Neutral Milk Hotel "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" [1998]

In case you hadn't noticed immediately, take that pretentious spelling of "airplane" as a big red flag. This music is They Might Be Giants without the self-deprecating humor, Cake without the "funk" (gag -- did I just say that?). I mean, I know they're going for some sort of modernization of Dylan, but they keep coming off like if Billie Joe Armstrong had attended Oberlin (or college at all). This album didn't sell well back when music listeners were busy livin' la vida loca, but following fellow indie-folk trolls Wilco's still-incomprehensible coup over their record company when they came out with their own album with "Hotel" in the title, suddenly this album was no longer left to rot. But if you don't have time for strummy campfire tunes by dudes you don't actually get high with (and who unfortunately gave Bon Iver the dubious idea to use muted trumpet for accompaniment), I'll just tell you this album sounds like bored, slumming white boys trying to act like they're from the back country in Ireland or something. As such, the initial impulse to leave it in obscurity was probably a good one.