Record Collection Crushes: Geeky Musical Benchmarks

Paul Schneider rocks on!

Anyone who has ever been to a concert knows that just because someone likes your favorite band, it doesn't mean they aren't totally annoying.  That being said, as a music geek, it's hard not be impressed when someone has a really killer record collection or iTunes Library.

So what makes someone's record collection crushworthy?  Usually its the weird stuff that you like that you think no one else does.  As a suburban teenager, my bar was pretty low.  If someone had heard of (and liked) Radiohead, I thought they were pretty awesome.  Now, as a jaded twenty-something who knows a lot of people with similar taste, I'm much pickier ("You like LCD Soundsystem, yeah, so does EVERYONE...").   

Earlier, I did a post on musical dealbreakers; bands and artists so heinous, they are potential relationship-enders.  These musical benchmarks are the opposite; bands and artists so supremely awesome, that if someone liked them, you'd respect them a little more for it. Overall, this list was much trickier to compile than the dealbreakers.  They are not necessarily my favorite bands (Note: no LCD Soundsystem, no Black Keys), just the ones that seem obscure and rocking enough to earn my musical admiration.  Below are my picks:

Jonathan Richman and/ or the Modern Lovers.  Find him in the catalog!

Post-Punk:  Wire, Gang of Four, Jesus and Mary Chain, etc.

Elephant 6 bands:  Neutral Milk Hotel, Apples in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control, etc.

Madvillain, Madlib, and MF Doom.  

Any blues music from the Fat Possum Label.  R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough, T-Model Ford.  Fat Possum's indie stuff is cool too!

Smart, Literate NYC Indie Rockers:  The Walkmen, The National, etc.

Okay music geeks, what additions (or subtractions) would you make to the list?

Albums we love: In the Aeroplane over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

by Neutral Milk Hotel

CD-ROCK RAP NEUTRAL IN

Find it in the catalog!

Released in 1998 by Merge Records, In the Aeroplane over the Sea is the second and last album by Neutral Milk Hotel.  Adding to the mystic of the album, NMH split up shortly after the release and lead singer/ mastermind Jeff Magnum became somewhat of a recluse.  However, earlier this year, he performed five NMH songs at a benefit concert for punk pioneer Chris Knox.  Since its release, the album has become one of the most influential albums in the indie rock canon, though it has its share of detractors.  Fans of the band tend to be a devoted, if slightly nutty bunch.  They are not only familiar with NMH’s two studio releases (Aeroplane and On Avery Island) and EP (Everything Is...) , but also have copies of the band’s three cassettes released only through Elephant 6 from the early 90s.  I must admit I’m a more casual listener of NMH; though I do own Jeff Magnum’s collaboration with Elephant 6-er Julian Koster called Major Organ and the Adding Machine, which is definitely an acquired taste.  I was somewhat surprised to find out what a cult favorite the album was, because I was well into college before I found anyone else who had even heard of the band.

I first discovered the album when I was 16, a few years after the album came out.  I bought it because it was from Merge Records (a very cool indie label) and had a odd but awesome cover.  This was pre-iTunes and by-and-large file sharing, so not a whole lot of opportunities to listen to albums before you bought them.  I was definitely blown away by the album the first time I listen to it.  I was into a lot of lo-fi indie and sadcore indie rock (think: Belle and Sebastian, Bright Eyes, and The Mountain Goats), so I was impressed by the fullness of the sound and use of horns, accordions, and other instruments largely ignored by indie rockers at the time.   It sounded like a bizarre mixture of Eastern European folk music and psychedelia. 

Magnum's lyrics are cryptic and surreal, including lines like "Two headed boy she is all you could need/ She will feed you tomatoes and radio wires" (from "Two Headed Boy, Part Two").  However, the intensity of emotion in the lyrics and the awkward sexuality expressed in songs like "Two Headed Boy" and "Oh Comely" make the album more than relatable for a teenager.  The album is supposedly about Anne Frank, but the theme is more apparent in some songs ("Holland 1945" and "Oh Comely") than others ("Communist Daughter").  Death is perhaps the most common thread among the songs on Aeroplane, whether they are depicting reincarnation ('Holland 1945", "Ghost"), the afterlife ("In the Aeroplane Over the Sea"), or the physical process of dying ("Two Headed Boy").  Still, in spite of its morbid focus, the album manages to be uplifting overall. 

Recommended for fans of: Olivia Tremor Control, Of Montreal, Beirut, The Decemberists, A Hawk and A Hacksaw