Review: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Kim Cooper

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I was hoping for a bit more about the complexity of Jeff Magnum’s mental health/personality here, since there are elements to his personality referenced that don’t get a clear presentation -- perhaps because no one speaks ill (or completely honestly) of him or because Cooper was not given enough clarity into his manner.** For instance, at the end of the book, one interviewee mentions that Magnum’s post-NMH life involved spiritual exploration that made him a “calmer person.” Yet, there’s not much in the way of erratic behavior presented in the book. Granted, the live performances and the obsessive musical composition and recording can be cast as frantic and chaotic (which Cooper does state) but there’s nothing that indicates Magnum in particular needed to calm down. At one point Cooper references the growing pressure of Magnum being deemed a rock star, but that too lacks any real...oomph as a claim. The rock star life on display here is more living-out-of-a-van-on-the-road not massive groups of fans, destroyed hotel rooms, substance abuse, mental health breakdowns, etc. Maybe none of those things occurred, but then what pressure, what ROCK STAR pressure, was truly being felt? Was it simply, as one of the band members states, that Magnum was more sensitive than most people? If so, then did he feel like a rock star?

So, this is quibbling and I knew going in that Magnum didn’t get interviewed for the book, so Cooper’s done an amazing job despite the glaring hole in the project. Fun to read, especially now that NHM has been touring again (2013-2014). I doubt Magnum will ever be comfortable talking to the press again, but he seems to have backed away from a pretty tame media circus compared to the circuses that followed other rock stars of the 90s-00s (e.g. Cobain, Corgan, Reznor). Those bands were signed to major labels and faced huge amounts of pressure for their sophomore releases, though I absolutely agree that NMH might not seem to be in the same position, consider that PRETTY HATE MACHINE, BLEACH, and GISH all promised great things and the resulting celebration of the follow up albums, in all three cases, rocketed the bands to high-pressure, big label stardom. NMH didn’t get there and perhaps Magnus had examples like this in mind? (something tells me he didn’t since Cooper gives great details about the band’s disconnection from any mainstream influences. Cobain was enough of an icon and his suicide such a massive hit on musicians that it could have played some role in Magnus’s decision to move on, of course.)

I’m not suggesting Magnus is overly-sensitive or that Cooper hyperbolizes the experience, it’s just that the book doesn’t make a clear picture of what the stress truly felt like.

** By all accounts Magnus is as kind and lovable as he’s described here; but something felt missing and, I’m 99% sure that it’s simply Magnus’s own words that would help complete the picture of him as a artistic person as opposed to the obsessive smart artist that I see in this text.



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