"Wind by the Ear" EP44: This episode must be listened to with headphones, detonating an intracranial orgasm...

Listen to the show here https://kkbox.fm/n38QZg

Headphones were not originally invented for listening to music, but at the end of the 19th century for telephone operators to free up their hands, and the earliest headphones were created. In the following decades, earphones were mainly used in military, broadcasting, radio and other professional fields. It was not until the explosion of transistor radios in the 1950s that the small unilateral earphones became a prop for thousands of teenagers to eavesdrop on popular music in the middle of the night with quilts.

Before the 1980s, very few audiophiles would buy a bulky pair of headphones to listen to music. It was not until 1979 that Sony invented the card-type Walkman and developed lightweight headphones, which became the preferred tool for young people to listen to music, and Sony also became the world's largest headphone manufacturer. Young people who wear headphones to temporarily isolate themselves from the world have since become a natural part of the urban landscape around the world.

The four songs in this episode are particularly interesting to listen to with headphones. Cody ChesnuTT's entire legendary house-recording album The Headphone Masterpiece was mixed with a pair of Sony MDR 7506 headphones, which are meant to be listened to. PJ Harvey's The Wind murmurs in an airy voice from start to finish, enough to trigger a "cranial orgasm." The Velvet Underground's Some Kinda Love not only does Lou Reed sing softly in your ear, but the two guitars on the left and right channels tease each other, perfectly echoing the theme of the song. Radiohead's incredibly sad ending to the Romeo+Juliet film, Exit Music (For a Film), has a soundstage so deep, full of dreamlike details that only headphones can tell.

Of course, these songs all have extraordinary themes: the life of a singer whose private life and creation have hit the wall, the female saint who was executed in rounds in the early 4th century, the dialectics of love and sex without borders, and the suicide of Romeo and Juliet. And a few great lyrics:

"I got a dick full of blood and a wide open heart to lean on" (Cody ChesnuTT)

"Between thought and expression lies a lifetime" (Lou Reed)

"We hope your rules and wisdom choke you, we wish you choke" (Radiohead)

Songs on air:

Cody ChesnuTT / My Women, My Guitars (The Headphone Masterpiece, 2002)

PJ Harvey / The Wind (Is It Desire?, 1998)

The Velvet Underground / Some Kinda Love (The Velvet Underground, 1969)

Radiohead / Exit Music (For a Film) (OK Computer, 1997)