I can listen to it. I know the story behind it, anne franks and all that business. Plus I read a book about it, and how they were all Outsider-ish and all, but as for the actual music, it doesnt really do much for me. It's not terrible, its certainly ambitious, there are some riffs, phrasings, etc that I like, but overall, just sorta *shrugs* you know, "Meh"...

stop trying to be something you're not

Well, it rocks the fucking house and it gets pussies wet like slip n slidez.

It's a little greater right now just b/c you don't get it.

I agree. It's just a bunch of banging and guys playing with saws and shit. One of the worst albums of the past 2 decades IMO.

songs about anne frank suffering makes ladies horny?!?
oh come on!

yr rite it suckz

Lulz

i recently posted this somewhere else along with a poll (around 100 votes):

The drumhead looks like a birthmark.

that video is amazing.

Honestly, I don't really care if it's about Anne Frank or Ann Coulter: This song rocks.

I am by no means a huge fan, but I like this group. I'll be honest, I didn't really get them until I saw them playing live. At least for me, it was a: "oh yeah, that makes sense" moment. And, actually, I like them better now.

I coughed tea back into my cup watching that.

'The guys from sunnO))) gave it to me as a gift because I showed 'em how to make weird sounds.'

3 thumbs up for that picture.


and yeah, that part about sunn0))) amps is hysterical.

ANOTHHHHEEEEER NMH thread by people who dont like/get why the album is great...

i <3 u jesus christ!

That's what I was thinking, seems like we get one of these every couple of months. There's plenty of 10 year old albums I don't like either but I certainly don't feel the need to randomly start threads about them.

Yeah, that tattoo photo is wallpaper worthy.

Yet apparantly you feel the need to post replies to them...hmmm...

mediocre album.

fine for what it is i guess, but i don't really get the praise for it.

i thought thered be something new in accordance with the p4k article about the album that came out today...

this album still blows me away...btw

Really? Why? What other albums would you say it is comparable to in terms of "blowing you away"? What is it about the album that you find interesting? Is there some synergy between the musicians that you feel? What is the connection that you feel to the album? I'm only interested because I'm really not feeling it. Perhaps it is one of those things that can't be expressed by words, but since I dont feel its "greatness" jsut by listening to it, or even by reading about it, then I thought maybe I could get a sense of this supposed greatness by how it affects others.

I was just downloading what I thought was the new Sunn O))) album and it turned out to be this.

Not happy.

My 1997 film "Starlit Crypt" is up on Pitchfork this week. It's a performance film of Jeff while he was writing Aeroplane.

Starlit Crypt

i think a big part of the problem is that the people listening to it for the first time having heard 10 years of hype about it listen to it hypercritically with an expectation that they deserve to be blown away by it. not the best way to go into any album.... you're almost always going to be disappointed

there really isn't much to be said about the album that hasn't been said 1932838 times. it's beautiful and grotesque. it's joyous and infinitely sad. it's simple and complex. it is just an album that can be connected to on so many different levels.... and one that didn't sound like anything else that was out there at the time. When you listen to it (for the first time) in 2009 it is hard to understand what a unique statement it was at the time... and why it remains so important to so many different kinds of people.

This is fucking exactly what I thought when I read his post. Too fucking funny. And I'm now going to blast Aeroplane and Live at Jitter Joe's, content in my knowledge that EdVon believes he is too cool for NMH.

Yes, this album doesn't hold a candle to the new Phoenix album, Eden. It's like comparing The Godfather to Bride Wars and we both know Bride Wars dominates.

It was just OK in 1998
It was just OK in 2003
It is just OK right now
It will be just OK in 2018

I still think the evangelical lovers of this record are a group largely comprised of peeps who had simply just never heard a record in this style before. It was their "gateway" record (as it were) and so they just assumed it must be wildly original and such.

whether you think it is great or terrible. What's worse loving an album (any album) so much or petty people who get a thrill of trashing an album others enjoy. For the record I have heard similar albums and it's still my favorite. And although country has been around forever does not change the fact that in my mind George Jones does it best while not the first. etc

Fixed!

*Wishes I had been able to see them live*
*Wishes I was born 30 years earlier*

I'm sure you've trashed albums before other people like. It's called having a different opinion from yours. OMG HE INSULTED MY FAVORITE ALBUM...MUST CALL HIM PETTY. It's an average album for me. It meant something to me 8 years ago, but it's lost it's luster as I've moved away from "indie" music.

Wow, I haven't actually seen the performance in it's entirety but that was great.

What I and probably many other people think is that we LIKE the album, but don't love/worship it. Part of the problem is that there simply aren't any reviews that coherently express the latter opinion - Pitchfork, AMG etc. write as if it's about an 8 or 9, then grade it a 10. Same goes for here and places like RYM - we don't see what you see, and you don't really explain what we're overlooking...



paramedicfetus is probably right, but you could apply that statement to many albums, not just this one.

I don't listen to this anymore but I'll still tear up at that last line of "Aeroplane Over the Sea." Beautiful song. My mom once said it would be good to have played at a funeral. Otherwise this is just an album I liked in high school that I now distance myself from.

it's ok. but it's beard strokingly cool to love. stroke your beard. Or someone else's.

there are about 5 albums that helped define who i am as a music listener and as a person.
this is one of the albums.

all the haters is just ignorant

Here's a little bit of an explanation that a friend of mine gave in another message board we frequent, from a discussion that just took place a couple of months ago:


"I also 'got' it right away and have loved it ever since. It’s easily my favorite album, which is kind of weird as it’s not something you can just pop in and have on in the background. I mostly agree with the Pitchfork review of it: it’s so powerful because it’s so obviously honest and heartfelt, in addition to being a crazy wonderful pastiche of images that perfectly capture the mystery of bygone times (both historically and in our own lives). It has all the pathos of regret and sadness about personal and external suffering/embarassment while at the same time seeming almost joyous -- that it’s a miracle we are alive and able to experience life, that emotion like this is a gift. And it’s certainly not 'cool,' as the review says; it has no pretense of setting a trend, or fitting a style, or creating a 'vibe.' It’s maybe the least danceable pop record ever (with the exception of the hyper Holland 1945), but it’s certainly in the realm of pop (with infectious hooks, interesting changes in melody and instrumentation, and a high level of 'singability' -- if you are alone and nobody can hear you singing the more graphic lyrics ('her father made fetuses with flesh licking ladies while you and your mother were asleep in the trailer park...'))."



I don't know. That certainly doesn't explain it all, for me. And it's not the most cogent explanation I could imagine, but I think it's a start.

As I said my Father just passed and I was to gather music for his services. My Mom had most of what I needed since he was a country fan. I did slip in Two Headed Boy part 2. I didn't make it past "Daddy" before I dashed to the bathroom. When I got back it was playing Sinatra again my sister thought it had switched to the radio cuz she just heard a really bizarre song.

I hope everyone finds an album to love as much as I do this one and that that album will comfort them when they need

Thanks - yeah, it's a good start, and it's a sign of my lack of comprehension that I don't sense all of that in the album - but it still doesn't sound like a 5-star review!

wh1tepony: We're not trashing the album. We just want to join in on the fun.

The great thing about QWERTY's friend's quote is that it describes why the album is moving. If you're looking to connect with the album, maybe you just need to get to the point where you know all of the lyrics and can sing along and really participate in all of that pathos and joy.

I don't see how people can hate on this album - I mean, if it doesn't move you, it doesn't move you, but clearly there's something special here if it can evoke such strong emotional reactions for so many people. The line of that goes "if I can't get into an album, everyone else's enjoyment must be hipster posturing" just sounds like hipster posturing.

Thing is I don't really see much hate. Most people acknowledge it's either an average album, or an album that has lost meaning to them.

I was going to write something snide like 'everybody who dissed In the Areoplane... has gone down in my estimation.'



Then I had a quick look at who posted what, and realised I never esteemed them anyway.

clearly if you can listen to

"it's so sad to see the world agree that they'd rather see their faces full of flies, all when i long to keep white roses in their eyes,"

without feeling a moving, emotional response,


then your opinions are irrelevant to me.


It took me a while to get into this record, but i can't listen to it straight through now without coming to tears at least once. that's pretty powerful, and the only way i know how to explain it.

no one can explain to you why "everybody" likes this record, only why they like this record.

OTM. Personally, I've never enjoyed this album but I can see why people would. It's Mangum's vocals that kill it for me. I've said it before, but I swear he's channeling Alfalfa from Our Gang. Painful Just painful. Too bad, because other than that, the album really does have some lo-fi loveliness going for it.

this is quoted form the other NMH thread... fuck this thread. if you dig deep you can read my own embarassingly maudlin report of how Jeff Mangum almost molested me.

People can get emotional over a turd on a stick too, does that make the turd on the stick a great work of art? I'm not saying I hate this album, I'm saying it is grossly overrated, and I'm not sure why, other than the "hipness" factor that is built into the attempt of channeling Ann Franks and singing it over a lo-fi conglomeration of musical instuments.

Really?

Anyway, what criteria are using to determine what makes an album great if you think the fact that so many people find it moving is irrelevant? I call bullshit.

Also, if your question is why the album is so "grossly overrated," in other words, why so many people like this album more than you do, it's sort of irrelevant whether the album is or is not "a great work of art." The fact is, the reason people think it's great is because they are moved by it. The emotional reaction it evokes is sufficient to account for its popularity, whether you agree that its popularity is deserved or not.

The real problem is that you seem to be incapable of acknowledging that someone might have authentic reasons for loving a piece of music that you don't love.