This item about Jeff Mangum’s nuptials also points out that Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, which is definitely in my top 20 albums of all time and maybe even in my top 15, celebrates its tenth anniversary next month. It’s probably too much to hope for some sort of tribute album in said anniversary’s honor, isn’t it? [Glorious Noise]
Categories:
Uncategorized
Uncategorized
Is it so wrong to be an On Avery Island guy?
Eh, maybe Stereogum will recruit ten bands from the second tier (7.1- 8.2) of Pitchfork’s scale, give them each a tune from “Aeroplane” to cover, and then give the whole thing away on the tenth anniversary (I THINK it was 98′ that this thing came out.) like they did with “Automatic for the People” and “OK Computer.”
Top 5 here. Or 3. Hell, maybe 2. Granted, I don’t know what #1 would be, so I suppose it has a chance to fall into that slot for me.
(Call me lame or whatever, but to me In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is an album that is absolutely perfect in every way. From the melodies and the lyrics to the production and sequencing, it is a rare case of every single aspect of an album coming together and working in perfect harmony. There’s not a single second of it that doesn’t work.)
I suppose congratulations to Mr. Mangum, and good luck to that girl to try to keep up with whatever the hell it is that goes on in that guy’s head on a daily basis. And I mean that in the most positive way possible.
@SuperUnison: should have clarified: i meant an *interesting* tribute album.
I listen to this album more than any other and have become so attached to Mangum’s amazing voice, to hear anyone else attempt a song like “Oh, Comely” would just seem wrong.
A tribute album would be a very, very bad idea.
That’s too bad about Jeff Mangum’s dad.
tribute album? are you kidding? just take every musician that would have been playing on it, put them in a room, blindfolded and w/duct tape over their mouths and play the damn thing on the stereo.
Why am I the only person who is sick to death of this album?
@maura: I was sort of kidding, but then I was listening to “Holland 1945″ on my smoke break and realized that a Hold Steady version of that song could be amazing. Anyone here who’s heard “Secret Santa Cruz” knows exactly what I’m talking about.
for the second year running this band called endless mike and the beagle club performed the whole record on halloween in some little hall somewhere. the mp3’s aren’t great, but the band most definitely is. [miofartistcollective.blogspot.com]
If there was to be an Aeroplane tribute album, it would have to be in the style of the Dirty Projectors’ Rise Above - a complete reinterpretation based more on the coverer’s memory than the original source material. I think it’s still too new for that to really work.
@gofreescout: Same here. I never felt the undying love for Aeroplane, but I adore On Avery Island.
I totally went to grad school with Astra!
@mike a: My sentiments exactly … Also, really — why make a tribute album to AOTS now when most baby bands of the moment can barely be bothered to coast on weakly photocopying NMH’s winning whiny vocals-strumy-guitar-squeezebox-concept-album tactics?
awww. a friend of mind played the horns on that album. so every time i hear it, i think of him. i used to work in this shitty all night diner in athens, and jeff m. would come in a chain smoke late late at night. he was polite. nicer than michael stipe, that’s for fuckin sure.
@gofreescout: Nah, I listen to OAI more myself and I give it the slight edge. Something about an album that tells a story - however loosely - makes me feel like I have to listen to the entire thing and I don’t always want to do that.