Paul Westerberg/Grandpaboy-- Mono A few Daptone releases including Sharon Jones-- Give the People What they Want And this great English album from 1992 that nobody knows about:
Great idea for a thread. I have nothing to suggest, but I'm looking for ideas, particularly as I'm in the process of adding a second arm to the turntable with a mono cart.
There are probably a lot of small selling indie bands from 20 years ago that just made mixes and not stereo. The Zealot's Curse by The Minor Thirds was mono. The only reason why I remember this is in the liner notes it's suggested to share an earbud with your friend on a bus or whatnot.
For Dummy, it is not truly mono. There are some stereo elements but it is a very centre-oriented mix. There are discussions of this that go in to greater detail.
Modern English “I Melt With You” 7 inch version from 1982 was a dedicated mono mix. When I heard the cd release of the “After the Snow” album in the early 90s, I finally had the version I had grown up hearing a decade prior. It has subsequently been included on a comp or two. Like this one. Slays the other mix.
You are thinking of The Texas Campfire Tapes. These were recorded with her playing guitar around a campfire, as the recording progresses you can hear insect noises in the background of some songs. The recordings were released without her permission, and the original release the speed is slightly fast. She re-released the album many years later as a 2CD edition, with the speed issues corrected. She could not access the master recording cassette, so had to use a low-generation copy.
The first half of "Unfinished Sympathy" by Massive (aka Massive Attack) is in mono. Then halfway though it changes to stereo. So it half meets the criteria for this thread!
I've been digitizing some early Flying Nun, and other indie New Zealand, records from the early 80s recently, and some of those lo-fi recordings are mixed in mono. The one that springs to mind is the Prime Movers' one and only single from 1982, 'Crying Again'. Chris Matthews, much later the mainman of Headless Chickens, started out in this band. 'Mono' proudly proclaimed on its back cover.
Heavens To Murgatroyd, Even! It's Thee Headcoats! (Already) from 1990 is some great mono garage rock.
It has been said that My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless" album was largely mixed in mono. I think it more accurately qualifies as very narrow stereo. But I think Kevin Shields' goal was perhaps the same as many that continued to mix in mono after stereo began to surpass it; it provided him with total control over how you heard his music. Whether you heard it in a dimly lit club with one speaker over here and another over on the other side of the room or with headphones on in your bedroom... you basically got the same experience no matter what. So, partly in mono with an asterisk *
And their latest album The Blinding White Of Nothing At All, also mixed solely in MONO, might be my favorite release of the past year!
