BOSTON — Local indie rock fan Nathan Rottenberg finally fixed the squeaky-sounding vocal track in Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” record with a couple of squirts of WD-40, sources confirmed.
“A dose of the good stuff and it was as smooth as Sinatra,” said Rottenberg, finally able to get past the first song. “It just needed some good old-fashioned WD, some warm breath, and a couple of rubs with my sleeve. Now this album sounds like it could get played on iHeartRadio or any top 100 radio station. Just like how I imagine Neutral Milk Hotel would’ve wanted.”
The original producers of the album had never even thought to use a product commonly sold at hardware stores to correct the vocal track.
“And here I was trying to adjust the treble and use simple pitch correction techniques, but that didn’t work at all. However, back in the day, I did make some progress on the album’s singing saw track, which people don’t realize is actually a piccolo. Never could that thing exactly right though,” said the original producer Robert Schneider, wearing an acid-singed jumpsuit. “Turns out, a bit of WD-40 transforms this whole album into mostly ballads and bubblegum pop songs. Also, now that I can hear the lyrics more clearly, it sounds like this singer guy had a huge crush on Anne Hathaway or something.”
Local music historian Brant Holmes noted other prominent albums that were “fixed” after using simple household products.
“A Wheetus album was once repaired with the help of some leather cleaner, a few classic Smiths’ vocal tracks were dramatically improved using Drano, and King Krule’s voice tone saw impressive results when Dr. Bronner’s was applied directly to the record,” said Holmes. “However, it was noted that no product will work on Machine Gun Kelly songs. It’s best just to take an open flame to them and hope for the best. Sounds like the local producer for MGK was in Home Depot for hours trying to find just the right thing to no avail.”
In related news, the makers of WD-40 partnered with Sub Pop Records to make an at-home album correction product exclusively for vinyl records.