Exactly! I've fallen in love with the instrumentals from Seventh Tree & Supernature.

Sartori said:

...I`d certainly have them as superior mood music in the background 

That would work.

The odd, and good, thing I've found about listening to an instrumental version of an album is what that then does when you go back to the normal version.

As others have mentioned, it's very hard when you listen to an album with a vocal not to focus on that in terms of sound and expectation. Take that away and it's surprising how many little details you spot that you otherwise miss, either because your focus was elsewhere or because they're under the vocal itself.

When you then play the full version again you can then often have a different ear to some of those parts, bringing what you've heard new from the instrumental one and reinforcing that in the normal one.

I've sourced quite a few instrumental versions, Goldfrapp or otherwise, and it's very rare therei isn't some sort of revelation on at least a couple of tracks.

The_Carpathian said:

The odd, and good, thing I've found about listening to an instrumental version of an album is what that then does when you go back to the normal version.

As others have mentioned, it's very hard when you listen to an album with a vocal not to focus on that in terms of sound and expectation. Take that away and it's surprising how many little details you spot that you otherwise miss, either because your focus was elsewhere or because they're under the vocal itself.

When you then play the full version again you can then often have a different ear to some of those parts, bringing what you've heard new from the instrumental one and reinforcing that in the normal one.

I've sourced quite a few instrumental versions, Goldfrapp or otherwise, and it's very rare therei isn't some sort of revelation on at least a couple of tracks.

this, this, this, all of this. this actually happened to me today - i've been hammering a track a lot lately, and i bought its instrumental on itunes last night, and there's so many little intricacies in the music that i'd never noticed!

it's also happened to me with goldfrapp, certain tracks on supernature in particular. oh and the strict machine instrumental - somehow in like ~7 years of listening to it i'd never noticed that big bubbly synth leading back into the chorus/outro from the middle 8.... then BAM there it was

Alan said:

I love instrumentals.

Dissection of a song always leads to wonderful discoveries.

Indeed, but for me that's something completely different--presuming we're talking about the studio tracks sans vocals. Though they're not particularly entertaining to me, it can be fun to study them.

Who else remembers the old instrumentals that were actually remixed and embellished to create interesting new versions of songs? Does anyone still do that?

No, that is not what I mean.

Alan said:

What do you mean then?

iuventus said:

...remixed and embellished to create interesting new versions of songs?