From The Vaults

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Neutral Milk Hotel
Merge, 1998

If you'll excuse me for a moment, I am going to set aside all journalistic integrity and level-mindedness and reduce myself to a puddle of unabashed praise:
This is my favorite album of all time.
Sure, if I am listening to Blonde on Blonde, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, or I See a Darkness, I might be temporarily convinced otherwise. But it's a trick. It's Aeroplane every time.
This should come as no surprise to other indie fanatics - Jeff Mangum's masterpiece is one of the most beloved indie records of all time, and it gains new followers every year. It has its detractors, but they seem limited to those who don't care for Mangum's singing voice and limited vocal capabilities. It hardly seems necessary to point out the fact that he is clearly choosing to sing out of his range and that the results are uniquely affecting, or that this dude named Bob Dylan abolished the necessity of polished vocals back in the 60s.
But before I get carried away about Mangum's performance and songwriting, let me mention the rest of the band (who are, sadly, usually ignored). Jeremy Barnes' impassioned drumming makes uptempo numbers like "King of Carrot Flowers, Pts. 2 & 3," "Holland, 1945," and "Ghost" surge with an overwhelming punk-like energy. Scott Spillane's horn arrangements and the brass section's woozy, half-polished contributions add a surreal marching-band flair that elevates the album's emotional content to surprising heights whenever Mangum's taken a song as far as he could with words. The ghostly wails of Julian Koster's singing saw lend a singular spectral beauty to the vaguely Irish folk-like "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea."
Countless other inventive instrumental touches also add depth and texture to Mangum's songs, which are surreal, disturbing, breathtakingly beautiful, and hauntingly sad. He sings his impressionistic lyrics like someone in a fevered dream, and the burning passion in his voice adds emotional heft to the most unlikely of lyrical phrases. Perhaps what elevates this album above the others of its decade (and, for me, of all time) is the palpable inspiration and desperation behind it - no matter what Mangum is saying, it feels like his words are on fire and he can't get them out of his mouth fast enough.
I don't want too say to much about his lyrics, because I think they are best interpreted individually, but I found it helpful to learn that the album was inspired in part by The Diary of Anne Frank. It never addresses the subject directly, but rather creates its own unique world in which boundaries of time and place are blurred. Mangum takes the idea of living in a world where atrocities can happen and uses it to create a singular, twisted, frightening, and beautiful new reality. In a way, approaching In the Aeroplane Over the Sea reminds me of childhood. It is like discovering the strangeness of the world for the first time - sex is bizarre and disturbing, death is unbelievable and inescapable, and life and love feel so undeniably, overwhelmingly real that you could burst at any moment.
And though the lyrics are largely impressionistic and surreal, it would be misleading to suggest that they are completely obtuse. The album's closer "Two Headed Boy, Pt. 2" is gut-wrenchingly sad, and not just because of the way it sounds. Mangum concludes the album on a particularly direct note, singing:

Two Headed Boy,
She is all you could need
She will feed you tomatoes and radio wires
And retire to sheets warm and clean
But don't hate her when she gets up to leave.

I find myself completely relating to him, and suddenly the strange and terrifying world that Mangum has created has become my own. If you ever get to this point with the album, you will never be able to turn back.
After Mangum delivers that final line, you can hear him set down his guitar and walk away from the microphone. The fact that he has never recorded or performed another song since has added a symbolic weight to this final gesture; it seems that perhaps Mangum has truly said all that he has to say. Normally I would be upset about this - a favorite band calling it quits. But I hardly even consider Neutral Milk Hotel a band anymore. They're more than that. They're something else.

MP3: Holland, 1945

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