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i Rlly love Neutral Milk Hotel and Song Against Sex is definitely my favorite rn. A lot of NMH songs have meanings and lyrics that are hard to decipher mainly cuz I think theyāre written to mean a lot of different things, but looking into their history and purpose and other peoplesā interpretation is part of the fun for me. On Avery Island is a rlly great album. I think Jeff Mangumās performance of Two Headed Boy at Sanders Theatre is still my favorite live performance of all time, except maybe Mitskiās Drunk Walk Home live at Palisades
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all praise goes to In The Aeroplane Over the Sea, but Neutral Milk Hotelās debut is maybe better. It sounds similar, but more abrasive and variedā reminding me at points of Tall Dwarfs, Avey Tare, LVL UP, and Silver Apples.
āSong Against Sexā, āGardenhead/Leave Me Aloneā, āNaomiā, āWhere Youāll Find Me Nowā are maybe my favorites.
Makes me feel nostalgic for something I canāt remember, like looking at a strangerās sun bleached film through a zoetrope.
Dec 11, 2024
Concept albums sometimes get a bad rap as the musical equivalent of "eating your spinach:" lengthy, dense, subject to being over-analyzed, with allegorical significance assigned to every word. Listening to one can sound a lot like "work" which often isn't consistent with "just enjoying the music."
But despite its consistent motif, it would be a mistake to treat Neutral Milk Hotelās second studio album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea like a scavenger hunt. Jeff Mangum, the frontman and creative force behind the band, recognized the album as directly influenced by reading The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank. But for all the linear references to our young departed heroine, there's a lot of Mangumās own autobiography, philosophy and observation in there. Plus some damn good tunes.
The Diary of a Young Girl is a coming of age story that is cut short, before revelation and maturation. On the album, Mangum grieves the loss of Frank, as well as a collective loss of innocence. The very first words sung on the album, āwhen you were young,ā set the tone for all that follows, which is a combination of freakshow ephemera, slapstick violence, and the technicolor dreamcoat that would come to signify "psych-folk" as it was practiced at that point (late 1990s).
I saw Mangum and company play this album in its entirety in Seattle many years later and I'll be damned if its capacity to both amaze and confound wasn't still fully intact. I can't encourage you enough to listen to this full album and give in to its music box charms and bizarro-world imagery and storytelling.
Jul 25, 2024
I know this album cover is imprinted into the corneas of many already. but Iām listening to this ~8 yrs after I first found it, which sort of marked the start of my own self-discovery w music (along with, who else, but velvet underground). and since they are both so huge, Iāve had a hard time listening to them as earnestly in years since. of course relationships with music change, but I think I became embarrassed by the earnestness of this album & its internet overexposure. but it is sincere and beautiful (+ a little freaky and smutty) and it is very special to come back to every now and then. it turns on a certain part of my soul I canāt usually access when I come to it at the right moment. full of love and oneness w humanity, time transcendent
ālet us lay in the sun and count every beautiful thing we can seeā
3d ago
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Feb 3, 2025
Iāve got a list of games and movies I intend to play/watch this year, on top of all the self improvement stuff I hope to get done ! My movie list is crazy but Iāll get through it. The pic Iāve included it just a fraction of the total list š
Feb 3, 2025
