I've been writing about baseball since 2003, but I've been writing about music since 1995, going pro in 1998. Sometime in late 2004, my creative powers having been redirected into my first baseball blog and my by-then defunct rock band, Joanie Loves Trotsky, I ran out of ways to describe overly familiar guitar sounds while attempting to update TrouserPress.com's Matthew Sweet entry. That was it. I haven't written about music since, although I've continued to keep my ear to the ground in order to keep my annual Pazz & Jop vote (see sidebar). In the intervening years, I've often sought a way to revive that aspect of my writing, originally conceiving "Tin Ear" as something of a grass-roots answer to MetaCritic and having Ken set up this blog for me back when Toaster.TV launched in September 2006. A year and a half later, I think I might have finally rediscovered the muse. We'll see. Stay tuned.