals to noise cancelling and bass boosting. To me, that's all you need to have great earphones.

The best part is that this one is cheap, so it's not such a lost if it broke. In fact, I could've bought 2 or 3 pairs as reserves. In case you're wondering, they are Philips SHE3590BK.

By the way, HMV is now going out of business. Guess it's just the signs of the times what with digital files and all. but I've bought tons of CDs from them when I was young. And they deserve props for the faulty electronics insurance thing. Hope they go out with a bang!

He's a mod

This is an old entry I wrote on a different blog, but it belongs here.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

I've finished my internship. Last Sunday I helped out at the Anugerah Juara Lagu though but I'm basically tired of talking about that. So...

Friday. My last day at the office. Quite nice. Everybody belanja-ed me makan. I was leaving in the evening so I went to get my bag and guess who was sitting in my seat? The big boss, Paul Moss. He apologized and got up.

I said stay, but he got up anyway and sat nearby. I told him it was my last day and that I was taking off, so we shook hands and he wished me luck and all the formality. While I was packing though, I asked him if he still played guitar (see Aishah and the Fan Club) and he smiled and said no, I don't know if he was joking. But then I told him something I've always wanted to ever since I started working there.

"I really liked (your former record label) Positive Tone last time. My favorite CD was Boys & Girls 1+1=3". I told him I really liked the Nita songs he produced and that I still listen to the album today. That's when he started telling me ALL about the very rare and mysterious CD! "'He's A Mod' is very old.. originally done by this guy named Ray Columbus. 'True Love' was a very popular song in New Zealand by this really punk guy. The sound at the start was my keyboards hooked up to a fuzz pedal. We were trying to get that funny Weezer-like keyboards/synth noise. The keyboards is still in my office".

This guy doesn't say much, mind you. He nods when you walk past, and a few words on a good day, perhaps. So the fact that I got him to go on a roll about this was quite amazing. It was as if I was a journalist and I have an exclusive! Not to mention about a subject that was very important to me.

"I still have the Nita demos somewhere. They weren't really recorded properly, and are still on cassette." I said to him that I'd really love to hear them. He also mentioned that they were supposed to record an album for her but it never happened (they did about 2 years ago though, but totally different type of music, and it was after Nita got 2nd place in Malaysian Idol).

"The album cover is by Taj from Innuendo's (former pop group) wife, can't remember her name. It's very old.. must've been from the 60's," he mentioned, without me asking.

"In the beginning we (Positive Tone) were like, if you wanna do anything, we'll take you and put out your CD, it was that easy. We would laugh at normal labels that put out 10 albums, and only 1 would do really well, when we put out 10, 9 will do well. Well, actually, 5 would do well, 3 is just OK and 2 not so good" he joked, under his breath. "And then it started to become more commercial because there was the need to make money. We can't just do stuff and not get anything."

"We were doing very well. Innuendo was selling like 30, 000 records, and the the fucking crash of '97 happened" recalled Boss Moss.

Me: That was my favorite era of music, the 90's.
PM: Right, you were just a toddler.
Me: No! I loved music already! I was just starting!
PM: Yeah, just started to LIVE.

We shook hands again and he told me to be on my way, smiling. It was one of the most satisfying conversations I ever had and I didn't expect it at all. I did something stupid though, I told him to check out my Little Planets myspace. Seeing from his enthusiasm on getting the spelling of the URL correct, I'm sure he went there and is shocked by how terrible my 'band' is. Yikes!

How Mutt got me into Shania

So earlier this week I was talking to someone about Mutt Lange. Not sure if I mentioned it in this blog yet but I'm a MASSIVE Def Leppard fan, and Robert John 'Mutt' Lange produced Def Lep's classic albums (High N' Dry, Pyromania, Hysteria) and basically made their careers.

One of the things that first got me into Def Lep was their insanely huge backing vocal harmonies and I later found out that this was Mutt Lange's trademark. I read somewhere that he did the same for Shania Twain (whom he married and later supposedly cheated on, go read a tabloid if you're interested in that!) so I've been listening to Shania's stuff to hear it myself.

I got me Shania's Greatest Hits released in 2004 (well I wanted to hear Come On Over [1997] cos that's her supposed country-pop crossover and first Mutt produced record, but I heard her earlier stuff that I thought was cool so I just got the Hits, hey it's a legit way to get into a band/singer!) and I've been listening to it for 4 days straight now! And it's got 21 tracks! Sure enough the Mutt songs has got his signature backing vocals all over it, and some of them can actually be Def Leppard tunes!

My current favs from the album: Forever and For Always, I'm Gonna Getcha Good, That Don't Impress Me Much, You're Still The One and Any Man of Mine.

Knowing me I'll start liking the other tracks in time. The only time I ever really listened to Shania Twain was when I was 13 and we just got MTV and Come On Over was big. I've never been big on country except the odd tunes by Gin Blossoms (90s pop rock band from Arizona, they're awesome!) but they do great vocal harmonies, and I think I'm into the sound of country fiddle!

I started listening to The Cars' Heartbeat City (1984) as well, also produced by Mutt Lange but haven't got so much into that yet, although 'Magic' is probably one of the best songs I've ever heard. More on that later.

Til then check out this video with a short version of 'Any Man Of Mine'. It's the only stripped down acoustic performance that I can find of Shania on Youtube that hasn't got a pre-recorded backing track featuring Mutt's backing vocals .

wish I wrote that #3

Some things you do really make me mad I must confess
The way the street light silhouettes your thighs inside your dress

-'Down Boys' (Warrant, 1989)
written by Jani Lane

I just think that's sexy as hell!

ego blockage

Saw this comment when I was watching this video. Thought it was hilarious! Didn't know it was some kind of disorder.


Very common affliction. It's called "ego blockage." It's when a singer gets so full of him/herself so that they can't possibly sing a song anywhere near the way it originally went. Symptoms include: talking the song, long pauses followed by quickly running lyrics together, dropping the octave, fill-ins like "Ow!", "Yeah!", "C'mon!", and in extreme cases, a complete refusal to sing the song, by holding the microphone towards the audience and saying, "you know the words to the song, YOU sing!"

nightmare

Just woke up from a dream that I was at Steve Vai's funeral. It looked like a nighttime campfire in a Malaysian field and as he was buried, 'Every Rose Has It's Thorn' by Poison was playing. Later at the funeral, for some reason I was air guitaring Metallica's 'Master Of Puppets', and I started to breakdown! Thinking why have God taken away such a great talent. And that's when I woke up.

Don't have sweet chilli chicken before bed. And hope you're ok Steve!

Debbie Gibson - Who Loves Ya Baby?

I can't remember what got me to listen to Electric Youth (1989) recently. The first track of this album is such a beautiful pop song that I am officially hooked! I love those super-produced sounds of the 80s, and Debbie Gibson is a prime example of polished dance-pop confectionery. The homerun for me however is that - cliche I know - I can relate to the lyrics. The idealistic, calmness and cheer in Debbie's voice is perfect for the message of this song:  'You might think you're facing the world alone, but I, and others around you will always be by your side'. Favorite lyric: Just a smile is alright, don't owe me anything.

I had to share this song but on Youtube there are only live versions, so I uploaded one myself. With nice pictures of Debbie :)

Oh yeah. also check out the rest of this amazing album!