Neutral Milk Hotel

Neutral Milk Hotel is not just another band. Jeff Mangum and others play music like men who have been dead over fifty years, suddenly shot into twenty-year-old bodies, full of more life than anyone currently on the planet, the ghosts of everyone they've ever known whirling around their heads while they record. I'm not kidding.

see Jeff Mangum, Major Organ and the Adding Machine, The Apples In Stereo

Information: Neutral Milk Hotel
Suggested First Purchase: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

On Avery Island (1996) -- This album is remarkable. It doesn't sound like anything you've heard, except maybe the real stuff inside you. Funny to think that the next album will top it. A

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (1998) -- My favorite album of all time. This is new wave gospel music. Who in a 90s indie band can scream that he loves Jesus Christ and not be ironic about it? Neutral Milk Hotel, and it's crushing. I have near-seizures listening to this album, and by the time we get to the unnamed instrumental track, I'm in love with every grain of sand in the world. It's a celebration of life, including all the dead things, maybe even especially. It's connected. A