In indie circles, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea was hailed as an instant classic. I first realized this at Neutral Milk Hotel’s live shows—the crowd singing along to the songs was often louder than the entire band, even within weeks of the record’s release. This was at a time when the human race hadn’t advanced to where we could all easily steal album advances off the internet; these people had bought the record and played it nonstop, memorizing it in days.

Each time this continued to happen was successively creepier, though. I can recall one show, watching afterward as Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum dealt with some guy who’d made, like, a magical sculpture depicting how great the band was, using his own chewed-up gum or something. Another cross-eyed girl with long hair held on to Jeff’s forearms for 20 minutes, as she told him exactly how important his message was to the planet now and was he really a Christian and had he ever seen the UFOs over Arizona? Jeff was a total magnet for crazy people. I remember wishing that he had thicker skin, that he could just brush people off. But then he’d never have made such music in the first place, right? When I first saw Devendra Banhart perform, I was worried for him, too, until I saw how sweetly he thanked them for their chewed-up magical gum castles, and how easily he deflected crazy person voodoo.

Quite a few singers have been influenced by Mangum’s vocal style, which is probably not a smart move. We all have to work through our influences, but why pick such an idiosyncratic and original one? His nasal ups and downs, his cramming of as many seemingly zany words together as possible. Beirut’s Zach Condon is likely the only singer to have pulled that one off successfully (with the Page France guy coming in at a close second). I’ve always joked that David Karsten Daniels and Colin Meloy would each do well to send partial royalty checks to Mangum.

Aeroplane presented a new template for singer/songwriter music, one that allowed many disparate influences—a change that has impacted singer/songwriters from the then-nascent “emo” musicians (including Bright Eyes) to Ben Chasny, whose Six Organs project was just getting underway. Neutral Milk Hotel’s kitchen-sink approach fused elements from Eastern European choral music, some Canterbury prog, musique concrète, minimalist drone compositions, a little bit of free jazz, and Tropicália—all this from twentysomethings who grew up up in rural Southern communities, in a time before when it was a lot harder to find out about “out” musics.

The appeal of Elephant 6 still holds sway. People would stay up all night helping each other do these elaborate art project things, making intricate costumes for a show only their friends would be at anyway. The core of the band—Jeremy Barnes, Scott Spillane, and Julian Koster—were all parts of so many other activities themselves it was confusing. They were each so talented they could have led their own stellar bands. Each of them has, of course, though Julian’s projects were always more cohesive live than on record. Their sound was so big and wide, it’s easy to view them through any number of genre prisms. If NMH had formed six years ago, they’d have been called “freak folk” (and surely they were one of its largest, and largely unacknowledged influences). If they had just started to play last year, they’d likely get thrown in with this alleged “gypsy rock” movement.

One of the reasons that Aeroplane has aged so well is that it deals with heavy stuff in this really personal way. It’s almost never precious, and when it is, it has the balls to be. The record works partly because Mangum addresses Anne Frank obliquely throughout (another “lesson” of the album is that the best concept record is the one you can listen to without even being aware it’s a concept album). As with the Who’s Sell Out, it’s the half-assed concept records that have the longest shelf life. For all the ways the album has influenced so many people, I wish more would take this away from it—that it’s OK to examine, and be nakedly emotional, about stuff aside from the lint in your belly button. Aeroplane’s radiant weirdness works, and is so oddly life-affirming, because it looks right into the face of the heaviest of heavy historical evils.

I’m really glad that Aeroplane is so revered. I love it to death, myself—cried when I first listened to the promo cassette and everything. I knew immediately that this was something really special, and wasn’t surprised when quite a few other people agreed. It’s awesome that the record continues to sell well enough to support Mangum to this day. In the end, though, Aeroplane is just a record. And I hope that when Mangum makes music in public again (and I’m confident he will) that folks could tone down their enthusiasm just the littlest bit. Please don’t sing over the guy. –Mike McGonigal