Neutral Milk Hotel

[PopTodd]

I actually don't like this record at all. Ordinarily I'm on the same page as the critical community when it comes to indie-folk stuff, but I just don't see anything here that's even remotely remarkable, try as I might. Mangum's performances on the disc are unexceptional - there are lots of shrieky off-key vocals and there's nothing remarkable or terribly emotive in terms of the music, at least not to my ear. The songwriting has always seemed scattershot and maybe even adolescent to me; it seems to suggest depth where I can't see that any exists. I find it frustrating that so many artists and listeners whose opinions I respect regard Aeroplane so highly, but at least somebody's getting something out of it.

 

You're just one of a vocal minority in the indie community who feel that way. You're not alone.

And, that's fine.

As one who is completely movied by this record, I do feel badly for you. But then, I suppose that you have an album that you feel this way about that I would find completely unremarkable, as well.

 

To each their own.

[Good Old Neon]

I actually don't like this record at all. Ordinarily I'm on the same page as the critical community when it comes to indie-folk stuff, but I just don't see anything here that's even remotely remarkable, try as I might. Mangum's performances on the disc are unexceptional - there are lots of shrieky off-key vocals and there's nothing remarkable or terribly emotive in terms of the music, at least not to my ear. The songwriting has always seemed scattershot and maybe even adolescent to me; it seems to suggest depth where I can't see that any exists. I find it frustrating that so many artists and listeners whose opinions I respect regard Aeroplane so highly, but at least somebody's getting something out of it.

 

Alright Maker, that

[myboyblue]

I can't say that this album is in my top 25 or anything...however, it is definitely in my top 10 when it comes to listening while on a driving trip, plane ride, train, etc. Something about being alone and traveling with this one works well.

[mpolak21]

I got this record the summer I graduated high school, and along with A Ghost is Born it really helped me get through a couple of very trying emotional experiences. When I first heard it I was pretty underwhelmed, it had been one of my top Amazon recommendations for about a year, and I finally bought it. But I couldn't stand Mangum's voice and I thought the lyrics were just way too strange. But for some reason I'd always keep playing it, I instinctively knew eventually it was going to click and then it did in a big way. It's without a doubt one of the three or four records that completely did my head in and changed the way I listened to music, and it's message and emotional core really resonates with me. It's sonically fascinating, the lyrics are really riveting, it features the zanzithophone. What more could you want from a record?

 

--Mike

[Atticus]

after listening to the album, i sat down with my cheap Giannini Spanish guitar and played along to practically every guitar note on the album.

Mangum stays in the C, G, F, E, A, B and D realm throughout the whole album.

 

are you not playing the bfs in King of Carrot Flowers?

[BigWheeledWagon]

I love this album, but it is also the only album where I almost feel guilty listening to it. It feels like spying on someone's dreams or something. It's just so emotionally open and uses a language that seems to take more from the subconscious than the conscious. Beautiful, depressing, amazing . . .

[trevor]

i remember when i first started listening to more indie/less mainstream music 5 years ago, and this is one of those "highly recommended, must have" records. i checked it out, and turned it off. don't think i made it through the entire thing. mangum's voice drove me crazy. and despite the fact my musical tastes have changed GREATLY over those five years, to the point that i probably would enjoy it now, that initial reaction still lingers in my mind, and i'm rather reluctant to give this a second chance.

 

i probably should, though.

[thejokeexplained]

Sunday February 10th was the 10th anniversary of the release of this record. And over on one of my favorite bands (of Montreal) myspace blogs, Kevin Barns gives some of his thoughts on the importance of this release. He nails my views on this masterpiece.

 

 

 

in honor of the 10th anniversary of the release of one of my favorite and most cherished albums of all time, Neutral Milk Hotel's "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea", i'd like to say a few words 


i view that album as a high water mark in music. it's amazing that such a classic and important record could remain as, somewhat, underground as it has. in a way, it's great that it has, cause it has enabled everyone who has fallen under it's spell, to feel a special, personal connection with it. the songs penetrate the fog of my mind in such an uncommon way. i have been moved to tears at NMH shows. i can't say that that has ever happened before or since. i found myself crying, uncontrollably, and I couldn't make sense of it. after thinking about it later, i decided that it must have just been my body reacting to this beautiful force that was wrapping itself all around and inside of me. it was the only way, my poor little vessel, could respond to this insane, but benevolent, energy that completely had it's way with me. 

the greatest aspect of the songs on ITAOTS, is that, though they are full of pain and confusion and passion and madness, they never seem self pitying or self indulgent. they never become pedestrian.
i feel that, jeff mangum's voice on that record, was a portal through which, the animal agony and maniac joy of the universal human spirit, found amplification. 


[the carlos]

Around 1999 I had a friend I knew from the internet. She lived in Athens and had said she had some friends that were part of something special. She recommended some records and I tracked them down. The first one I purchased was The Olivia Tremor Control-Black Foilage-Animation Music(which is still a top ten record for me). The second was In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. It offered something I hadn't really come across before. The band never held a mystique for me as much as an earnestness and honesty that made me feel better about life and a way of approaching noise/sound/music/words and shaping it into something more interesting. Even the sad stuff(which for the previous 7 years had been a large part of my life).

I'm still heavily into the Elephant 6 releases(all sides of it, psych,pop,collage,etc) and probably listen to On Avery Island and Everything Is, and Hype City Soundtrack as much as Aeroplane but it continues to be a big part of my life.

[winter party person]

Oh comely

I will be with you when you lose your breath

Chasing the only meaningful memory you thought you had left

With some pretty bright and bubbly terrible scene

That was doing her thing on your chest

But oh comely

It isn't as pretty as you'd like to guess

In your memory you're drunk on your automy

It doesn't mean anything at all

Oh comely

All of your friends are all letting you blow

Bristling and ugly

Bursting with fruits falling out from the holes

Of some pretty bright and bubbly friend

You could need to say comforting things in your ear

But oh comely

There isn't such one friend that you could find here

Standing next to me

He's only my enemy

I'll crush him with everything I own

Say what you want to say

Hang for your hollow ways

Moving your mouth to pull out all your miracles aimed for me

 

Your father made fetuses

With flesh licking ladies

While you and your mother

Were asleep in the trailer park

Thunderous sparks from the dark of the stadiums

The music and medicine you needed for comforting

So make all your fat fleshy fingers to moving

And pluck all your silly strings

And bend all your notes for me

Soft silly music is meaningful magical

The movements were beautiful

All in your ovaries

All of them milking with green fleshy flowers

While powerful pistons were sugary sweet machines

Smelling of semen all under the garden

Was all you were needing when you still believed in me

Say what your want to say

Hang for your hollow ways

Moving your mouth to pull out all your miracles aimed for me

 

And I know they buried her body with others

Her sister and mother and 500 families

And will she remember me 50 years later

I wished I could save her in some sort of time machine

Know all your enemies

We know who our enemies are

 

Goldaline my dear

We will fold and freeze together

Far away from here

There is sun and spring and green forever

But now we move to feel

For ourselves inside some stranger's stomach

Place your body here

Let your skin begin to blend itself with mine

 

must be some the best lyrics ever written

[bjorn_skurj]

I have never heard this album.

[echo]

I realize music is subjective but how a music lover could not enjoy/worship this record is beyond me. It's an all-time classic.

[mpolak21]

I have never heard this album.

 

If you have any desire change that, shoot me a PM.

 

--Mike

[thermocaster]

Some albums hit me and some don't. I have "On Avery Island" and "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" and I put them on every so often to see if I have changed my mind but they just don't inspire me like other albums do.

 

I remember getting "Aeroplane" when it first came out and getting Olivia Tremor Control's "Dusk at Cubist Castle" around the same time. I was blown away by the OTC album and listened to it for months. Everything I wrote musically for those few weeks after, was inspired by "Dusk at Cubist Castle."

 

I will continue to put on the Neutral Milk Hotel albums throughout the years in hope of it clicking some day.

 

edit: actually, looking at the release dates, I must have had the Avery Island and Dusk at the same time. Aeroplane came out in 98 so I must have had the Dusk hangover still going while trying to get on the Aeroplane a few years later.

 

Funny, because that's happening to me right now --- I got copies of Aeroplane and Dusk at Cubist Castle about two months ago. Aeroplane has not sunk in yet, while Dusk has taken over large portions of my brain.

 

I can't say why Aeroplane hasn't done more for me yet...but then again, it's very, very rare for any new album to really grab my attention immediately. Hell, it took me nearly a year before I started to truly enjoy AGIB.

[PopTodd]

Reading the lyrics to "Oh, Comely" I actually got chills.

And a little choked up.

 

Whoever said that it was a window into somebody's private dreams nailed it. The lyrics make no sense on a surface level, yet the emotional resonance they have is (for me) infinate. Combined with Jeff's voice, which is beautiful in it's purity, if not in a traditional way, does make for a harrowing experience.

 

It's as visceral as music gets.

 

And that is all the college student-type music critic words that I will use today.

[caliber66]

I realize music is subjective but how a music lover could not enjoy/worship this record is beyond me. It's an all-time classic.

Really? I love the album, but I can recognize a ton of things that could potentially turn others off, beginning with his voice.

[Good Old Neon]

I

[Elixir Sue]

beginning with his voice.

 

Edit: Because I'm a trooper, I'm listening to this album yet again. Maybe this time it will click...

[Gobias Industries]

People just have to be in a certain frame of mind to get ITAOTS, but once they get there and it clicks, it sticks forever. I love it, this album never gets old.

[rileykill]

Totally fell in love with this album in college and dug it back out 'cause of this thread. Thanks ... it still sounds as immediate as it did 10 years ago.

[ction]

 

Edit: Because I'm a trooper, I'm listening to this album yet again. Maybe this time it will click...

 

Picture that Magnum PI dude wearing red and white.

[Elixir Sue]

I think you're onto something!

[mpolak21]

Some links you all may enjoy..

 

Videos of a couple NMH live shows

10/14/1997 Athens, GA (it says 4/17 on the link, but in everything I've seen with this boot it's labeled as 10/14.)

10/31/1997 Athens GA

12/5/1998 Athens, GA

4/4/1998 Austin, Texas

12/31/1998 Athens, GA

 

Demos and some live shows: http://notesareshattered.blogspot.com/2007...otlegs-and.html

Even More live shows: http://stormx.no-ip.org/nmh/

 

--Mike

[PopTodd]

Listening to this now.

Dear god, how I love this record.

It's one of those pieces of music that I can genuinely, sincerely, and with no exaggeration say has made my life a better, more beautiful place.

[MattZ]

I love this album to pieces and I love the lyrics to this album and I have no idea what the hell he is talking about. I feel it, though.