On Avery Island has a lot of wonderful songs. Song Against Sex isn't even the best one. Three Peaches, Naomi and Where You'll Find Me Now are even better. It's a great album.
well Rune, like with any album, I can always revisit it, but I've given Avery Island quite a few extra chances, and except for the first song it just sounds tinny and indistinct.
Maybe my listening of Aeroplane before finding a copy of Avery Island shapes how I hear it, since that album has a clear forceful sound.
Has anyone taken a look at Musichound’s Rock N’ Roll Guide entry for Neutral Milk Hotel? They give On Avery Island the perfect score of 5 bones while Aeroplane was given either a “WOOF!” or 1.5 bones, claiming the songs on that record sounded “half-written”. I have to find that book again, because their short review was really bizarre. Aeroplane is DEFINITELY not a horrendous sophomore slump.
Jonah – I actually enjoy Adore quite a bit; it’s chock full of gems (Ava Adore, Perfect, Crestfallen, etc.), but I will admit that “For Martha” is something special. (I recently found a live version of it that’s 18+ minutes long!) You’re dead on about The Strokes though.
And I haven’t read that particular review of “In The Aeroplane…”, but I wonder if the writer feels like a idiot for his ridiculous claim. Half-written? He probably stopped the disc after “King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. 1” and drew the conclusion based on that.
OK, it turns out that I am organized enough to have put the MusicHound Rock Essential Album Guide on an actual bookshelf, as opposed to a stack in my closet or an unlabeled box.
And it turns out the reviewer did not say that Aeroplane had "half-written" songs. Must have been another outrageous review I remembered.
The reviewer gave two bones (out of 5) to Aeroplane, saying that it:
"lacks its predecessor's quirky richness and ear-opening arrangements. It's suprisingly stripped down, with Magnum howling -- often tunelessly -- over the vigorous strum of his acoustic guitar."
I guess the reviewer (Greg Kot, who I think is one of the cohosts of the radio show Sound Opinions) was polishing his music journalism trophies while Ghost and its euphoric coda were playing. Stripped down? WTF? Even if some songs are accompanied by just a guitar, Jeff Magnum's voice has the power of a whole backing orchestra.
But it isn't as scathing a review as I remembered, but if On Avery Island is a album with a perfect score (very rare in this book if you don't look at the entry for the Beatles), Aeroplane does not deserve that bad a review. The book was published in 1998, so maybe the star had not quite risen on that record.
Another review in this book that I remember was pretty shocking was for Tool's Aenima. I'm not as devoted to this album as others, but here's what the reviewer said.
"The long wait for Tool's sophomore full-length culminated with the dismal, unfocused Aenima, a dense, dour and pondeorous disc that lacks the best qualities of Undertow"
Ouch! They give it 1.5 bones after giving Undertow 4.
"The long wait for Tool's sophomore full-length culminated with the dismal, unfocused Aenima, a dense, dour and pondeorous disc that lacks the best qualities of Undertow"
Omg, that's my all time favorite album. What an idiot reviwer, who probably doesnt listen to an album twice before judging.
