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 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)