"Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me" by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. All I can hear is from my right headphone. And its got to be the coolest ever. Right down to the inhale of vocalist Spike Slawson. So off balance and insanely cool.
In an world we forget how intricate music is because it is so properly balanced and delivered. I recall listening to Bowie's, "Space Oddity" on an old Victrola, yup vinyl with a bad speaker so much that I only heard the countdown as the intro to the song. THAT was classic and very cool
Channels and tracks of sound are so digitally perfected that we cant strip it down ourselves. Leave it to a failure in technology to remind me of the purity of instruments. It almost makes me want to disrupt the 'balance' on all of my audio equipment. The Decemberists, sound just the same same, so those kids have gone through a blender to smooth it all out
Some great vocals aside from Slawson is Brenden Urie's "Northern Downpour" its just so unadorned, just lovely. I am sure there is some great engineering simplicity here. That 'oh its the track blah bla Dolby bla', but seriously tug one earphone out every now and then. Its not as fun as a hidden message (though maybe there is one!) but its a new perspective on familiar stuff. Consider it a bonus track.
When you're done with that feel free to send me a new pair of headphones- I suppose this will grow old quickly.