Concept albums sometimes get a bad rap as the musical equivalent of "eating your spinach:" lengthy, dense, subject to being over-analyzed, with allegorical significance assigned to every word. Listening to one can sound a lot like "work" which often isn't consistent with "just enjoying the music."
But despite its consistent motif, it would be a mistake to treat Neutral Milk Hotelâs second studio album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea like a scavenger hunt. Jeff Mangum, the frontman and creative force behind the band, recognized the album as directly influenced by reading The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank. But for all the linear references to our young departed heroine, there's a lot of Mangumâs own autobiography, philosophy and observation in there. Plus some damn good tunes.
The Diary of a Young Girl is a coming of age story that is cut short, before revelation and maturation. On the album, Mangum grieves the loss of Frank, as well as a collective loss of innocence. The very first words sung on the album, âwhen you were young,â set the tone for all that follows, which is a combination of freakshow ephemera, slapstick violence, and the technicolor dreamcoat that would come to signify "psych-folk" as it was practiced at that point (late 1990s).
I saw Mangum and company play this album in its entirety in Seattle many years later and I'll be damned if its capacity to both amaze and confound wasn't still fully intact. I can't encourage you enough to listen to this full album and give in to its music box charms and bizarro-world imagery and storytelling.
Jul 25, 2024
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I know this album cover is imprinted into the corneas of many already. but Iâm listening to this ~8 yrs after I first found it, which sort of marked the start of my own self-discovery w music (along with, who else, but velvet underground). and since they are both so huge, Iâve had a hard time listening to them as earnestly in years since. of course relationships with music change, but I think I became embarrassed by the earnestness of this album & its internet overexposure. but it is sincere and beautiful (+ a little freaky and smutty) and it is very special to come back to every now and then. it turns on a certain part of my soul I canât usually access when I come to it at the right moment. full of love and oneness w humanity, time transcendent
âlet us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can seeâ
3d ago
all praise goes to In The Aeroplane Over the Sea, but Neutral Milk Hotelâs debut is maybe better. It sounds similar, but more abrasive and variedâ reminding me at points of Tall Dwarfs, Avey Tare, LVL UP, and Silver Apples.
âSong Against Sexâ, âGardenhead/Leave Me Aloneâ, âNaomiâ, âWhere Youâll Find Me Nowâ are maybe my favorites.
Makes me feel nostalgic for something I canât remember, like looking at a strangerâs sun bleached film through a zoetrope.
Dec 11, 2024
i Rlly love Neutral Milk Hotel and Song Against Sex is definitely my favorite rn. A lot of NMH songs have meanings and lyrics that are hard to decipher mainly cuz I think theyâre written to mean a lot of different things, but looking into their history and purpose and other peoplesâ interpretation is part of the fun for me. On Avery Island is a rlly great album. I think Jeff Mangumâs performance of Two Headed Boy at Sanders Theatre is still my favorite live performance of all time, except maybe Mitskiâs Drunk Walk Home live at Palisades
Feb 3, 2025
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Hey tyler hopefully this doesnât violate some PI.FYI golden rule
But after nearly two years of writing, editing and arguing, my book about the EP is coming out in May and can be preordered here:
https://hozacrecords.com/product/aifl/
The book is about the origins, history and cultural impact of the EP since these little objects first started coming out in the 50s.
Over 50 of my music biz friends then helped me shape the list and review the top 200 ever released, according to us (ha).
For those of you who are into this kind of geekery/snobbery, I canât wait to hear what you think. A labor of love, as all books are! â€ïž
Mar 27, 2024
âSongs Of a Lost Worldâ coming to a goth listening station near you Nov 1 đ€
The fr FW Me Friday the 13th the world was looking for
Sep 14, 2024
I will fail to explain just how much this band meant to me in the 90s.
So I will borrow from AV Club who did a fine job of distilling it:
âUnwound is the best band of the â90s. Not just because of how prolific, consistent, and uncompromising it was, but because of how perfectly Unwound nested in a unique space between some of the most vital forms of music that decade: punk, post-rock, indie rock, post-hardcore, slow-core, and experimental noise. That jumble of subgenres doesnât say much; in fact, it falls far short of what Unwound truly synthesized and stood for. Unwound stood for Unwound. But in a decade where most bands were either stridently earnest or stridently ironic, Unwound wasnât stridently anything. It was only itself. In one sense Unwound was the quietest band of the â90s, skulking around like a nerdy terror cell. In another sense it was the loudest, sculpting raw noise into contorted visions of inner turmoil and frustration.â
R.I.P. Vern Rumsey.
This is their finest song, from their finest album.
I really canât say enough about the sheer bloody minded genius of this group. đ€
Mar 23, 2024