In the Aeroplane Over the Sea Poll

Torn between "Ghost" and "Untitled", will decide later

Kinda wishing they'd indexed (and structured) it so that "Untitled" was the coda of "Ghost", because the resulting paste 6-minute song would be some straight awesomeness

Although, it's true to say that "Ghost" reaches a climax from which it would almost be impossible and deeply wrong to continue under the auspices of the same song

"Ghost" it is.

daamn

Title track for me!

Voted for Two-Headed Boy, Pt. Two. Incredibly hard to choose -- I relate to this album on a completely visceral level, and so my favorite track varies with mood. The album kind of reminds me of Nevermind in that the first half contains more immediately-enjoyable songs, whereas the second half gets better and better with repeated listens. I definitely would have voted for either the title track or Holland 1945 a few years ago.

I can't fathom two-headed boy losing this

INDIE TITS! no, wait

TWO-HEADED BOY!

no, wait

I love you

jesus christ

O Comely=pretty epic

oh comely is my least favorite song. ive listened to it so many times, it just doesnt do it for me anymore. it's between "king of carrot flowers pt 1", "two headed boy", "holland, 1945" or "two headed boy, pt 2" for me, but this is one of those "whole thing" albums

this is one of those threads that won't get a lot of replies but a shit ton of votes imo...this basically is the definition of corny indie

^^^^^^^

"Two Headed Boy". Is this corny indie shit? I don't give a fuck, I'm from Georgia.

i hope this album does get talked about in length because of this poll. this album seems to get bigger with each passing year and i think it deserves the acclaim. waiting to vote until i hear this album again this week.

"the king of carrot flowers pts. 2 & 3" - am i the only one? it just rocks so hard.

yeah i've gone through various phases during which each song was my favorite for a time, and "pts 2+3" is definitely a great song. i really love the "i love you jesus christ" part, i've always wondered what that could mean

fuck it, i'll be that guy: king of carrot flowers, pt 1

actually iirc he said in an interview once that "jesus christ" was just a device he used to represent something that someone could love completely and without reservation, and it was supposed to show the feeling of comfort and security that people derive from that kind of love. (or something to that effect.) i like that interpretation

xpost to myself

Holland 1945 is pretty tough to beat.

A few months before this came out, I went to see them on a double bill with Olivia Tremor Control. In one of the more regrettable musical decisions, I left after Olivia played, missing these guys entirely.

worst album ever

that is meaningful tattoo

just found this on Wikipedia:

As of February 2009, it is ranked as the 53rd greatest album of all time on Rate Your Music.

i will admit, great thread to troll

i picked wrong. i would say Holland, 1945. the lyrics on that one actually make me teary a bit just thinking about them.

i would chris brown that chick if i saw her, no remorse

???

w/ the tattoo - kidding of course, but seriously someone should've stopped her

^^ note reference to current events

use of "chris brown" as a verb on a neutral milk hotel poll thread is sort of ilm 2009 in a nutshell.

i havent even heard this album fwiw but srsly

WAHT

ive heard songs, was turned off, idk

nice rack.

Leif.

no, it's better this way

x-post

Leif.

two headed boy

at one point it definitely would have been 'oh comely'. these days i'm leaning towards 'two-headed boy' or the title track.

as far as tattoos go, i think that makes for a pretty good design. probably shouldn't be on a girl's arm though

like everyone else i thought this album was the greatest back in highschool but have since mellowed out on it and its sort of left my '90s indie' rotation now

still a good album tho

i voted for the title track, but at least 60% of this album is stone-cold classic.
it was my favorite album when i was a teenager.

like everyone else i thought this album was the greatest back in highschool

LOL U YOUNG

lol we old :-(

I feel obligated to throw a tantrum about J0rdan's lol beating women up, wot laffs joke but really this meta-tantrum is all I've got the energy for, sorry J0rdan IOU one self-righteous tantrum about how beating women up really isn't an awesome subject for jokes

tantrum stipulated without objection

sorry guys

rain check accepted

have come around to a couple of songs via covers, but i still hate the dude's voice and pretty much hope he never comes out of retirement.

I seriously hope this will not be the album that ends up defining the indie scene this decade.

I didn't really like this album until relatively recently and I like it a lot now. It's good despite the hoopla, despite whatever. Agree with "this album seems to get bigger with each passing year and i think it deserves the acclaim." How many tens of thousands of indie rock albums came out in the 90s? How many do people still care about? It really seems to be aging quite well.

Oh and, Communist Daughter.

i went for the first track. I get the opening chords stuck in my head a lot.

Holland

Holland 1945, buit this is really hard. It was either this, 2 Headed Boy pt1 or ITAOTS. Title track was my favourtie sang for the longest but I kinda burnt out on it. 2 Headed boy nearly got the nod for the notches in your spine. I'm always amazed how that track does so much with just voice+guitar. Holland 1945 is pretty perfect lyrically tho. "And here's where your mother sleeps/And here is the room where your brothers were born/Indentions in the sheets/Where their bodies once moved but don't move anymore" is awesome. I kinda like Oh Comely, but it's like watching a Fassbinder film, compelling and moving but it don't half go on and I usually can't be bothered.

...and the notion of her being reincarnated is really touching. That was the first song I heard, and while the rest of the record measures up, what Holland 1945 fits into it's small space is incredible. Also the way jolly tempo and rhythm heighten the lyrics and the somberness of the descending horn figure.

Voted for the ntitle track, but two headed boy pt 2 very nearly clinched it.

Regardless of best track, this is one of my favourite albums of all time. V. hard choice.

As an option has not been provided for that woman's breasts, I'm voting for "Ghost," dog.

But whoever said that this album is what indie in the 90s will be remembering for was OTM. It's this and If You're Feeling Sinister, you know it to be true.

Need to give this a careful listen - off the top of my head it's King of Carrot Flowers 1 or Holland 1945, but I want to be sure.

This is a record I got into VERY slowly - like, from maybe 2001 I was dating/hanging around with people who thought it was fabulous and I just couldn't get past Mangum's voice. And just being around it all the time and hearing it, I sort of forgot it, got used to it, didn't notice the music at ALL..then didn't hear it for ages, the kids moved on etc., and sometime around 06 heard it again out of the blue and it totally totally clicked. Just sounded great to me, the textures, the singing, the LYRICS... finally bought it sometime in 07. That's my story, I don't know what it adds really.

Welcome to Indieholics Anonymous, Doctor Casino

Well, I was mainly trying to set up some middle ground between "wore this out on my ipod in 5th grade, so over it" and "I remember when my grandson first brought this home from the wax cylinder shop."

I have to say, I was listening to the 2nd tape of the later demos for this the other day, and many of the songs that didn't make the album were quite good

when he was on holiday in nz chris knox made him put on a small concert at some bar in auckland. he hung out beforehand and talked to everyone, such a nice dude.

many of the songs that didn't make the album were quite good

Leaving Oh Sister off this record was a mistake.

why bother calling this "indie" with negative connotation

this album transcends all that shit by now

i voted for holland 1945, for the lyrics, but the last song is truly heartbreaking ;_;

'reckoner'

huh

transcends vs defines, cutty. or both

Holland (sonic amphetamine)

how old was dr. morbius when this album came out?

;) ;) ;)

what about it defines indie? it's a folk record.

it trascendefines

it's not really a folk record imho.

it's sure as shit not indie rock.

forget the label it was on or the milieu in which it was released. and tell me what the music sounds like.

It sounds like acid-folk pop made with plenty of traditional instrumentation, but the album's structure and songwriting are fairly indie-oriented

The self-described "fuzz-folk" project Neutral Milk Hotel

Exactly, and the album's delirious fuzz-folk-acid-bolero climax is where it's at IMO (although most of the rest is pretty good as well)

anyway ... this record is good, but you know what? I haven't listened to it in at least five years. Has been interesting to see it climb to its totemic status this decade. I saw them play the Middle East in Cambridge in 98 before I heard the album (before I heard any NMH, actually) and yeah, they fucking killed it. Best show I saw that year, probably. Maybe it's the memory of that show that's kept me from exalting the album to the heavens ... Hmm, guess I'm voting "Oh Comely" ...

putting a prefix before "folk" always means indie

^ this. it's indie, cutty. folky, fuzzy & psychedelic, but no less indie for that. and though a lot of other bands followed in its footsteps, it's not like it stood so far outside the indie mainstream at the time of its release. i remember hearing avery island in a record store when it came out and knowing instantly what it was (fuzzed out indie pop) and that i LOVED it. aeroplane pushed that sound out in all kinds of interesting new directions, but it didn't radically break with the basic tenets of the scene/sound

other textbook indie stuff from around the same time that might compare: sebadoh, eric's trip, flying saucer attack, elephant 6 fellow travelers like elf power & OTC, early phil elvrum tapes, and lo-fi c86 worship on K recs from all kinds of people, unrest, swirlies, slumberland

getting hung up on definitions & terms is lame, so mea culpa, but it's more silly to protest the indieness here than it is to defend it. why object?

"slumberland" was supposed to be "sleepyhead". same diff

because of comments like this:

this is one of those threads that won't get a lot of replies but a shit ton of votes imo...this basically is the definition of corny indie

― k3vin k., Tuesday, February 24, 2009 11:21 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

and i'm sorry but i don't see the logic in your prefix-folk formula

why object to its "indieness"? B/c we all know that this label is meant to put the album in a box where it doesn't need listening to in order to be judged as great or corny or whatever. What in particular about the music makes it indie rather than say folk? Yes, they were an E6 band. If that = indie to you, then fine, but that has little musical content. Ditto for the "add a prefix to folk". I say this after having spent a lot of time trying to find other bands in that "scene/sound" and while I loved lots of E6 stuff at the time NMH was sui generis.

i should amend that: any form of "_____ folk" where the prefix isn't a nationality or ethnicity. obvious celtic folk isn't instantly indie rock.

orchestral folk

urban folk

i actually hadn't heard this in like forever, but a dude at work was selling some vinyl and i got a perfecto copy of it for $5....

was surprised at how well it had held up and how much i still like it.

kind of a tough poll.

Not sure I understand how this could be called folk.

obviously indie, but there were so many varities of indie in the '90s that didn't have much to do with each other. this is an indie touchstone, but so are spiderland and millions now living and call the doctor and gybe and lots of other stuff. so calling it indie is saying something but not necessarily very much, and nothing to get hung up about.

What about pop-folk? Is Cat Stevens indie then?

What about pop-country-folk? Is John Denver indie?

I mean, the def. of indie you're giving would seem to cover 90% of 70s singer-songwriters.

i'm talking about what the music, the album, sounds like. you others are talking about a fuzzy, uncategorizable genre of music from the 90s which really has no discernible common sound, besides the scenes which the music came from.

it's singer/songwriter folk rock, the majority of the album is acoustic guitar based. echoes of dylan in communist daughter and oh comely. the band described even themselves with the word folk.

if you to REDUCE it to calling it indie fine. but don't say THIS IS IN NO WAY FOLK MUSIC because that's obviously wrong.

cutty otm

lol

why object to its "indieness"? B/c we all know that this label is meant to put the album in a box where it doesn't need listening to in order to be judged as great or corny or whatever. What in particular about the music makes it indie rather than say folk? Yes, they were an E6 band. If that = indie to you, then fine, but that has little musical content.

― Euler

first up, it's absurd to object to the word "indie" simply because others might be biased towards the genre. indie is a harmless genre identifier, and nothing more. like "metal", or "punk" or "hip-hop" or "minimal techno". there's no reason to attach a bunch of ridiculous baggage to the term, even if you assume that others do the same. after all, every genre has its geeks & detractors.

second, i didn't just say that NMH were indie cuz they were an E6 band. i gave a much larger musical context of similarly genre-definitive indie artists that NMH responded to, played alongside and influenced. NMH have a lot more in common with then-contemporary american indie rock than with "folk" as a genre: lyrical themes, vocal styles, production aesthetics, instrumentation/arrangements, apparent influences, perspective on the human experience, etc.

and cutty: "indie" has as much to do with a particular point in time as with a sound. john denver & cat stevens weren't indie cuz they predate the emergence of the genre. and they weren't addressing the same thing or playing with the same sounds. a mid-90s act influenced by jonn denver & cat stevens (and NOT by indie rock) would have sounded nothing like NMH.

In the Aeroplane Over the Rockies
http://heidthebaw.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/john-denver.jpg

let's agree to disagree on this one, then. oh btw, indie is not a harmless genre identifier.

hi guys sorry i helped to egg on this sad-ass clusterfuck

thanks for bringing your syllogism to the table

no offense, cutty, but i think defensiveness fucks up indie threads much more than anti-indie bigotry

Basically

There's nothing wrong with liking an indie rock record.

So quit being pussies and man up about it.

like I'll be goddamned if I'm gonna be all hang dog about liking Neutral Milk Hotel on a board where ppl were like seriously discussing the Paris Hilton record.

^^^^^^^^^BINGO

if i really wanted to troll this thread I'd be re-posting tons of this stuff: A Paler Shade of White---Sasha Frere-Jones Podcast and New Yorker article Criticizing Indie Rock for Failing to Incorporate African-American Influences

john denver in the aeroplane into the sea, morelike

Helg3son generally brings hard law

like I'll be goddamned if I'm gonna be all hang dog about liking Neutral Milk Hotel on a board where ppl were like seriously jocking J0hn D's dick 24/7.

just sayin'

oh u ppl & yr genre tags and codes

The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. One
Holland 1945
Ghost

i voted reckoner but i should have voted nude

i really love the "i love you jesus christ" part, i've always wondered what that could mean

If you read the lyric sheet for the album, which I don't have handy, he digresses from the lyrics at that point and talks about the meaning of the Jesus Christ line, saying it's a metaphor for something endless, or some such, check it out some time.

Also, everyone should check out this page which has been out there for a long time and features lots of amazing demos, b-sides, and live recordings. Highlights include "Little Birds," "Oh Sister," and the videos from the 40 Watt Club show. The performance of Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone from that show is incredible.

As for the poll, I don't know how to begin to choose. What am I picking? The song I'm most likely to put on out of context? I mean, I rarely listen to this album without listening to the whole thing. The song that's most moving? I don't know. I guess I choose Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2.

There's a part in the 33 1/3 book about this album that talks about all of the kids sitting in their cars in driveways with the engines idling, waiting for Jeff to put down his guitar and walk away at the end before they can turn it off. That's me.

also no one would think it was lame to like this album if it was some done by some Gary Higgins type burnout in 72 and released on 180 gram by 4 Men With Beards instead of being popular with dorky college kids in the 90s and released on Merge

Hey if you want to disagree it's indie fine by me. This is the sort of ball-less album that makes me deny I listen to indie from time to time.

and i wasn't old enuf to be president, ian darling

yeah the only reason I bit on the genre bullshit was that I'd love a way to find other albums as awesome as this one, but I've failed. So if genre were a good guide I'd have saved some cash in the late 90s trawling through Beulah records and the like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_Milk_Hotel

lol

indie is a bad place to look for music with balls.

compared to what professional "indie" has turned into, i would take a zillion neutral milk hotels...

not all music has to have balls. if that would so i would just listen to "Tres Hombres" by ZZ Top all day.

...actually...

In the Aeroplane Over the ZZ
http://www.planet3rry.com/images/2006/061025zztop.jpg

agree w m@tths. balls is somewhat overrated. bruise easily, smell funny, clash w the decor.

Actually, the long ZZ beards wouldn't be too out of place in an "indie-folk" band ... HMMM.

i prefer prog-folk. which is obviously indie too according to the formula.

kiss that prog

The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. One
Holland 1945
Ghost

― Too Into Dancing to Argue (ENBB), Wednesday, February 25, 2009 9:50 AM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark

This. Yes. Very good, ENBB.

i should do a poll on what song from this album you'd most like ZZ Top to cover

imho music is not folk music unless it is connected to some sort of longstanding traditional music--from childe ballads to ozark fiddling to pygmy music and the bauls of bengal. those are folk musics. the neutral milk hotels was the recording project of a singer-songwriter and his friends working firmly within the college-rock/indie-rock tradition despite the acoustic instrumentation. there is nothing on that LP with any sort of connection to "the folk" as it were.

and shit dog, joni mitchell was hardly "folk" either you know. just pop music mang.

Holland 1945 is the only answer to the ZZ Top question

this is not a goddamn folk record, gimme a break

ian OTFM

Is this thread going to force me to listen to this album again? MAYBE. Either that or ZZ Top.

I think I'd usually rather listen to Tres Hombres than this but come on, that's a tough standard to live up to, indie or not.

Two hey-uhdud boy

(how how how how)

because of comments like this:

this is one of those threads that won't get a lot of replies but a shit ton of votes imo...this basically is the definition of corny indie

― k3vin k., Tuesday, February 24, 2009 11:21 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

― cutty, Wednesday, February 25, 2009 12:01 PM (1 hour ago)

brw dude this is one of my favorite albums ever. "corny indie" is obv jsut a device ppl here use to desccribe shit...i dont find it corny at all

btw*

the gatefold of tres hombres alone is worth more than most LPs released on merge records.
(is that a challenging opinion for ILM nowadays? i don't even know what's going on here anymore. Some kinda twilight zone shit.) 3xp

And we would lay and learn

(double-stop bend)

What each others bodies were for

(tom roll)

xpost

we all spend our lives trying and failing to live up to the example of ZZ Top, this does not diminish the accomplishments of neutral milk hotel\

tres hombres is just fantastic, and yes the nachos look delicious.

so every mention of the word folk in the same breath as NMH, including by the band themselves is a challop, then?

mexican awesomeness > > arcade fire songs about bibles

not a challop, just projection, self-delusion & wishful thinking maybe.

When i played this CD on my college indie rock radio station back in ye olde dayz, i remember how LOUD it was -- the VU meters would go nuts into the red with it. True story.

So if your ear causes you to think Arcade Fire is better than ZZ Top, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life injured than to have two ears and fail to boogie

ZZ Top could do a mean "Communist Daughter" I bet.

song against sex por favor.

this thread reads like my parents friends pulling that "I didn't wear polyester in the 70s" -- "oh yes you did!!" bullshit.

15 years from now, kids will be all, who cares, indie was cool, the same gen x did with disco and gen y have with 80s teen pop, so brace yourselves for the 00s backlash on the horizon

great album that paid off (and held up) if you didn't have trouble with the grating sound or got past that.

Oh Comely every time!

i am definitely re-listening to this record today btw.
and i do enjoy it very much.
i'm just being devil's advocate, cuz the folk-not-folk thing is a pet peeve.

and yeah no shit indie is cool, just ask tom lax.

More memories: Before that NMH show at the Middle East I mentioned above, I got high and played beer pong at an MIT frat house off of Newbury. And then I walked all the way down Mass. Ave. to the Middle East, which I realize now is really far! I didn't really know my way around Boston at the time ....

I think this is a really solid album - I don't listen to it much anymore cuz it got kinda overplayed for me in the late 90s. I know practically every note, I don't really feel the need to revisit it much. But it is good and I like it, songwriting is a little pedestrian (guy knows four chords) but he makes up for it with really great arrangements and really great lyrical conceits. But as Ian says it is not a folk album - it has no connection to traditional musics as such, it is very much of its time and is not concerned with functioning within a folk framework. acoustic guitar /= "folk"

apparently i still know all the words to this album, for those keeping score at home.
which says something, i guess.

were you singing along?

once i was in a bar/club of some sort, and the dj plays king of carrot flowers part two REALLY loud. everyone was dancing. it was nuts. never thought of the song the same since then.

i'm always singing.

That photo reminds me of this Onion story:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/36138

Woman With Amazing Rack Told She Has A Beautiful Tattoo

And we would lay and learn

(double-stop bend)

What each others bodies were for

(tom roll)

― goole, Wednesday, February 25, 2009 1:41 PM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark

Those two lines might be my favorite lyrics from any song ever.

what about the next line

crossing the line into cheeseball territory with that whole sexual discovery shit imho

"in my dreams you're alive & you're crying" is a much more mega lyrical moment.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_tBt_USQ79sw/Rce37akAcUI/AAAAAAAAALo/V12jzDf3xAI/s400/nmhtat2.jpg
so is this, like, a thing?

two things as far as I can tell

goes well with an asymetrical haircut & horizontally striped top.

xxxpost - yeah the next 2-4 lines are pretty awesome too

I guess I like the chesseball sexual discovery stuff.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2177/2503776381_542459b64b.jpg?v=0

Tyler - when was this middle east show? Also, yeah that's a pretty far walk esp stoned.

original post tat much better as far as these things go

let's see, spring break my freshman year? March 1998? Yeah, it is crazy when I think about that walk now ... I think I walked back, too! Ah, youth. Ah, weed.

this album pretty much = "y'know, this indie stuff may not really be for me anymore"

i don't hate it and i like respect his craft and all, but its Importance is pretty much lost on me.

xpost - OK, I would have been pissed if it had been after I'd moved here but thankfully that was before my Boston time. Phew.

When i played this CD on my college indie rock radio station back in ye olde dayz, i remember how LOUD it was -- the VU meters would go nuts into the red with it. True story.

― tylerw,

When i played this CD on my college indie rock radio station back in ye olde dayz, i remember how LOUD it was -- the VU meters would go nuts into the red with it. True story.

― tylerw,
Yeah, this album is very loud and compressed, no doubt about that. But Robert Schneider knew what he was doing (or maybe it was the old gear) so it still sounds good.

http://11.media.tumblr.com/K15VXmfDyidca0mfbViUeG67o1_400.jpg

^^^haha not gonna age well

New thread: Can tattoos ruin albums?

waiting for a NMH thread to go NSFW

yeah, re: the loudness -- i figured they just really wanted that blown out sound, not just fuzzy guitars, but fuzzzz all over the thing.

i'm currently listening to this after convincing myself at least seven years ago that i was "over it", that i'd absorbed the lessons and didn't need to hear it anymore. plus i think i'd worked myself into some weird, condescending mental corner with regard to its lolindie killmenow ubiquity. even sold the vinyl.

FUCK was i thinking? there is no "best song" here, the whole thing is goddam unstoppable. "two-headed boy" is still kills it awful savage, but "holland" ain't no slouch neither. carrot flowers 3?

^ revising the revision

ok, ok, i just put this on the stereo ...

now i just need some bros to play beer pong/smoke up with me.

i'm sure there are still harvard undergrads who will listen to aeroplane with you.

or mit was it? srry

it's gotta be holland, 1945 for this guy

turns out that the slide into droney lethargy on side 2 is still not my favorite thing in the whole world. "oh comely" deserves to be shot in the face on the white house lawn

This album's sequenced pretty well, though. It has a feel of aging, with "Oh Comely" being kind of the late mid-life crisis before some static and a bittersweet homecoming.

semen stains, the mountaintop

wtf "some static", you're talking about the album's adrenaline-drenched energetic youthful zenith here (imo)

also, i am so totally in favor of tatoos like that poor girl's "but for now we are young." will age beatifully, more poignant and terrible every year. wanna see her flaunt it on a beach in florida circa 2059. <3<3<3

tatoos? like potatoos?

OK, I finished listening to this for the 1st time in many years. Sounded good! I think what is referred to as the "droney lethargy" on side 2 is my fave stuff. What really comes across is Mangum's strengths as a performer -- he really sells these songs --- the solo stuff is sometimes more exciting than the band stuff.

cubs252006
Feb 22 2009

4.00 stars
Digital

I am missing two tracks from this album but from the rest I heard it was pretty good. Wish they used the jazz aspect a bit more and honestly the only stumbling blocks I found was that Oh Comely was the worst track on the album and it was the longest and his voice can get abnoxious on a few moments. Pretty solid stuff overall.

digapony
Apr 12 2008

5.00 stars
10/10

I am overwhelmed every time i hear this album. The first three songs are amazing but 6,7, 8 and eight are just fucked up beautiful. This album is not over rated. Fuck you

ah yes, the "jazz aspect" of this album ... can we agree to call NMH an indie jazz folk band?
xpost

ShyGuy
Apr 12 2008

5.00 stars
It's ok.

CD

The album responsible for redefining the indie rock sound, and thus making the "indie" term synonymous with totally unaccessible, weird and profitless music among the major labels and the mainstream culture for the next 10 years.

10 years later, purists are begging Jeff Mangum to come out of hiding and rescue the indie "brand" from the clutches of Apple, Starbucks and the rest of corporate America seeking to tame indie bands and make their sound safe for Wal-Mart customers.

But how can you follow up "In the Aeroplane over the Sea"?

Seriously.

seriously

yeah, I guess it is more youthful. no wtf there, just me doing some halfassed musing

then again, maybe it's youthful like a bald man buying a corvette

ah yes, the "jazz aspect" of this album ... can we agree to call NMH an indie jazz folk band?

more like an indie jizz fag band

lol

no indie guys, but this is probably one of my favorite albums

I wonder if ian thinks antifolk is folk?

i'm not familiar enough with the artists in that whole scene to really say for sure. i do not think kimya dawson is a folksinger in the strictest sense of the word. I've heard a few things by Diane Cluck that might come close.

turns out that the slide into droney lethargy on side 2 is still not my favorite thing in the whole world. "oh comely" deserves to be shot in the face on the white house lawn

― They don’t understand. And I eat a lot of matzo brie. (contenderizer), Wednesday, February 25, 2009 3:16 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

loooool yeah that always dragged the album for me too

dragged it down, i should say

I agree with some of the above dudes w/r/t how epic and rocking Two-Headed Boy is for just being one voice and one acoustic guitar.

^ this!

I think what is referred to as the "droney lethargy" on side 2 is my fave stuff. What really comes across is Mangum's strengths as a performer -- he really sells these songs...

― tylerw

would buy tyler's arg way more if a) i liked those songs, and b) two-hearted boy didn't so totally school them in the words & guitar salesmanship thing

"ghost" and "untitled" referred to as "droney lethargy" has actually ruined my evening, ty folks

fuck that shit. there isn't a bad song on this record.

oh comely is pretty bad imho

shoulda said "if i liked those songs more, cuz i do like most of em, esp ghost & untitled heartthree. it's more the way oh comely squats over commie daughter and 2-head 2, making them feel more sloggy than they otherwise would. 15 minutes of soul mining punctuated by 6 minutes of light

I think what you mean is "oh comely" is pretty good if you kind of hang out and listen to it, but if you think of other songs that have been inspired by it and sit in its tradition it kind of fills you with a little rage that is ameliorated by the recognition that no one important cares about those songs anyway

haha, what?

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/barreleyebaot.jpg

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea Poll [Started by Bee OK in February 2009, last updated 2 minutes ago by They don’t understand. And I eat a lot of matzo brie. (contenderizer) on I Love Music] 215 new answers [POLL closes: March 02]
people that YELP are scumbags. [Started by chaki in March 2008, last updated 2 minutes ago by butt-rock miyagi (rogermexico.) on I Love Everything] 61 new answers

^^^ coincidence?

forget the haters, i'm voting for "Oh Comely."

i think the term you're looking for is "fuck the haters"

i know that is the term but for some odd reason i didn't want to swear.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Dear Ppl,

"Holland 1945" is one of the greatest songs ever written & sung. Seriously.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely yours,

drugs

I like watching people on youtube cover "Holland 1945" or "The King of Carrot Flowers." It always lifts my spirits.

"Holland, 1945," "Communist Daughter," and "Oh Comely" is my favorite stretch. "The King of Carrot Flowers Pt 1" gets my vote, though.

thanks for the jpeg p.s. fuck the haters

i'm thinking every single song will get at least one vote. wonder if enough people voted to bring in over 100 total votes, results will be out very soon.

Ugh, this is really, really hard. Mostly because this album actually does keeps on getting better and better after time, it amazes me everytime.

I think I'll ultimately go with "Holland, 1945". That 7" got me into them, and this record, and feels so enormously full of energy. But on another day, it could just as easily be be "The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. One", "Two-Headed Boy", or "Communist Daughter".

Hello this is a shoutout to the song Engine.

an album full of great songs. it's hard to pick just one.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Can't say I'm surprised, but it's very nice every song got at least one vote.

But fuck, Communist Daughter is way too low!

can't believe I was the only communist daughter vote

I wish I had now ;_;

someone plz make a joke about the Two-Headed Boy split vote

90 votes, good job as always ILM. this was one of the better polls recently.

if u say so urself

"communist daughter" is too grand for only one vote.

i listened to this for the first time in forever and man this is just pretty close to a flawless album, fuck the backlash or whatever. i can't help but sing along to every word.

j0rdan s would love "holland, 1945"

THE ONLY GIRL IVE EVER LOVED

i listened to this for the first time in forever and man this is just pretty close to a flawless album, fuck the backlash or whatever. i can't help but sing along to every word.

^ cosign

Dear Ppl,

"Holland 1945" is one of the greatest songs ever written & sung. Seriously.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely yours,

drugs

― geir today, hongro tomorrow (Drugs A. Money), Saturday, February 28, 2009 7:40 PM (1 year ago)

this dude gets it

Yeah, understand why it's annoying, maybe it was a bad influence on indie rock, very easy to see why people don't like it, but sorry, this album is still amazing.

You know what else is amazing is Bow Wow Wow "Jungle Boy".

That's funny about the tattoo up there, I once dated this girl that wanted to get a tattoo of the record-player-airplane that's included in the art, I think on the CD itself.

First time I ever heard the untitled jam I was like "Woah, wait a fucking minute here....this is amazing!"

always preferred the first album

Love "Song Against Sex" off Avery Island but can't top Aeroplane imo. Weird that I haven't listened to this in its entirety in years but happen to have it on right now.

I agree with thhe Holland 1945 love. Also - "Ghost".

is that a birthmark on the tambourine in that tattoo?

I few years ago, I left my car window open in Philly with a bunch of CDs on the passenger seat and this is the only one that was stolen as far as I could tell. So, there's that. Also, I have a friend who got that record player airplane as his first tattoo at the age of like 23, and by 24 was pretending he hadn't listened to the record since high school. Bitches be fickle. ALSO, my freshman year of college this record absolutely devastated me and it stands as a document of a more innocent time and my first relationship and a million other new experiences I'm sure. So, I think it's pretty good. Would have voted two-headed boy, but I'm disappointed that Communist Daughter got so few votes. Semen stains the mountain tops, bros. Also, it's one of the more sonically interesting.

I live in Athens now and I keep asking people which Jittery Joe's Mangum recorded in and nobody seems to know. I want to see him walking down the street and just get it straight from the source, but I'm not sure I'd even recognize the guy if I saw him today. Julian Koster plays wiffle ball on Sundays. Everyone's invited.

Eek I hadn't noticed that tattoo before. That's pretty bad but at least it's well done. I am so so glad that I've had people around me smart enough to talk me out of the few music related tattoo ideas I've had over the years. I think they're generally a pretty bad idea.

fellini, it was the jittery joe's in 5 points off s milledge.

worst album ever

― that old joe diffie classic (Curt1s Stephens), Tuesday, February 24, 2009 11:49 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

fellini, it was the jittery joe's in 5 points off s milledge.

Oh man, that's kind of a bummer because they just moved out of that building. It's becoming a muffin shop or something I think.

Julian Koster plays wiffle ball on Sundays. Everyone's invited.

Julian is awesome, one of the nicest and most fun people I've ever met. I was a huge Music Tapes fanboy back in 2001 or so and after some E6 Christmas show at the Flicker I was flipping out because he invited us back to his place. We saw his studio, the clapping hands machine, the giant metronome, and ended up playing Red Rover in his backyard. He had a giant inflatable snowman and was telling us that the abandoned house next door was haunted so we explored it for a bit while getting wasted. Good timez.

I love visiting Athens but haven't been in a while. How is it out there? Still cheap living & lots of bars?

Also, I can't wait for Major Organ And the Adding Machine!

Still cheap living & lots of bars?

Yessir

yeah i gotta move back there one day. saw the truckers last night and got all home sick.

it was not the jittery joes in five points lol

what other jittery joe's would it have been??? sure as hell looks like it from the videos.

if Athens, GA is ever not cheap living & lots of bars then western civilization has failed

they used to say that about Athens, Greece back in the day

it was the joes on washington

ahhh. that one must have been closed by the time i got there.

243 W. Washington St

* Currently the bar The Max Canada, for much of the early 2000s this space housed the bar/music venue known as The Engine Room.
* In its multiple rooms, local bands performed - from the punk of Hunter-Gatherer to the rock of **** Volcanic to the jazz of the SS Puft Trio - and its late night dance parties were well-attended and long-running.
* Stand between the front-of-the-house pool tables and the windows, and you’ll fill the same space Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum did in 1997 when he recorded a live album when this location housed a Jittery Joe’s coffee shop.

dudes, the jittery joe's in five points moved. it's a yogurt place now.

i wanted to re-post this as it was written today. hope this is OK stevie, as this post is amazing:

Pitchfork: The Top 200 Tracks of the 1990s: 20-01

Just to say a few words in defense of NMH...

I don't know how that album went down in the US when it was released, I've always presumed it was a modest, cult success. I remember seeing them support Olivia Tremor Control at the Garage in 1998, and being entirely blown away by them. In the context of those times, you didn't often see 8-piece groups with musical saws and hobbit-looking dudes playing tubas onstage, so that was remarkable. But there was something so joyous and unhinged about the performance, swinging hard between chaos and melody: I remember the drummer playing these crazily overloaded drum rolls that were so OTT he had trouble getting back into the rhythm of the song, but somehow it all held together. The songs were great, much better than those of OTC, and they had none of that group's antiseptic slavery to a single style and moment - NMH seemed gloriously alive by comparison.

I got the album, and loved it. I remember pushing hard to write about them while I was at Melody Maker, but was turned down, and told that others in the office thought they sounded like the panpipe group from The Fast Show. An editor at The Times was more understanding at let me write some end of year blurbs about them. I was pretty obsessed with the record, but in the UK, it just seemed to pass by under the radar. I was a pretty dedicated partisan for their cause, putting their songs on mix-tapes I made for friends. If I was interviewing a musician I thought would appreciate their music, I'd make 'em cassettes, most of which probably ended up discarded and unlistened on the floors of tourvans. But if that artist turned round and said they already loved the album, it was a pretty big thrill, and would often result in long discussions about the unheralded magic of NMH, this brilliant secret were were lucky enough to be in on.

I'm really not surprised that the album has enjoyed such acclaim in the years since it was released. The 'concept' behind the songs - that Jeff Mangum was so inspired by reading the Diary Of Anne Frank that he penned this album-length treatise of love'n'death/fantasy that he travelled back in time to try and save her - is both opaque and alluring, and, of course, makes for both good copy and at-length decoding by obsessive fans. Jeff Mangum's own subsequent non-career and silence, full of mystery and hints of tragedy, also makes for a great story - the doomed artist and his final folly, etc etc. It's an archetypal 'lost album', if you like. And you'd be crazy to deny its influence on indie groups (many of whom I detest) that have followed.

I still think its a marvellous record, though I don't play it often now, as I perhaps played it too much a decade or so ago. I can't deny that it still moves me today, when I do hear songs from it, and even a track as outwardly-ebullient as 'Holland 1945' remains affecting, not least for the poetry of Jeff's lyrics, and the sentiments and stories its telling.

― Chaki doesn't have beef with unicorn (stevie), Friday, September 3, 2010 5:22 AM (17 hours ago) Bookmark

i just listened to this for the first time in about five years and it still does it for me, somewhat to my surprise. feels like i've been put through a wringer.

this is going on at christmas time.

i listened to this for the first time in forever and man this is just pretty close to a flawless album, fuck the backlash or whatever. i can't help but sing along to every word.

― terry squad (k3vin k.), Friday, July 23, 2010 12:57 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

j0rdan s would love "holland, 1945"

― terry squad (k3vin k.), Friday, July 23, 2010 12:58 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

THE ONLY GIRL IVE EVER LOVED

― terry squad (k3vin k.), Friday, July 23, 2010 12:58 AM (1 year ago)

me otm

my answer is two headed boy pt 2 though, i get choked up still at "and in my dreams you're alive and you're crying" - such a genuine, affecting, and vivid turn, even for someone whose work is characterized by those kinds of things

i haven't listened to this all the way through in a while. obviously a classic, and yeah, i think the last song is probably the best

I've tried really hard to get into this album but something just keeps pushing me away... the voice, the production and the lyrics irk me in some way or another which is really odd because normally I can bypass the things that make me cringe but this album is so attention demanding that it's impossible to ignore the little irksome details for me.

Either way I wont deny that I love the idea of this album and that I can appreciate it's ambition and cohesiveness as a casual listener. There's nothing quite like it out there. (Maybe Mt. Erie by the microphones? Another album which I've also tried to get into really hard but keeps pushing me away)