JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Songwriter Message Forum neutral milk hotel; I don't get it

So, I'm listening to NPR and something about a "band" I've never heard of comes on. Neutral Milk Hotel sounds like nothing but someone who thought it would be fun and funny to play a folk-y music with what sound like meaningless lyrics.

Oh, and they/him are oddly odd...great...very interesting...NOT!

So, this guy/band who hasn't played out in over a decade decides to put on somekind of concert someplace in New England - or something. People are/were buying these tickets to scalp them for up to four figures!

WHAT!?!

You've got to be kidding me! This "weird", "quirky", "genius", WHATTHEFLIPEVER!

I heard crap. But this radio story told of people weeping with joy, excited like little children...

Supposed adults weeping like children? You mean children who look like adults.

Okay, so the hue and cry is: "Only the greatest songs get cut!" Oh soooooo not true. And this story is another example of my point.

Can anyone here tell me: Have you heard this guy/band? Do you think his/their stuff is genius? Prove your answer, and "Oh, I just like him." is NOT an answer.

If this is genius lyrics, storytelling, etc., then I've just got to shoot myself, 'cause this is drivel to my ear.

And if the consensus is that this dude/band is amazing then why haven't the huge labels, the star maker machine started cloning this guy/band?

Toxic Rose, I listened to a couple of their songs on YouTube. I've heard worse. I don't toss the word genius around lightly and I wouldn't use it to describe this band. But I also wouldn't question the taste of their fans. Different strokes for different folks.

It sounds like they are trying to use a Name for the band that get's attention. There was a lot of that going on in the 60's and 70's. Absoulutly Rediclous Band Names. Shock Jock Titles have been used before like THE GRAPES OF WRATH. A book by Steinbeck about the 1930's I think and all the deprsssion people that moved to California for a better life.

Now what does NETURAL MILK HOTEL mean? A cow's udder is the best I can come up with. You have a better description?

The name refers to the unification of the many string theories, (quantum mechanics) into one....

Dan, no doubt different strokes of all sorts of folks, but my point was that "that" saying doesn't seem to hold water now.

I hear this tired excuse: "Great music's out there, you've just got do a little digging." Yeah, make it harder so the light stuff floats more easily to the top. Not that it's the creme, it's the whey; opposite of what it's suppose to be; outside of Nature.

Do you eat yogurt? I do and I can't stand all that "fat free", "low calorie", ya da, ya da, ya da. Real yogurt is bliss, the fake stuff is, well, fake. That's what happened to popular music now. It's not if the song will be covered, and it's surely not important if the song will be covered tonnes and way into the future; The Beatles will be covered forever I'd suspect; Justin Beiber -- is that his name? -- will not; he doesn't even write, or pretend to write his own stuff, does he?

Popular now means profit, where popular used to mean something that had "legs" as it were.

I'm singing here to the choir of course

Toxic Rose, I like yogurt with some granola mixed in.

So here goes...

I am one of those Neutral Milk Hotel cultists whom you don't get.
And, that's cool.

To me, those "meaningless" lyrics are not meaningless, but evocative in the same way as images in a dream. Your dreams, when you think about what you have "seen" in your minds eye really do make no sense. But, when you wake up feeling happier or more anxious than you ever have in your entire life, don't they really mean something at that moment?
To me, and many others, that is what Mangum's lyrics do to us.
In the same way that Salvador Dalí's paintings make no sense, but still evoke strong emotions.

I also know that his voice is not traditionally beautiful, or even anything close to "good." What it sounds like to me, and many others, is raw emotion. It's the perfect match for his surreal lyrics.

The solo/acoustic format brings out that aspect of the music even more than the full-band format.

With that full band, the arrangements: the clash of the bleating horns with the singing saw, fuzz bass... it's like a Salvation Army band on acid.

People hate Bob Dylan, too.
It's a taste thing. There is no defending it.

It's aural surrealism.
You love it or you don't.
You get it or you don't.

This music moves me.
I get it, I love it, and am so very happy that I do.

There is music that moves you, too, right?

This is all you really need to get:

What else do you need to know?
This is not for you, but for them. For me.

I also enjoy Neutral Milk Hotel, and here I am feeling like I have to defend my reasons.

Maybe it's better to think of them as a learning opportunity, because they succeeded in doing what most of us have not...people want to buy their music.

PopTodd,

Yeah, everyone has their thing...

The NPR bit on the dude/band mentioned a singalong and how amazing that was. I don't know. That happens at an Eagles concert...Ceilidh tunes are singalongs, so is Pete Seger and suchlike, but...well... I'm someone who enjoys deep thought. You have Dylan Thomas and you have rap, say. Dylan Thomas, every word and it's place in the poem has a meaning, and is not wasted...there are people who think Dylan Thomas is none-sense, words thrown together just to be impossible to understand.

Everyone has their "thing". But there is more that really needs to be gotten...I have never read the comics in a newspaper because they are uninteresting to me. But I can get why they are there and people love them; each is a bit different.

I see your there in IL. When we came to America we moved to Michigan. Your weather must be nice about now. Here in Tallahassee, Fl it sucks; too hot. But so far this morning it's been alright enough; piss'n rain. Reminds me a bit of Home.

Mark and Todd,

You don't need to defend anything. If you can't articulate the why, well you can't. I'm not asking for a defense of them/him. After the NPR story, the music I heard there and the dude going on about how amazing it was, and what I heard was non-sense to me, I went out on the internet looking. Found nothing that comes close to floating my boat. In fact, in those waters I felt no need to sail out into.

You like what you like. There are a buttload of people who say they love Tiny Tim -- that's the ukulele dude? -- new people being turned on to him though he's long gone. Don't understand it. Sometimes suggestion is a powerful thing. Sometimes people just want to be accepted by something larger than them. Some people don't mind fingernails on a chalkboard.

To each their own. No defense needed.

Enjoy!

Actually, I first heard the band when their record was playing in the background at a record store where I was shopping one day. (Remember record stores?)
And I am one of the lucky folks who got to see the band the first time around. I loved their first album (On Avery Island), and when Aeroplane came out, it took me a few listens for it to overtake that first one for me. But it did.
I also saw the band do an in-store performance at a record store in Chicago just after that second release, and then later that week at a small club.
Doubt that I will see JM this time around because of my life situation (job, kids, mortgage) and the fact that I got to see them in 98.
But I get a real kick out of those new converts who are just discovering Mangum and NMH, and I envy them their discovery.I remember how exciting it was for me at that time.

And Toxic Rose: you're from Scotland? Ireland?
Weather here is just starting to get a bit cool. high today just around 5°C or so. Yeah, I love Chicago. And I love Michigan, too. (Inlaws live in Traverse City.) Florida's weather is nice in the winter, but too damn hot every other time of year.

You can take a narrow or broad view of music. You can focus on the music you like and scoff at all the rest or you can take a live and let live view, respecting that there's a wide range of musical tastes and talent in the world and God bless them all. As long as you don't stop me from listening to the music I enjoy, I won't stop you from listening to the music you enjoy. And if you don't like the music I like, well, that's certainly no business of mine.

Well said, Dan. My view exactly.

PopTodd,

I'm from Scotland. In fact from a wee tiny island way to the North in the Sherlands. The island is Unst 5miles wide, 12miles long, there abouts. When I was a kid -- left there to come here when I was 13 -- there was no electricity nor indoor running water. We really were hunter gatherers, just like ancient ancestors. Unst was the last place on Earth where Norns -- the ancient Viking tongue -- was spoken. The house I was born in, a cottage 350 years old when I was born in it; dirt floors. Played in Pict and Viking ruins. Never knew how amazing that place and that Live was until I left it...you don't miss your water 'til the well runs dry, right?

Travers City? Had a farm in Sterling, a bit North of Bay City. Great Rock from that part of the woods! Got to play with most of the "names" in that genre back in the day. One of my cousins played lead guitar for the Silver Bullet Band for forever it seems; Bill Muller. He used to play in a band called Julia.

Yeah, winter in Florida is pretty snazzy. I Lived for a while in Austin, Texas and the weather there is EXACTLY like the weather here in Tallahassee! Where I'm from, 60 F is a bloody hot day! At 50 F I start to worry about making it through the day. To this day, after all the murderous hot climes I've Lived in -- Southern Cal, Vietnam, Libya, well the Mid-east generally and through Africa... -- I still can't stand that bloody Sun!

Hey Dude, it's been a blast "talking" to ya. Hope we do this more often.

Cheers!

PopTodd pretty much nailed it with this post.

The first time I ever heard Neutral Milk Hotel, I was wandering around a used clothing store in Minneapolis....a song came over the PA, and I immediately walked up to the cashier to ask what was playing (the first and only time I've ever been compelled to do that in my life). She said it was "King of the Carrot Flowers" by NMH, and I walked out the door and down the street to the record store and bought "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea". Still easily in my top 5 albums of all time.

Excellent reply, Pop. NMH's IN THE AEROPLANE OVER THE SEA is in my top 5 of all time and continues to shock me with its raw beauty no matter how many times I listen to it - and that be many, many, and many. I certainly can understand why people might not like NMH, but that's no matter. "Brilliant" and "genius" are not too strong words to throw around when it comes to this underground gem. BTW - it was rated as the #1 album on all of eMusic.com a few years back. Best, Steve S-N/Tuxedo Cat Sings!

[quote=Harrogate]PopTodd pretty much nailed it with this post.

The first time I ever heard Neutral Milk Hotel, I was wandering around a used clothing store in Minneapolis....a song came over the PA, and I immediately walked up to the cashier to ask what was playing (the first and only time I've ever been compelled to do that in my life). She said it was "King of the Carrot Flowers" by NMH, and I walked out the door and down the street to the record store and bought "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea". Still easily in my top 5 albums of all time.

[quote=PopTodd]

Yes, most definitely Top 5! :)SS-N/Tuxedo Cat Sings!