A definite 10.

^^Best first post ever.

quote:

I wouldn't say you have to listen to it more to get it. I would say one listen is sufficient to hear the emotional ache that pervades the album stylistically, vocally, and lyrically. I mean when he cries out "When we break, we'll wait for our miracles, God is a place where some holy spectacle lies... God is a place you will wait for the rest of your lives" the message is pretty clear. But that's just me.

I guess I just don't get it. I still think it's a solid album and it's one of my favorites in my collection, but, in my opinion, I couldn't give it a 10. That's all.

quote:

Originally posted by brighteyes215:
"When we break, we'll wait for our miracles, God is a place where some holy spectacle lies... God is a place you will wait for the rest of your lives"

Yeah I was going to throw that out in the Vocals thread.

I dug the Sheff article, although I don't necessarily agree with all of his interpretations. Coming from the author of what I thought was last year's best album from a lyrical perspective (and at least one of the three best albums all year), it's pretty meaningful.

I don't know if I'd play any of the songs at my wedding, but there's some pretty good funeral music. I think most families would be miffed though.

Definite 10 out of 10. The album is one cohesive piece that I can listen to all the way through every time without ever skipping over any songs. And each time I get more out of it. One of my favorite albums ever.

I voted yes, since, while I wouldn't give it a 10, I do think it's worthy of it. I do think it's an amazing, beautiful, gorgeous, heartbreaking and wildly original album, and I would give it an extremely high rating but not a 10. I couldn't bring myself to vote no though since it would be giving it a negative opinion from me, and I hold it in high regard.

I'd actually give the album an 8.5-9.5. It's a gorgeous album. i think the lyrics succeed wonderfully, from their desperate nature and how they just cut right into you.

The article posted confused me though. Is the album actually about Anne Frank?

quote:

Originally posted by DontgoDown:
The article posted confused me though. Is the album actually about Anne Frank?

If not the whole album, definitely a good portion of the songs.

As I posted earlier, I love this album. I'm wondering from those who bought the recently "re-mastered" version, does it sound significantly better? I mean, the original was recorded in '97, so it couldn't have been that outdated (it doesn't sound outdated at all). Maybe it was originally recorded using analog technology. If so, I could understand a digital re-master.

I definitely think that it deserves the acclaim that it has gotten. The Sheff article does a pretty decent job of explaining the album's appeal. I think its really something transcendant about it. The beauty of it is in the feel of the whole album as a continous peice of music as well as the small moments that make it truly special. I think there is something about the line "in my dreams you're alive and you're crying" that is so heartbreaking and touching. It goes beyond typical bleeding heart lonliness and touches something much deeper that I don't think anyone will ever be able to quite explain. I guess I'm just trying to say that I love the album and it will always have a very special place in my heat.

This album definitely deserves a 10. As soon as i put this into the cd player i knew it was gonna be one of my favorites, and to this day I regard it as the best album of the 90s. The reason it gets a 10 in my opinion is because I've never heard anything like it i dunno about yall. There has never been another album i listened to that conveyed so much emotion and power, maybe i just haven't explored enough but i'm pretty sure there won't be another cd like this one.

By the way On Avery Island is also very good but its always overshadowed by In the Aeroplane.. Song against Sex is one of NMH's best

I loved this album when I first heard it a few years back...

But....my knowledge of music has deepened considerably since then, and when I put it on the other day, it sounded pretty goofy, which incidentally was one of its primary charms back when I thought more highly of it. But it sounds goofy in an entirely different context now.

I'm not disparaging the album at all, it's very well put-together musically and runs well from the first to the last track. The lyrics never really impressed me much to begin with, and when you get used to the musical tricks you begin to realize that maybe there isn't much more to the record other than fuzzy guitars, marching bands, and Mangum's occasionally irritating howling - which of course can be cool but in my view doesn't really add up to one of the defining albums of an entire decade. In terms of music, Mangum doesn't really transcend any of his influences, imo, as he sounds like a stock, insular Elephant6 performer and approaches his lyrics like Highway 61-era Bob Dylan, but more abstract and forced and therefore not as convincing.

It's a nice record, however, and it certainly does tap into a few emotional outlets. If I had to PF the thing I'd give it a nice 7.9, maybe 8.

quote:

Originally posted by SanchoPanza!!!:
In terms of music, Mangum doesn't really transcend any of his influences, imo, as he sounds like a stock, insular Elephant6 performer and approaches his lyrics like Highway 61-era Bob Dylan, but more abstract and forced and therefore not as convincing

Right of course how silly of me to think that Jeff Mangum he was a brilliant, disturbed, emotionally evocative musician who made an incredible album as a testament to humanity, love and loss. He's just a stock performer who is derivative. Dylan wrote so many lyrics like "The only girl I ever loved, was born with roses in her eyes" "And mom would drink until she was no longer speaking, and dad would dream of all the different ways to die, each one a little more than he would dare to try" "In your memories you're drunk in your awe to me" "And one day we will die and our ashes will fly From the aeroplane over the sea but for now we are young let us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can see " etc. etc. I don't know doesn't seem exactly forced to me, actually seems to be the cries of a man who's running out of time, trying to spread his beautiful message before he too is swept away.
Guess he's not convincing, very forced. We can all have our opinions but to call his delivery and the album forced is an insult to music.

quote:

Originally posted by brighteyes215:

quote:

Originally posted by SanchoPanza!!!:
In terms of music, Mangum doesn't really transcend any of his influences, imo, as he sounds like a stock, insular Elephant6 performer and approaches his lyrics like Highway 61-era Bob Dylan, but more abstract and forced and therefore not as convincing

Right of course how silly of me to think that Jeff Mangum he was a brilliant, disturbed, emotionally evocative musician who made an incredible album as a testament to humanity, love and loss. He's just a stock performer who is derivative. Dylan wrote so many lyrics like "The only girl I ever loved, was born with roses in her eyes" "And mom would drink until she was no longer speaking, and dad would dream of all the different ways to die, each one a little more than he would dare to try" "In your memories you're drunk in your awe to me" "And one day we will die and our ashes will fly From the aeroplane over the sea but for now we are young let us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can see " etc. etc. I don't know doesn't seem exactly forced to me, actually seems to be the cries of a man who's running out of time, trying to spread his beautiful message before he too is swept away.
Guess he's not convincing, very forced. We can all have our opinions but to call his delivery and the album forced is an insult to music.

Eh, I can live with someone saying that Mangum is not God, though you rarely see anyone assign a score between 1.5 and 8.5 to ITAOTS. I'm of the 10.0 camp, but I don't see any problem with someone listening to the album at length and coming to a rating of merely 4/5. I know that part of the album's greatness lies in its intimacy, but sometimes the lyrics really make very little sense. If you read the Pfork interview, he places a lot of emphasis on spending time in that totally bizarre place between awake and dreaming; I think a lot of the more disjointed passages (e.g., "Now she's a little boy in Spain / playing pianos filled with flames") are a direct result of this sort of meditation. Personally, I feel that he, like many before him, puts too much emphasis on the value of dreams and waking-dream hallucinations. And I think he totally ruins a line I would have loved: "Soft silly music was meaningful, magical / The movements were beauuuuuutiful / All in your ovaries." ?? I have no doubt that someone has a lengthy explanation of this line but I don't like it.

But I said earlier that 10.0 does not equal perfect; there is no such thing as perfection and if you found it, it'd probably be totally boring.

ItAOtS is surrealistic in imagery. Surrealism doesn't operate on logic. It operates in dreams,in the ghosts that haunt in our inner worlds, in the beauty we find in the world already so like a dream, in a child-like imagination that creates colorful worlds that only the individual can see. It is not the meaning or logic of the words but what they imagine. Perhaps in Jeff Mangum's world these words do have a meaning but that's not for us to decipher. It is up to us to behold the beautiful, colorful, haunting, and, often emotionally devestating imagery he presents as the wondrous things they are. If you don't find them wonderous or particularly effecting that's your choice but to analyze the lyrics in depth is absurd, look towards the emotion in his voice, the meaning he inflects in them with his devestating delivery and there you'll find the greatness of this album.

quote:

Originally posted by brighteyes215:
...Dylan wrote so many lyrics like "The only girl I ever loved, was born with roses in her eyes" "And mom would drink until she was no longer speaking, and dad would dream of all the different ways to die, each one a little more than he would dare to try" "In your memories you're drunk in your awe to me" "And one day we will die and our ashes will fly From the aeroplane over the sea but for now we are young let us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can see " etc. etc. I don't know doesn't seem exactly forced to me, actually seems to be the cries of a man who's running out of time, trying to spread his beautiful message before he too is swept away.

I don't know how much Dylan you're familiar with, but alot of his mid-60's stuff is as weird and brilliant (more so, IMHO) as anything Jeff Magnum ever wrote. I'm not dissing NMH as much as I'm praising Dylan, but here are some examples:

From "Tombstone Blues":
The King of the Philistines his soldiers to save
Put jawbones on their tombstones and flatters their graves
Puts the pied pipers in prison and fattens the slaves
Then sends them out to the jungle.

From "Highway 61 Revisited":
Now the fifth daughter on the twelfth night
Told the first father that things weren't right
My complexion she said is much too white
He said come here and step into the light he says hmmm you're right
Let me tell second mother this has been done
But the second mother was with the seventh son
And they were both out on Highway 61.

From "Desolation Row":
Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
Have Mercy on His Soul.

From "From a Buick 6":
I got this graveyard woman, you know she keeps my kid

I like NMH, but that music wasn't exactly created in a vaccuum. If you go back and listen to some 60s artists like Bob Dylan and Donovan, you'll see where Magnum got a good deal of his shtick.

I'm familiar with Dylan, but I find his music isn't really surrealist, but rather much more post-modernist. Dylan gets much of his imagery through the Bible, literature, and Poetry. Desolation Row is a prime example:
"Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid
To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row"
Ophelia is of course Hamlet's off and on somewhat insane lover. It's a modern interpretation of her character as a nun.
"And Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fisherman hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row"
Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot were collegues of each other. Eliot's "The Wasteland" is dedicated to Pound. Fishermen is probably a reference to the fourth part of the Wasteland about the Phoenecian Sailor and his dead. The mermaids are possibly a reference to "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." While I'm not denying that Dylan is an absolute genius, lyrically and musically, I don't compare Mangum's music and Dylan's. Dylan's is filled with the characters he's read, a world filled with literature, experiences, and modern observations, often through abstract, yet meaning-filled lyrics. Yet they're filled with a world-weary resignation, all has been done before, everything's expected, and therefore all we have left is to laugh at the great absurdity of it all. Mangum's music, however, harkens back to a world of small towns, childhood innocence, the magic that is existence at all, lover's lost that remain with us for all time, yet maintains a heart-breaking wide eyed wonder. I love both of them but to me Mangum's visions are personal, endlessly haunting, beautiful, awe-inspiring. I can see where you would draw the comparison but I don't think that Mangum's "shtick" is copying Dylan's. I think that they're both brilliant artists, both incredibly original, both of whom have a unique objective in their music.

I think that In An Aeroplane Over The Sea is the best example of an album that benefits from not letting other peoples interpretations cloud your instinctual response to the album. It isn't a ten in my book, but it has moments in it that cut to the quick. The only reason I wouldn't give it a ten is because I don't listen to it as often as the albums I would give a ten to. I think that it is such an incredibly singular work that a lot of people would give it a ten(deservingly). If I was rating albums on sheer originality I couldn't think of many more deserving albums. However,for me, the amount of times I revisit an album has the most to do with rating an album. After all, I think rating albums should be a personal thing, unless you're talking about how much influence this album has had. In An Aeroplane is one of those perfect albums to listen to when the urge crops up. It is like a painting at the museum you simply love for personal reasons without wanting to know anything about the artist who painted it or how it came into being. It is something I would miss if it were gone, deeply miss, but only occassionally. If I could never listen listen to this album again, there are certain days on which I would be very sad.

Nice Post, blankfrank. i definitely agree with you. although i don't think the album is completely amazing, which would merit a ten, it's one of those albums that just strikes a chord with you/people. that's the reason why there's controversy over whether it deserves such a high rating. for some people, it just strikes a chord with them....for others, the voice and music seem irritating.

i, personally, align myself with the former. other people just don't like magnum's lyrics. i love that his lyrics are from some crazy dream or feeling. others just don't identify with it.

i mean, magnum's lyrics are definitely fricking weird. i like 'em, but i can understand other people not liking it. mainly because there are some other people whose lyrics create a similar effect/imagery, but are a little more comprehendible. one band and lyric that comes to mind would be modest mouse in the song "cowboy dan"...."cowboy dan's a major player in the cowboy scene. goes to reservation, drinks and gets mean. goes to the desert, fires a rifle in the sky. says god if i have to die, you will have die." lyrics like this are a little more accessible because they are clear and from the heart. magnum's lyrics clearly come from the heart, but they don't create that clarity as much.

the last thing i'm going to say is that i'm not trying to compare magnum's lyrical ability to a guy like isaac brock. for one, i think it would be stupid to compare. i guess i'm just trying to point out that i feel some people just don't get or feel the beauty and sympathy in magnum's songs.

aiight, enough with my rant. keep rocking, i guess.

Yeah, I wouldn't really feel defensive even if someone completely trashed this album. It is one record that truly opens itself up to extremely harsh criticism. Whereas, if someone trashed Songs of Leonard Cohen, Marquee Moon, or Astral Weeks I might feel the need to expound on my reasons for worshiping those particular albums. If someone listens to In An Aeroplane, and it isn't striking to them, it is easy to see how it could become almost comically emotive.

I think I missed the boat on Modest Mouse. I own the Moon and Anarctica and it just has this weird vibe to it the makes it always seem distant and sort of creepy. A lot of people talk about The Lonesome Crowded West as being their best, but I'm not sure I want to give it a try if it is in the same vein as Moon and Anarctica. There are great songs on M and A. It is actually incredibly solid, but it is just off putting. Maybe it is one of those albums that isn't a representative introduction to a particular band. What is your advice on that DCFan?

I voted no, because I simply like Neutral Milk Hotel's other (first) album, On Avery Island, better.