So Pitchfork reviewed it today, because it has been reissued in the UK this week and gave it a 10.

No doubt that this is a very special record and one of the best one discovered thru this board. A 10 is a perfect album and it might be but I'm thinking I would rank it about 9.7. Can't really say why it's not a 10 other than the fact that there are better albums that I have in my collection.

Have never heard this record. I actually don't know anything about this band.

No, it is not. And quit bullshitting with the 9.7 vs. 10.0 garbage. What possibly makes it 0.3 less than perfect?

It is a 10 in my book.
And a top-10 all-time album for me.
Love the album, and the one that came out before it too.

And this argument is raging at Hipinion right now, too.

Thank you.

And no. It's more of a 5.0.

it's a good album though.

yeah, its a 10. no question about it.

Nothing in my book. The thing is I like quite a few albums more than this one so it's hard for me to say that this is a 10 along with something like The Velvet Underground, Disintegration or even Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain where it seems like Jeff got a lot of his inspiration from.

DumpJack, you should do yourself a favor and spend some time with this album.

It's got 4 good songs:

"In an Aeroplane over the Sea"
both parts of "Two-Headed Boy"
the one about semen and mountaintops

I could care less about the rest. Boring indie crap.

From Charts; Average 8.3

Makes No Sense At All 6
Max 10
Yail Bloor 8
Iron_and_Beer 9
Drinky 7
Z 7
mr. mister 10
Nacho 9
Elvis Fu 6
Mark Renton 7
elephantstone 6
splates 7
smafty 10
§h!v™ 4
oldbulee 9
harry 6
PopTodd 10
paladisiac 6
gregrey 9
Joey Crack 10
888 9
Cotton 10
Spade Kitty 8
cemeterypolka 7
billy g 5
tkyd 10
Idiopathic 10
MiceElf 9
tentoze 9
Old Kentucky 10
duckyboy 8
dead alive 10
g 10
The Dreaded Marco 10
frosted 10
DHRjericho 9
bitterbuffalo 10
ryan, a douche 9
rparis74 5
cmanhatan4 7
HaqDiesel 9
Modem 6
Locky and the Lockersons 7
lesemajesty 9
Flowthgin 9

Pitchfork quote

"I've talked about this album with a lot of people, including Pitchfork readers and music writers, and while it is loved in the indie world like few others, a small but still significant number despise it."

It's good. Not a 10. Not for me anyway.

It's kinda lame how Pitchfork will use any re-issue/re-release as an opportunity to talk about the same old shit they've always been pushing. I believe their older review gave the album an 8.7 or something, but now that it's been so widely canonized by the internet music crowd - and PF ranked it so highly in their revised Best of the 90s list - I guess they felt like they needed to update their official rating of it.

It's not a boring album, and it isn't crap. I just wish they'd use their lead-off review space to talk about something different. They should refrain from reviewing reissues of stuff they've already reviewed in the past.

Thanks for that Elvis Fu!

Does anyone have a copy of Listmania? Didn’t this come in at about 5 or something?

I have spent a lot of time with the album and I have no problem placing it along side those records.

I give it a 7. Very good, but not something I would want to listen to everyday, not something I'd want to be without, but it's also not something that is absolutely vital to me as a music listener. Its reputation is better known than the actual music.

I have it.
Only listened to it a couple of times and didn't like it.
I'm not going to try to force myself to like it.

I gave it an 8, but that was pretty generous. I'd probably give it a 7.7.

i have it, i like a few songs.

I'd go with a solid 8. The second half has always been something of a disappointment for me with the drop off in arrangements and focus on "solo Mangum" performance.

I've always considered Aeroplane to be the record that should have preceded a fuller accomplishment, musically, for Mangum. All the pieces are in place for creating something amazing in the follow-up, whereas parts of Aeroplane (and a lot of Avery) play as just G-Em-C-D chords and his particular brand of the truth. I personally need more to be completely awed.

But is that first half one of my favorite song cycles ever? Yeah, probably.

That's all Hank Williams had, too.

On my scale it's one of those albums that rates an interesting 5 or 6. It's not incompetent by any means, but neither is it incomparably brilliant. It's just quirky and personal enough to mean A LOT to a certain number of people - and those people can rate it a 10 if they want (but it's a biased and meaningless 10*).




* But then again, I'm not of the school of rating that declares well, I love it and, therefore, it's a 10! I'm quite content cherishing albums that realistically only rate a 5 or 6.

Right, but he didn't spend half of his so-called magnum opus* improving on the bare chords/vox approach. That's what I fault Mangum for not completing with Aeroplane.

Take that solo/coffee shop recording thing - I rarely make it all the way through, because frankly, I don't find Mangum all that captivating solo after a few songs.

Actually, when I think of Hank, one thing really jumps out at me - he's better solo. I don't personally think the same can be said for Mangum. It's all or nothing with his vocal approach, whereas Hank could back off, change voices, and his melodic vocabulary is downright stunning.

* of course I considered the pun.

i think it's criminally underlooked and overlooked. I also think that it sums up a lot of what was great about music at the time for a lot of people. It's an unabashedly love-filled album with odd instrumentation and made by a pretty earnest-seeming (at the time anyway) that was self-made with some help from a collective of friends.

it's not the greatest album ever, but yeah that side one still can knock a person on their ass. "Untitled" is still my favorite non-rap instrumental of all time.

I love this album. It is easily in my top five albums of all time. I used to listen to this album, OK Computer and Beck's Mutations all the time while I worked as a janitor through Grad School. I would mop floors and rock out. Since I was cleaning industrial kitchens by myself, I would sing along to every song. I know several people who hate it, and would complain like crazy when some one played a song like Oh comely on the Jukebox at Duffy's Tavern in Lincoln.

Bob Dylan did not have that same kind of vocal range. In fact, a lot of people feel the same way about Dylan -- they can't listen to him. And yes, I am comparing Jeff Mangum to Bob Dylan.