Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

Name: Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
Brand: Findaway
Availability: InStock
Author: Kim Cooper
ISBN: 9798882247521

Author: Kim Cooper

Series: 33 1/3

Narrator: Tanya Eby

Unabridged: 2 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Spotify Audiobooks

Published: 05/13/2025

Categories: Nonfiction, Music, Composers, Musicians, History & Criticism, Rock

Synopsis

Of all the recordings to emerge from the Athens-via-Denver collective called Elephant 6, Neutral Milk Hotel’s second album is the one that has worked its way under the most skins. Magnet magazine named it the best album of the 1990s, and Creative Loafing recently devoted a cover story to one fan’s quest to understand why band leader Jeff Mangum dropped out of sight soon after Aeroplane’s release. The record sells steadily to an audience that finds it through word of mouth. Weird, beautiful, absorbing, difficult, In The Aeroplane Over the Sea is a surrealist text loosely based on the life, suffering and reincarnation of Anne Frank, with guest appearances from a pair of Siamese twins menaced by the cold and carnivores, a two-headed boy bobbing in a jar, anthropomorphic vegetables and a variety of immature erotic horrors. Mangum sings his dreamlike narratives with a dreamer's intensity, his creaky, off key voice occasionally breaking as he struggles to complete each dense couplet. The music is like nothing else in the 90s indie underground: a psychedelic brass band, its members self-taught, forging polychromatic washes of mood and tribute. The songs stick to one narrow key, the images repeat and circle back, and to listen is to be absorbed into a singular, heart-rending vision.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Greg on May 14, 2012

soft silly music is meaningful magical "When you were young you were the king of carrot flowers...." I'd argue that the best two rock-based albums of the 1990's were Jane's Addiction's Ritual de lo Habitual and Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Other albums released in this decad......more

Goodreads review by Mattia on December 06, 2019

Beautifully narrated and rich in detail. The unlikely account, fantastical and wistful, of how one of pop music's most magical records came to be.......more

Goodreads review by Alex on September 16, 2007

A good read, but I was disappointed with several things. Firstly, I expected more analysis of the themes in the album, and there's almost none of that--90% of the book is devoted to the context, recording, etc. (which is great, and I'm glad it's all in there!) Halfway through, the author is like "So......more

Goodreads review by Paul on August 15, 2011

To be fair, the book wasn't what I expected it to be. And where do I get off expecting a book to be anything? I wanted a detailed analysis of the album itself, the songs, even a breakdown of what instruments were played where, etc. This book does not provide that. There was only one brief chapter on......more

Goodreads review by Wade on August 07, 2011

Before reading Kim Cooper’s "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" I had previously read a couple of other books in the 33 1/3 series (one on REM’s "Murmur" and the other on The Beach Boys’ "Pet Sounds"). Murmur and Pet Sounds were both albums that I loved before reading the books about them; they were alb......more