[link to original on tumblr]
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Things:
- Aside from "This Will Be Our Year" and "Time of the Season," I'd heard Odessey and Oracle only in stereo, and I found that listening to it in mono was the same sort of experience that I had when listening to the Decca Stereo Anthology. Because things were mixed differently, I heard stuff I had never known was there before, which was awesome.
- I can understand why Rod Argent didn't include the 'cello part in "A Rose for Emily," but the mellotron part is beautiful! Why wasn't that in the released version?
- Related: I love alternate versions. I'd heard that 'cello part via Zombie Heaven, but the mellotron part was new, as was the not-muted backing track on the alternate version of "Time of the Season." I was familiar with parts of those songs, but discovering that there were other parts that I hadn't heard (because they weren't there, not just because I hadn't noticed them)… I don't even know how to describe that. It's sort of like seeing in color after being used to black and white.
- I had always thought that there was no guitar in "Care of Cell 44," but there is. This is why I love vocal-less backing tracks - you can hear stuff you missed the other hundreds of times you heard the song.
- In general, I noticed that the mono versions seemed to make the vocal parts more pronounced (no pun intended). They were just more noticeable.
- As was the harpsichord in "I Want Her She Wants Me." If the mono version had been the version of the album I heard first, it wouldn't have taken me four years to notice the harpsichord.
- I don't know whether it was the guitar or the piano, but something in the mono version of "Maybe after He's Gone" made it sound a lot like the stuff the Zombies recorded at Decca.
