I got the job! I am now a Ticket Taker Lead. I'll probably start my training sometime next week or the week after that. Hopefully in the next month or so I'll be moving in to my own place. My friends Chris and Duncan are going to live with me. It should be pretty darn sweet. Thanks for all the encouragement and good vibes. If it wasn't for the support of friends, I know I would have given up by now. You guys rock.

I can’t believe I went eight years without hearing this album. Released in 1998, this second and final album from Neutral Milk hotel is a masterpiece. I listened to it after it was recommended to me recently, and I fell in love with it immediately.

The album’s sound is the kind of joyful, orchestrated, noisy folk-rock that I’ve been into lately, yet it’s unlike anything I’ve heard before. The band uses an eclectic range of musical instruments, including guitar, piano, banjo, horns, accordion, and others I don’t even recognize. But while other artists who employ such a variety of instruments, like Sufjan Stevens, tend to make music that sounds very refined and carefully produced, Neutral Milk Hotel retains a more rough and spontaneous sound. This is heard in the frenzied strumming of the guitar, the heavily distorted drums, and the fuzzy bass of the album’s louder tracks. Refusing to be drowned out by such joyful noise, Jeff Mangum, the band’s lead singer, belts out his surreal lyrics at the top of his voice. He sings the way children sing: loud, unabashedly, slightly off-key, but with complete earnestness. The combination of his vocals with the band’s rich, energetic, and unpolished instrumentation creates a sound of genuine rejoicing. It feels like the listener has wandered into the studio and caught the band in a spontaneous moment of perfect inspiration.

While the album is rough and unpolished, it is absolutely flawless. Every song is beautiful and essential, building upon the momentum of the whole album. The shorter songs, like “Fool” and “Communist Daughter” end exactly when they should, and the longer songs, like “O Comely” are rich and beautiful enough that they never become tiresome.

There are many rumors about why Neutral Milk Hotel, and Jeff Mangum specifically, quit making music after this album. Hearing this album, it certainly seems like a great loss. But at least they left this one flawless album as their legacy.