Slate ran an interesting article yesterday about the tenth anniversary of the release of In The Aeroplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel. If you have heard the album before you no doubt believe it to be great; if you have not heard it before but know a friend who has, you have no doubt heard your friend go on about its greatness; if you have not heard it before and know of no one else who has heard it you may want to listen to it if only to hear what the fuss is all about.
Personally, I find Aeroplane to be just OK. I am the type of person who has to not only enjoy an entire album but also has to be immersed in it somehow and Aeroplane is just too unpolished for me. If the rest of the album had the feel and sound of “Holland, 1945″ and “Ghost” then I would be completely on board with calling it an instant classic but there are too many other weak songs here. I know that there are plenty of people who would vehemently disagree with me on this but that is fine—your Aeroplane is my De Stijl and we can leave it at that. I will say this, though, “Holland, 1945″ and “Ghost” are probably the two best indie songs I’ve heard in the last ten years and, if you have not heard this album before, you should at the very least listen to those two tracks. But I digress, on with the article.
The most fascinating aspect of the article is why lead singer Jeff Mangum has seemingly disappeared off the face of the Earth. In a 2002 interview, Mangum explains that he thought that if the band achieved success he and his band members would be happy but became philosophically disillusioned when the sadness and pain still resided. This may seem like a simple-minded and naive statement and, because of that inherent nature, it is profoundly complex. How does someone reconcile public success with private despair? It is something that I am sure eats at athletes, politicians, CEOs, actors, artists, and musicians who have achieved far greater success than Jeff Mangum ever has but it seems to have affected Mangum much more than your typical artist. I have believed for a little while that one of the ultimate struggles of life is the reconciliation between your public side and your private side and reading this article made me believe that a little bit more.
It also made me realize something about Neutral Milk Hotel too: that I do not want them to make another album. I always found Aeroplane to be too maddening as a cohesive piece yet also wondered what the follow-up album would sound like. Now, I would rather see Mangum find the answers he is looking for and never agree to make another studio album with the band because, at this point, it would only be us, the selfish audience, who would benefit from it and every now and then we need to be held in check from time to time.