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One of the most beloved cult albums of the 1990s, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is one of those records that sells almost purely through word-of-mouth. In this book, Kim Cooper provides a lovingly researched oral history of Neutral Milk Hotel and the Elephant 6 Collective - from their childhood roots in Ruston, Louisiana through to the moment when Jeff Mangum, NMH's mercurial leader, decided to retreat back into anonymity.
Kim Cooper is the editrix of Scram - a journal of unpopular culture. She is also the co-editor of the acclaimed books Lost in the Grooves and Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth. She lives in Los Angeles.33 1/3 is a new series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the last 40 years. Focusing on one album rather than an artist's entire output, the books dispense with the standard biographical background that fans know already, and cut to the heart of the music on each album. The authors provide fresh, original perspectives - often through their access to and relationships with the key figures involved in the recording of these albums. By turns obsessive, passionate, creative, and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music. (A task which can be, as Elvis Costello famously observed, as tricky as dancing about architecture.) What binds this series together, and what brings it to life, is that all of the authors - musicians, scholars, and writers - are deeply in love with the album they have chosen.