Neutral Milk Hotel's In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is not my favorite album, but it is the sort of album that leaves me wondering if there will ever be anything as good ever again every time Jeff Mangum puts his guitar down at the end of "Two Headed Boy, Part 2." Yes, that sounds like hyperbole, and it probably is, but a large percentage of the music nerd world feels the exact same way, and none of us is faking it or trying too hard to fall in love with something that does not warrant our appreciation.
When I first discovered Aeroplane, I did not know about that following. I wasn't familiar with the name "Neutral Milk Hotel" or "Elephant Six" or "Mangum," I didn't know that the band had only released two albums, and when a friend stuck "King of Carrot Flowers, Part 1" on a mix CD during my sophomore year of high school, I didn't know that everybody everywhere had been waiting for a follow-up for eight years. If anything separates Sam from myself regarding this album, it is that I walked in without expectations. I heard "King of Carrot Flowers, Part 1," I fell in love, and I bought the full album. Hipsters weren't telling me how life-changing Aeroplane was to them; Pitchfork wasn't telling me that Jeff Mangum had managed to part heaven and let pure melancholic expression back into the lives of the many, or whatever the hell they were on about.
That isn't to say that In The Aeroplane Over The Sea can only be appreciated before it has been talked up, but that my love for it has probably become so steady because for all I knew I was initially listening to something that had been released earlier that month in 2005. You have to decide for yourself that something is brilliant, and I was afforded that luxury with an album so highly (and widely) praised that I still cannot believe that I didn't know it existed.
The production quality has never bothered me. Everything is clear and everything sounds exactly as it was intended to sound. I would even go so far as to call the guitar sounds "crisp." This isn't lo-fi in the sense that it sounds rough on purpose; it's lo-fi in the sense that Rick Rubin wasn't around to throw money at it, and the instrumentation never blurs together (with the exception of "Holland, 1945" and "King of Carrot Flowers Part 2 and 3," which are intentional blow-outs) or becomes too obscured to enjoy. That isn't to dismiss Sam's point-- bad production quality will destroy an otherwise good album-- but Aeroplane is produced wonderfully (there's another vague positive word), and easily sounds better than anything from early Yo La Tengo, early Pavement or Mount Eerie (sidenote: Phil Elverum owes his career to this album).
Jeff Mangum has a very pure voice. It's hard to call it anything else. Neutral Milk Hotel's singer/lyricist is always able to completely enunciate every word and idea. His poetry is itself profoundly and emotionally touching (whatever that means), and the voice only enhances it. Mangum has a terrific control over the volume of his voice. I wish that I could pinpoint why this matters so much, but all I can say is that it does, and let the reader listen for himself.
Anyway,
I think that In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is very good. The music is wonderful and the lyrics are as poetic as anything ever was. That is my review. That is my seventh-grade-debate defense. The difference between Jeff Mangum and the asshole playing guitar in the corner at every party is that Mangum can write lyrics and his band (who I should have emphasized more above, as they are nearly as important as their singer) can write music. I love this album and I can't really explain why. My brain can say "thank God I didn't walk in with unreal expectations," but it can't pick apart why I don't mind one of Sam's points about the "campfire" qualities of Jeff Mangum's guitar playing (though even Sam admits that the horns are BOSS). I asked Sam if I could defend this album a few days ago after he wanted to know if I would be interested in writing on this blog, and I can't just not write anything, but at the same time, I can't explain why I absolutely enjoy Aeroplane. It is moving. It is still moving every time I listen to it.
