I'll give an example: my favourite album of all time (Violent Things by The Brobecks) is unfinished and unmastered - the band/solo project completely ran out of money before this could be done and thus the album was released in an incomplete state. Friends who don't have a deep understanding of music production have remarked to me that it sounds like a "lovingly baked but gritty/undercooked cookie" where the imperfections are part of the charm.
Which is a compliment to it but I genuinely can't see any of the imperfections at all, even though I know they're objectively there. I can't hear it because my goggles are so rose tinted that they're practically opaque. I can notice mistakes in other songs but not in the album I've listened to hundreds of times.
Apparently almost all of the songs (with the exception of a couple) are either unmastered or even unmixed. I couldn't tell you which songs or which of these it's missing, obviously. Lol.
I dont know, I just realised this and found it interesting. Was wondering if anyone else had a similar experience