Neutral Milk Hotel’s In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is pretty much one of the best albums of all time (at least in the indie rock world), but as show by the remastered version of the first Star Wars movie, sometimes it really is possible to improve on perfection. That’s exactly what a band called Skanktral Ska Hotel did to In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, but instead of adding important fixes like Greedo shooting first or that hideous CG Jabba The Hutt, they recorded ska covers of almost every song on the album.
Now, the purists out there may be horrified by the thought of someone messing with Aeroplane like that, but get this: The covers are incredible. Like, even better than the originals. In fact, Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum should be ashamed that he didn’t do ska versions of these songs in the first place—and if he disagrees, he should totally give us a call and then maybe we can hang out sometime or whatever. Don’t believe us? Here’s “Skallond, 1996,” the ska cover of “Holland, 1945”:
Stunningly good, right? If you still need convincing, here’s “In The Aeroskank Over The Checkered pattern,” the title track:
The full In The Aeroskank Over The Checkered Pattern album is available on Bandcamp, but you’ve unfortunately missed your chance to get one of the limited edition cassettes that Skantral Ska Hotel was originally selling. To make you feel better about that, though, here’s “Oh, Dubly,” which the band recommends you listen to with headphones (possibly so nobody else has to hear it):
Really, the only thing Jeff Mangum can do now is move on from Aeroplane and record an entirely new album. Then, all of us rude boys and rude girls can ignore it and wait for Skanktral Ska Hotel to release a better version.