I’ve never had the opportunity to speak to The Who’s famed songwriter and guitar player, Pete Townshend, but my guess is that a conversation would go a little something like this:
“Pete, I loved your work on…”
“What?”
“Sorry, I was just saying that I…”
“What!?”
“I LOVED YOUR GUITAR WORK ON QUADROPHENIA AND…”
“WHAT!!?”
And so on.
You see, as Mr. Townshend might attest, there’s a dark side to maximum R&B and that dark side is hearing loss. In the past, music-induced hearing loss was largely a problem only for musicians and the feral, tie-dye types who thrust their heads into concert speakers for hours at a time. Now that increasing numbers of people relax with headphones jammed into their ears, hearing loss has the potential to affect a larger (and less-colorful) segment of the population.
With that in mind, I’d like to direct your attention to Steven Roback’s What’s That Ringing?, an insightful overview of the dangers associated with loud music (and what you can do to protect yourself). After all, the most important audio tools you own are your ears.