How deep should first musical impressions cut? Is there more in a track that may have first caught my ear? Do I clutch too tightly to the romantic notion that no record should ever sound different than how I first heard it, or more accurately the collective power of the record’s first 100 spins? It’s not like I listen to my childhood vinyl on the same record player I had as a kid, but I run up against such questions any time I pick up a reissue of a beloved album that’s been remastered or released in its original mono form, a German true stereo mix, or what have you. Like my friend who can’t get past any digital remastering of “Satisfaction” in which you can hear the acoustic guitar and piano, which were buried in the rhythm section on the vinyl versions of the song we grew up with, I tend to get a little attached to how records sounded when I first heard them.

I recently downloaded a rare mono mix of The Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed, my favorite post-Brian Jones Stones album and, from my years of spinning it on vinyl, the best-sounding Rolling Stones album. I’ve never been that much of a purist about mono vs stereo mixes; in fact, any purism I hold in this regard is centered around my personal experience. If I first heard an album in mono, then mono is the “correct” format, and vice versa. The mono mix of The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, which was included with stereo version on some CD reissue from a few years back, does not impress me. I continue to hold true to the magic of the flimsy, $2.99 Spanish vinyl pressing I fell in love with after bringing home from the Temple U. bookstore in the early 1980s.
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