Jeff Mangum sings in a very naked, fingernails on a blackboard sort of whine, the type that forces dogs to howl. Don't tell him though, because either he doesn't realize it or doesn't care. He sings out bald faced, loud and clear. You can tell he loves to sing too, like an overexuberant guy in the shower. He also likes to expand on the melody a bit, almost Whitney Houston like.
I obviously find it difficult to sit through In The Aeroplane Over The Sea in one sitting. Mangum's voice wears me out after a while. But you've got to hand it to him; he steps up to the mic and does what he does, and the results are very different than most everything else going on in today's indierock scene.
Neutral Milk Hotel are mainly about Mangum - his voice and his songs. Songs like "Two Headed Boy" and "Oh Comely" remind one of a coffeehouse talent night performance, but an intense one. Simple chord structures with that voice singing loopy, old fashioned melodies that sound familiar, and vaguely American. It's almost like country music, but from the North rather than the South.
What's great about NMH though, is the Sousa-like arrangements and instrumentation that perfectly compliment Mangum's songs. Perhaps this is at least partially due to NMH's affiliation with Elephant 6, a conglomeration of various artists who apparently all live together in a big recording studio somewhere, and play on each other's records. The recording itself is decidedly lo-fi, as though they were trying to make it sound old. Mostly it sounds like they forgot to set the levels and it over-recorded just a bit. The overall effect however is breathtakingly authentic.
Something tells me I should like ITAOTS more than I do, but something is holding me back. Maybe I'm resistant to being taken back in time by this madman who spits out relentless torrents of stream of consciousness lyrics like, "So make all your fat fleshy fingers to moving and pluck all your silly strings and bend all your notes for me and soft silly music is meaningful magical..."
I get the feeling repeated listenings might yield rewarding results, but I just can't do it. Come to think of it, I never liked "Music From Big Pink" all that much either. Maybe it's the early Americana thing. I don't know. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is probably a really good album. I just don't get it.
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