The jump from mono to stereo made a lot of engineers' heads spin. Then again, how many 100% perfect 5.1 albums have you heard?
Actually, I've listened to only three 5.1 remixes, all of them phenomenal albums to begin with, and their 5.1 jobs were pretty meh. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots came out pretty good, but mainly because they just fucked around and tried stuff.
Sometimes they’re done really well, but most of the time it’s just putting different parts of the song in different areas and makes it sound “diluted”.
Like, the guitar is in front of you, then the bass is behind and to the left… why??
My understanding is that most (at least rock) music is mixed this way, just subtle enough to help your brain pick out instruments but not enough to consciously notice.
It was a pain in the ass but me and a buddy got it working once. I was a young teen and this was long before weed helped me see more beauty in music, so I didn't get much out of it, but as an adult it'd probably be different.
Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, who produced Pet Sounds, was actually deaf in one ear. Despite that, he got along just fine in a monophonic world, but the switch to stereo completely left him behind. It was a huge change in how music was mixed.
And yet Pet Sounds (and even the contemporary stuff they originally recorded for SMiLE but never officially released) still sounds phenomenal to this day despite being in mono.
It makes sense. I bet it's super hard, especially at first.
It's largely a headphone problem, at least for me. I can't listen to a song where certain tracks are completely isolated to one ear. The audio doesn't need to be mixed perfectly, but I need at least a little bit of each sound in each ear. Otherwise it's too distracting. My brain hates it.
It's supposed to sound like the band is in front of you on a stage. Not all mashed into one spot in the center of the stage. You should be able to close your eyes and picture where each drum is positioned. Where the before guitar players are standing. And you should be able to hear the shape of the room. Modern recordings mixed digitally can no longer do this. Then again if you're streaming Spotify into Bluetooth your missing most of what's there anyways.