one another during the band's June tour of Sweden. Tensions in the group eased after the Kinks returned to England and resumed recording in July, at which time Ray reluctantly allowed for more creative input from his bandmates. Avory recalled it was the first time in the group's history that they worked together during recordings. Quaife was unsure what precipitated Ray's change, but remembered the period as being "amazing", with a "lightened up" Ray allowing them to suggest things during both the rehearsal and recording process. He further remembered Ray's reluctance returning near the end of the album's recording sessions. Though Quaife departed the Kinks roughly four months after the release of Village Green, he reflected decades later that the album was the high point of his career, mostly due to the collaborative nature of its recording. Mono and stereo versions Despite an industrywide trend towards stereo sound, Ray still favoured mono when he mixed Village Green. As was typical for the time, he mixed the album in both formats, and Pye released both versions of the album in the UK. In the US, Reprise's parent company Warner Bros.-Seven Arts halted mono production in January1968, making Village Green the Kinks' second US LP to be issued exclusively in stereo. The album's stereo and mono mixes contained obvious difference from one another. Because Ray remixed some tracks in late October1968 after finding his original August mixes rushed, the twelve- and fifteen-track editions contained additional differences. The original stereo ending of "People Take Pictures of Each Other" featured a jazz band coda lifted from a pre-existing tape, which Miller writes served to express "That's All, Folks!" at the album's close. Ray was forced to erase it from subsequent mixes due to copyright issues, but not before it was included on the stereo release of the twelve-track edition of Village Green. Songs Overview Music Among musicologists and band biographers, Andy Miller and Mike Segretto say that Village Green is composed mainly of rock and pop music, while Mark Doyle sees it as an album of various genres; Doyle writes it draws from "eclectic and cosmopolitan" styles, fitting in the contemporary Pop art movement. According to Doyle and Segretto, the music incorporates the stylistic influences of "English folk-pastoral traditions", music hall, psychedelia, calypso, blues, raga rock and acid rock. Music critics Jonathan Donaldson and Jem Aswad each place the album with the baroque pop