In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Kim Cooper Review

Neutral Milk Hotel’s second album, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, was released in February 1998 - and turned out to be the band’s final album. Singer/songwriter Jeff Mangum quietly walked away from the group just as they were hitting their creative, and potentially commercial, stride. It’s now 25 years later and it doesn’t seem like there will ever be a follow-up. The album though has gone on to be recognised as one of the best albums of the 1990s (which it definitely is) and remains as brilliant today as it did to the smaller audience who first heard it when it was initially released.

I wasn’t that taken with Kim Cooper’s short book on the band/album and it’s not entirely her fault. She faithfully recounts the story of the band - started by Mangum in Ruston, Louisiana, all of them hipster/art school types in red state country, recorded two full albums, toured the second album briefly and then disbanded - and she can’t make stuff up, so it remains fairly unremarkable to read about.

Along with another member of the group, Mangum apparently had really strange sleep issues where the two would have entire conversations while asleep, or else wander about the house, also asleep. The take used on the record for “Oh Comely” was originally meant to be a mic test that turned into a full blown rendition of the song and made it onto the finished album. Those are about the only two unusual details we learn about the recording of the album in this book.

The record itself is a loose concept album about Anne Frank as Mangum had read her diary since recording Neutral Milk Hotel’s first record, On Avery Island, and became obsessed with it. But I think most people who have heard the record already knew this. Also, this book was published in 2005 so it misses out the reunion of the band in 2013-15 where they toured to to promote the release of old material - the only new song released post-Aeroplane is a song called Little Birds that appeared on one of these compilation records.

As book readers we’re familiar with writers who only put out one major book and then never publish again, but I suppose that can happen in any medium, including music - there were two Neutral Milk Hotel albums (not counting the compilations, etc.) and that was that; Jeff Mangum accomplished all he wanted to do musically.

I think I was just hoping for more interesting stories about both the band and the album - otherwise, why do a book about either? - or at least find out why Mangum walked away as suddenly as he did, just as the band seemed about to break into the mainstream, and there wasn’t any of that to be had in the book.

So I wouldn’t recommend Kim Cooper’s short book on Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea but I highly recommend the album itself to anyone who hasn’t heard it before. It’s an amazing record that still holds up - honestly, just one listen (or even just try the title track, which has the wonderful line “How strange it is to be anything at all”) and you’ll be hooked; the songs are that catchy and powerful.