Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea [MERGE]

Why you'll love it

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea has grown into one of the most loved indie records of all time, a fixture on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums list, and "The King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. One" might be the best opening track on any album.

This edition

• Single LP, 11 tracks
• 180g vinyl
• Merge pressing

About the album

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is not a particularly easy record to "get," but when you do get it ... well ... it'll blow your mind.

Neutral Milk Hotel's second and final album puzzled many a listener upon its initial arrival in February of 1998, its random mix of battered folk songs, Ramones-esque fuzz, Salvation Army brass, singing saw and general, hyper-distorted psychedelic weirdness admittedly being a lot to take in on first approach. Time has been kind to (sorta-) one-man band Jeff Mangum's 1998 magnum opus, however, and much as if you spend a bit of time yourself absorbing everything going on here all at once it starts to make complete sense, popular culture on the whole has now spent enough time with In the Aeroplane Over the Sea to recognize it as a bizarro indie-rock classic.

Neutral Milk Hotel was even able to do a (sorta-) reunion tour from 2013 to 2015 of venues four or five times larger than any of the tiny clubs they were playing in 1998, because its audience has only grown and grown and refreshed itself in the years since. Also? "The King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. One" could be the best opening track on an album ever.

Also at Kops: more Neutral Milk Hotel on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Merge (cat# MRG136), first out in 1998.