/mu/core album review | Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
/mu/core album review #1
this week on /mu/core album review, we look at:
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Ah yes, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. The album thatâs mostly known as either, âthat one weird album from the 90s,â or, â/mu/ basic bitch meme music.â If youâre anywhere past a casual music fan, you have most-likely heard some songs off this project, if not the whole thing, doubly so if youâre into 90s culture, Indie, or any sort of Art-Rock or Folk movements. As I type this, the most popular YouTube rip of the album has about 4.3 million views, a playlist separating each track stands at 500,000 views, and the title track has a remarkable 40,733,956 plays on Spotify. Holy shit, to put that into perspective: AV Club writes that, âIn The Aeroplane Over The Sea was originally slated to sell about 7,000 copies,â thatâs roughly 5,819 times the predicted sales numbers of the album on just that song. This also means that this song has been listened to for approximately 131,163,338 minutes, a total of around 131,163,299 more minutes than the actual album length. Humanity has spent a collective 249 years listening to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Oh, and thatâs just the title track.
If I couldnât spell it out so clearly there, this album is fucking outrageously popular.
Even if you havenât heard any material off the LP, this album is memed pretty heavily in the music corners of the internet. I donât think I can find a single music meme page or forum that hasnât jumped upon the ITAOTS or NMH bandwagon.
At this current point in time, ITAOTS has became a permanent resident in the zeitgeist of internet music culture. NMH, and by extension, itâs creator, Jeff Mangum have been elevated to a cult of personality status. The band and this project are accompanied by a never-ending choir: 15-25 year old sad white boys who cry while sing-screeching about semen and Anne Frank and poorly play open chords on their detuned Ibanez acoustics.
Itâs oddly beautiful.
The album is so deceptively simple, so creatively cryptic and has all the elements of a slog faux-folk fest filled with whining that would bore me to so many tears that they could rival the sad boy indie kids who lose their e-girls to their more socially active explore-page bait counterparts. To a person not familiar with it, ITAOTS could look like an over hyped, masturbatory depression tape. It looks boring. It looks like it should be boring.
If it should be boring, then why have I only listened to it and absolutely nothing else for the last two days?
This isnât a joke, I revisited the album of course to refresh myself before sitting down and writing this review. I kept listening, over the course of a school day, in-between production and songwriting sets, while playing games, and as I write this, I just finished my eighth spin of the record. Before those last two days, I had only listened to the album probably twice.Â
I remember listening to it back in seventh grade and not particularly disliking it. I was really into Yes and a lot of other Prog and Psych bands, but I wasnât particularly impressed with the almost yuppie voice that Jeff had used on the record compared to vocal beasts like Freddie Mercury, Bowie, and Jon Anderson. Later on, I listened in freshman year, and I appreciated it much more, and had a few songs come up in my shuffle play, but thought nothing much of it.
Now, war had changed.
part 1: iâm the fucking carrot king
As I plopped down in my computer chair, my window crackled and banged like a distant firecracker with the smack of heavy rains on a Summer afternoon. I placed my headphones firmly atop my ears, closed my eyes and leaned back in my chair. I heard the opening chords of The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1 and tried not just to hear the instrumentation, but also pay attention to the lyrical content of Mr. Mangum.
When you were young, you were the king of carrot flowers And how you built a tower tumbling through the trees In holy rattlesnakes that fell all around your feet
Okay, so what the fuck is actually happening here?
Upon my listens, I inferred that Jeff is speaking to another party here, most likely a female love interest, in what seemingly starts in a nostalgic tone. This sounds almost like a picturesque, coming-of-age, Americana film. Maybe one starring Molly Ringwald and River Phoenix, with a surprise cameo from someone famous back then like Jack Nicholson. Maybe John Candy, with a John Hughes script. Everything would have those faded out, classic colors, a hearkened back era. Quickly, by halfway through the first act, the tone shifts. A darker mood, a stark, grim reminder that life wasnât always sunny and shinning in Mister Rogersâ Neighborhood.
And your mom would stick a fork right into daddy's shoulder And dad would throw the garbage all across the floor As we would lay and learn what each other's bodies were for
The Mang informs us of a horrific family life, specifically about what seems to be his dadâs, stepmomâs, and stepsisterâs interpersonal relationships. The lines are obvious and straightforward, the life of our protagonist was rife with unhealthy familial and sexual relationships, and a sense of love and sweetness was not found there. Keep that in mind when thinking about later songs such as Oh Comely.
After the somber intro of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1, we reach my personal least favorite track on the album: The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 2 and 3.
Look, I know the meme. âI LOOOOOOOOOVE JESUUUS CHUHRIEEEIISSSSTT,â and all that shit. Iâm not even worked up about that line in particular, I just dislike Pt. 3. Itâs the weakest of the upbeat songs on the album, with the weird yodel-screech voice that Gumman performs with really takes me out of the experience, which sucks because the buildup and atmosphere of Pt. 2 felt pretty amazing. Luckily, Pt. 3 is fairly short, so we donât have to worry about it too much.
part 2: earth angelâs thesis
The title track for this album is one of the best songs on this album, no fucking contest. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Oh Comely, The Fool, and Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2 are top contenders when discussing this album. If you like the faster, fuzzier, upbeat songs you could probably substitute The Fool for Holland, 1945.
The title track has a familiar sounding chord progression and we can hear Gum from Jet Set Radioâs saccharine but yelp-y voice belt out from atop the mountains his undying love and admiration for... Anne Frank?
What a beautiful face I have found in this place That is circling all round the sun What a beautiful dream That could flash on the screen In a blink of an eye and be gone from me
In the first verse, Geoff mentions meeting or viewing a beautiful person on this fleeting rock circling round the Sun. He also matches this with the idea that itâs truly futile for him to chase after this beauty, as it is only a dream that could escape him when he awakes. El JefĂ© has actually mentioned that some of his surrealist lyrics are derived from dreams. Perhaps these lines could imply a more literal dream fading? I donât exactly know, all I know is what I interpreted.
The instrumentation of this piece is nothing straying from NMHâs usual repertoire: Mandrake on Guitar and Vocals, Scott Spillane on the Horns, Robert Schneider on Bass and Production, Julian Koster playing... something. What is he playing? Wait, give me a second.
Heâs playing the Singing Saw? I thought it was like, a Theremin. What the fuck is a Singing Saw?
Oh.
Okay sure, you can play that, however the fuck you do that.
And finally we have Jeremy Barnes on Drums.
The personnel handle the music with a light, bouncy feeling, and the tone and timbre remind me of a faded, old, seaside town on the east coast. Another thing to mention is that the chord progression is G-Em-C-D; I-vi-IV-V. A funny thing I noticed is that this song shares a chord progression with tons of songs from the 50âs and early 60âs, which adds to the waning Americana feeling, but it more specifically shares that progression with Earth Angel by The Penguins. In the 80âs film, Back To The Future, Marvin Berry covers the song with his band for the Enchantment Under The Sea Dance where Martyâs dad and mom have to dance to ensure that the future stays intact. Thereâs no further real connection, but I thought that was kinda cool to mention.
After looking through the lyrics for In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, I will admit, as a brainlet Two-Headed Boy Pt. 1 eluded me. Patrolling through Genius and some other reviews, I guess the consensus about this track was that it was about Anne Frank again? Manta Jeffâs cryptic lyricism continues to fool me. Besides the lyrics, this track mostly remains a piece of really good filler.
part 3: stop the military occupation of my brainwaves
The Fool is amazing, anyone who says itâs filler is wrong. I know I might anger some people by literally implying that Two-Headed Boy Pt. 1 was filler, but seriously The Fool just makes me a feel a way. My brain creates a scene reminiscent of a depressing diesel-punk Les MisĂ©rables. Even though Scotch Spillageâs fantastic piece for horns is beautifully imperfect, it lacks lyrical content and is short and length. So, letâs instead talk about Holland, 1945.
This awesome, uptempo, almost punk-like piece of fuzzy brass is groovy son. Itâs probably the song you could show someone not familiar with this project and theyâd be like, âOh, is this Cake? Why is the lead singer singing so high now?â
Holland, 1945 is a song that you can just listen for the instrumentation. Holland, 1945 is a song that promotes peace and love. Thereâs so many great things I can say about Holland, 1945. How itâs theme is so perfectly fitting for todayâs political climate, how it manages to blend these psychedelic and bluesy timbres with a fast and loud sound and how well it continued the semi-conceptual narrative of Joffâs admiration and love for... Anne Frank.
Okay, fuck it, I have to say it. Itâs bothered me ever since I discovered it.
Why Anne Frank? Like, I know why Anne Frank, but I mean like, why, yâknow? Iâll say I admire Anne Frank, she was trying her best to live a normal life in a terrifying time to be alive, but I never wanted to fuck her. xxJeffxxâs mentions of Anne kind of make me raise an eyebrow. Especially because the albumâs not just about her either. When he gets sexual, itâs difficult to determine whether he is mentioning a third party or Anne, which would be pretty weird, as she was 15 when she died and Heff was 28 when he wrote this. Maybe this is just some patrician music shit that Iâm too plebeian to understand, like heated toilet seats or drinking for fun rather than to drown the pain. Maybe I havenât sat down and watched enough flowery-squarespace-sponsored-lofi-hip-hop-muzak-using-pretentious video essayists to understand it, but what do I know.
part 4: the proletariat cries
To wrap on the second half of the album, this is the half that I cried in.
Communist Daughter is a good song, but with how short it is, it left me wanting more. This track is one of the few that actually features a soft-spoken Jeffen, and its open and dark but dreamy atmosphere left my jaw agape. The mountaintops werenât the only thing stained.
Oh Comely, Oh Comely. Oh Comely is a song that deserves its own review. The lyrical chops of The Mangum Magnum are on full display as he belts somber, brutal verse after verse, with plenty of juxtaposition between sickening, sexual and vile situations alongside a description of a sweet, innocent young girl, just trying to survive with a guitar by her side. This beautiful, lovely girl gets taken advantage by someone, some people, perhaps even Yeff himself, only seen as an easy lay, a whore, like the ones her father visits often. He disgustingly describes semen in the garden, and her making miracles with her mouth, but I didnât get a tone similar to so many songs about âsexual-empowerment.â The song is about self-deprecating depression leading to her being used, perhaps even abused. A situation all too real, too close to many of us. As I type this, I donât know what to think. A woman should of course have individual sexual freedom, but this song doesnât describe that. It describes trauma, emotional, psychological trauma. Meaningless sex, a rotten smell, staining the flower of a woman, all of this language that could be simply described as gross. This isnât a happy song about fucking bitches. This song is about how a girl wanted to play music, pluck vines and was taken advantage of, reduced to her roots, and deflowered. Fuck. I wish I could save her. In some sort of time machine.
Two-Headed Boy could refer to a number of things. I have a head canon. This girl, Comely, is being used by the Two-Headed Boy for sexual favors. The Two-Headed Boy then ârepaysâ her in friendship and music, playing their silly little songs. On the surface, Comely assumes the Two-Headed Boy trusts her and cares for her, but really all he wants is sex. Comely, living in a broken home and without a proper male figure in their life, is conned by the Two-Headed Boy, and just wants to live a normal life. Comely is trapped. Sheâs living in a place that is surrounded by the texture of scum and she knows it, she just canât call upon the strength to leave. Sheâs trapped in a home, a ghetto, wanting to live a normal life, but sheâs been placed here by the Two-Headed Boy, who knew her mother and father were broken, and she would be too. The Two-Headed Boy broke in, claimed to be her friend, and supports her, before defiling her. Comely was pretty, bright, and intelligent. She was just in a bad situation.
Comely was Anne Frank.
Not to say that they were literally one in the same, but I mean J. Mangum (private eye) is comparing two children, ripped from their lives by this awful world, and intertwining them, blurring the lines.
Whoâs the Two-Headed Boy? As I said, it could be a number of people. Nazis, Peter van Pels, hell, even Jeff Manga himself could be the Two-Headed Boy. It doesnât matter as long as we realize the relationship between oppressed and oppressor.
There is a glimmer of hope for Comely though. Read the closing words from Two-Headed Boy Pt. 2:
Two headed boy, she is all you could need She will feed you tomatoes and radio wires And retire to sheets safe and clean But don't hate her when she gets up to leave
Comely and the Two-Headed Boy split away from each other. Comely leaves the Two-Headed Boy, and the narrator says not to hate her when she leaves. On a deeper level, this could be an introspective Jeff Mangum relating on his past. I donât really know.
outro
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
9/10
What did you think? Was I way off the mark, or do you agree? What should I have covered? What did you like, what did you dislike, Iâm all ears. Leave a follow and a like if you liked it and Iâll see you on Wednesday.
