What makes the 'Tusk' sound?
 

I'm sure this has been mentoned, if not on the Ledge then elsewhere. But I just got special monitoring headphones so I'm hearing all the parts of the mixxes in their own space.

The elusively 'ingenious' inventiveness of Tusk (at least, most of Lindsey's songs and some of the others') isn't quite EQ, or choice of instrument.

It's having two distinct mono channels, L & R, and perhaps one stereo for the lead vocal. There is a complete division of parts with limited stereo instrumentation. It really stands out on monitoring headphones.

Anyone else noticed/ agree or disagree? Honestly I'm a little disapppointed becuase now it's so simple, (to a fault through hifi equipment), whereas before there was an elusivess to the raw, wild sound.

Ah... it wasn't supposed to be heard through sooper dooper hi-fi headphones. Keep in mind the state of stereo equipment circa 1980.

Listen to Exile on Main Street. Or, to use a more recent example, The Strokes' Is This It? The music is mixed in a certain way intentionally. In the case of Tusk, Lindsey was going for the anti-Rumours sound. For the most part, the music is disarmingly simple and stripped down in Tusk. With the Exception of Sara and a couple of others.

The Tusk sound is about simplicity and experimentation. It could have been a huge failure, but lucky for us, it is sheer genious.

Yes, I noticed this a couple of years ago as I had the CD playing when I was in the gym. One of the earphones fell out of my ear, and suddenly half the instrumentation on "Not That Funny" disappeared! I was like "huh??"...Then I realised that you can actually listen to the entire album minus certain instrument and vocal tracks by listening to only the left earphone/the right earphone. Wow, the things I do when I'm bored.

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