Neutral Milk Hotel: Classic or Dud?

Haven't ever made it all the way through 'On Avery Island', but, yes, 'song about sex' is utter greatness. search the charred usk of napster for mangum's take of Spector's 'i love how you love me', too, or any NMH boots you can find. wonderful love band.

Ultimately, Neutral Milk Hotel remind me of a Dukes of Stratosphear or _On the Sunday of Life_-era Porcupine Tree that makes a critical mistake -- it takes itself seriously.

p.s. : they're by far the worst band in elephant 6. much love.

More to the point -- you've actually got it wrong, James, I didn't hate it with a deep and abiding passion, I more found it pointless. Consider: I *loathe* Rage Against the Machine and always will. Still, I understand why a lot of people really, *really* like them, even if I never will go down that primrose path. I find Neutral Milk Hotel a general nonstarter, vaguely pleasant at best but no more. Hearing them praised to the skies as some sort of revelation, that's what really suprises and riles me, because I just can't see or hear that at all. Substitute in the word "Weezer" for "Neutral Milk Hotel" and you've got two reactions covered.

I also can’t see how the lyrics are hateful, and I don’t think they exist to shock; I think they’re unironic, honest, loving – to the point where that skewed sincerity could be off-putting (and is, obviously). It is a "love it or hate it" album – you connect with it or you don’t, and that, to me, is more time than not a positive. I can see why people would have a strong connection to this record (and many of the other high-ranking selections in the ILM 100 from the Holy Bible to 69LS to Man-Machine) regardless of whether I enjoy them or not.

If I may, about the lyrics: Mangum uses a number of words repeatedly, seemingly in a oblique way (among them: spine, mouth, sweet, cheek, sink, tongue, teeth, face, smile.) Lyrically, the album traces a personal history of pain, loss, and disappointment from an unhappy family life to attempts at comfort through sexual awakening, religious epiphany and a belief in the invincibility of youth to the experience of reading the Diary of Anne Frank and Mangum’s connection to her hope despite inevitable death to the plight of a "Two-Headed Boy" who longs for some sensual, human connection despite his being birthed to a life of almost inevitable loneliness. Throughout, these seemingly unrelated words above are peppered amidst alternating stream-of-consciousness lyrics and very lucid observations about the pain of both Mangum and his characters.

Then, at the end, the final song is about the suicide of a friend, and all of those words are used in context, it’s the moment where Mangum isn’t transferring that fresh pain to memories or moments of hurt that he has had the opportunity to reconcile. And when he pleads, "Push the pieces in place /Make your smile sweet to see /Don't you take this away / I'm still wanting my face on your cheek" it’s almost as if he is pushing all of those scattered lyrical pieces from the previous songs together, allowing himself the chance to grieve for what is causing his hurt, and then it’s too much and he retreats back into character and the album closes with him comforting the two-headed boy as he worries that he’ll never feel true human contact and love, warning him that when and if he does not to lament that it’s ultimately fleeting.

Again, apologies for the length of this.

I've officially even bored myself on this topic.

"Tenk You Veddy Much"

michael g. breece

1) I think Jeff's a tremendous performer & has a way with a certain kind of melody -- though I think he'd do well to explore some minor keys, occasional seventh-chords, etc

2) I think he's a talented lyricist with a real gift for the rhythms of words within a line

3) I think since he's chosen to make the sort of music that attracts not just fans but people who develop a real emotional attachment to & need for his stuff, he owes them more new material than he seems willing to deliver; I have strong feelings about this as I feel an artist's most important responsibility is to his listeners, and that if you can't write at least five songs a year of you-at-your-best, then you're not trying hard enough

4) "Two-Headed Boy" is a great great great indie rock song, just a great song period; I think if Jeff believed that discipline were a virtue, which he doesn't, he'd be routinely writing some of the great songs of the age

5) Jeff's a prince of a human being, and I don't believe in separating the artist from his output but rather that the one is a reflection of the other: therefore,

CLASSIC

This probably should be another thread (I think it is already, actually!) -- I don't believe in this myself. Mr. M not being the subject under discussion here, I should note! I haven't ever met the man, so no point in my judging him on this point. But I've meet some friendly, fine folks who make music that Annoys and Outrages Me Deeply and I've encountered some standoffish idjits who Brought the Rock or whatever.

Lately I've been listening to live stuff, the acoustic set from Aquarius, to be exact. Lots of good unreleased stuff--"My Dream Girl Don't Exist" ; "Oh, Sister" ; "Rubby Bulbs". The demos are decent as well; some more than others. The tape collage stuff is kind of blah, and the noisy jokey stuff ("Chocolate Coffin"?!?! wtf?!?!) is pretty bad. But then you get grebt unreleased tracks like "Circle of Friends," "Wishful Eyes" and "Wood Guitar."

Right now I'm looking for other live stuff (the show with "Ferris Wheel on Fire" ; is that the one from the Cat's Cradle?) and the "Invent Yrself A Shortcake" demo, which I had aeons ago but somehow lost. slsk doesn't work in my dorm, so I can't get things that way--alas.

I don't really know why I like NMH, or why I like his voice. It doesn't seem like it should be all that affecting to me, but it is-- at least the songs I've heard so far. I relate to what seems to be an elaborate personal mythology running through the songs, and like how he uses language.

"...laughing at everyone I see / can't believe / how strange it is to be / anything at all...."

I don't know why that line resonates so strongly with me, but it really, really does.

So, classic.

I heard a rumor from a reputable source that Robert Schneider of the Apples in Stereo is trying to get Jeff Magnum to record again.

If anyone gets a chance to see the film, it's well worth it for the music alone.

I thought you knew that already!

The interview from Creative Loafing, above, is terribly sad. I hope things come together for Jeff.

Got Mark B to write about them for me a couple of years ago. I always wanted to get Simon Schama to do something on them - did you know he's a fan?

Ha! Simon Schama?? Well, the album is steeped in history, I guess...

Get Bieber to write about them.

my gf listens to 'aeroplane' at least once a week but wasn't too excited by the idea of seeing dude solo. we'd both go see the full band though.

ITAOTS was very ~important~ to me but at the ATP JM curated I was pretty cynical about seeing him play for a variety of reasons, and then when he actually played I was a blubbering hysterical wreck from the first note till the last. Dunno how he did it it was just a bloke with a guitar playing some songs I don't have particularly intense feelings for any more ffs.

stalled out on missiontix tryna get a ticket rn...

nvm no one i know got tickets

lol

there are still tickets in columbia mo. for now, at least.

oops. sold out too. fortunately i got one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exRvC0jYOzE

seems like it would be hard to play the ukulele wearing fur gloves. sometimes i feel like my fingers are already too big. kudos to that guy.

Tickets for the January 2014 D.C. show sold out too quick for me. I tried but couldn't get through. Stubhub already has some-- not sure I want to pay $80 a ticket

Just saw them in Jersey City. Thankful there was no gigantic singalong. Such an odd band to become so big.

Hey, me too! I was behind the bar loading drinks for the bartenders. Got to watch the show in full afterwards too! Yeah the audience was not as sappy as I'd imagined they'd be.

i remember a feeling of dread when i checked that indiepop list in the late 90s , that band was "happening" there. i bounced as they say.

If there's one thing I've learned from the oughts, it's that breaking up / losing your mind / retiring forever at some point is the best thing one can do for one's career.

Don't forget dying, that's still a classic move

Friend tweeted from that show "Yes, everyone is old."

saw them over the weekend and it was pretty magical. a surprising number of young kids there, who apparently waited out in the cold all day to get up front (which, it turned out, was totally unnecessary since all the olds were happy to hang out in the tiered seating). i was really impressed at how tight they were, the level of musicianship on that stage is super high. i'll bet they're a way better band than they were in the '90s.

JM was rocking a giant grey beard and kept his hat over his eyes the whole time but sounded spot-on.

"I was really impressed at how tight they were, the level of musicianship on that stage is super high."

Yes! Much more commanding and professional than I was expecting, and I've seen them all perform in other projects over the years.

the drummer and the multi-instrumentalist (jeremy & julian iirc) are particularly great.

Recent DC show sold out fast, but they're coming back to a big shed this summer.

Saw them last night - echoing the comments above, couldn't believe how well they played. I was pretty dubious about seeing a band that I'd cared so much about in 2000, but it was still amazing.

Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH3CRVVBL9o
I cried all day long after I saw this music video for the first time.
didn't care for any other songs on this album, haven't heard any of their others.

my playlists cataloging the best songs of each decade http://postmusicindustry.blogspot.com

we laughed, we cried, we spammed

http://the-toast.net/2014/10/22/songs-neutral-milk-hotel-album-reference-holocaust/

i was really impressed at how tight they were

well, if you only write, like, 22 songs over the course of a quarter century, I assume you get those songs down pretty good at some point

Who wouldn't get off on being revered like a Christ figure? Dude does not need to write another song in his life. ITAOTS is perfect and only gets better.

huh I could've sworn its stayed p much exactly the same since it was released

its so strange that he doesn't write songs anymore. I figured some new stuff would emerge after the tours he did, but he's still playing all old stuff isnt he?

that well is drty

also dry

I figured some new stuff would emerge after the tours he did

i could see that making it even harder to write new songs.

For a Milk Hotel to be Neutral, at a time like this, is unconscionable

— David Spector (@spectordeforce) January 10, 2021

A funny tweet thread.