Neutral Milk Hotel’s lo-fi yet sonically eclectic and emotionally wrought classic In the Aeroplane Over the Sea was released fifteen years ago this week. To note and celebrate this important anniversary, we reached out to the band’s biggest fan, Parks and Recreation’s April Ludgate, who nearly destroyed her relationship with Andy in season three when she declared Neutral Milk Hotel her favorite band (instead of Mouse Rat) and its singer/songwriter/genius Jeff Mangum her favorite rock star (instead of Andy). She graciously passed on this characteristically grumpy and yet earnest appreciation of the album through Parks’ showrunner Mike Schur. Let this introduce a new type of music writing into the Pitchfork era: crankicism.

A DISCUSSION OF NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL’S IN THE AEROPLANE OVER THE SEA

BY APRIL LUDGATE



In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is the best album ever made and all other albums stink, and if you don’t agree, I’ll fight you.

Love, April

PS: They told me this needs to be longer.

That album is great because it’s not made up of “songs.” It’s a bunch of weird, like, musical inspirations that flew down from outer space and lodged in Jeff Mangum’s skull and then he recorded them because if he hadn’t, they would’ve rattled around his brain forever and driven him insane. Which is way better than “songs.”

After you listen to In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, you are never the same. Once you hear Jeff Mangum howling about Anne Frank and ghosts and semen and bombs and medical specimens in jars and teeth and dead dogs and Holland in 1945 and synthetic flying machines and your mom sticking a fork in your dad’s shoulder, you will never be able to listen to, like, Third Eye Blind again without ripping your ears off. And you will look around, and all the stupid people who have never heard it and had their lives changed forever will seem like primitive cavemen who don’t understand anything, and you’ll feel like a god because you have been exposed to Jeff Mangum and his crazy brain and sometimes you’ll think about the songs and, like, start crying in a grocery store because you can’t take how awesome they are, but it’s totally worth it. The end.

Love, April

PS: Apparently they said this still has to be a little longer. Ugh. I wish I hadn’t agreed to do this.

Okay, ten more reasons it’s the best album ever.