To most, Neutral Milk Hotel epitomizes weird hipster music. The ridiculous name, bizarre lyrics and Jeff Mangum’s shrill shout-singing all make the band a prime target for haters.
Neutral Milk Hotel’s second and seminal album, “In An Aeroplane Over The Sea,” was released in 1998 (), after wearing neon short-shorts was acceptable and before they became ironically cool. There are a handful of modern indie rock bands who owe bits of their musical genetics to the band, however, making them the proto indie band in one respect.
Here, we run down five such bands, who without Neutral Milk Hotel might still be trying to make the next “Pinkerton.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Arcade Fire
Aside from starting out on the same label (the fact Neutral Milk Hotel was apart of Merge as one reason they joined the label), there’s a lot of NMH in Arcade Fire. Listening to each, neither bands sounds tied to any one sound over the course of an album. Instead, they flaunt convention—if an accordion sounds good in a song, they’ll throw it in.
Decemberists
Decemberists are, in sound at least, the modern Neutral Milk Hotel. The individual components of their style—instrumentation, melodies down to frontman Colin Meloy’s timbre—add up to a considerable likeness. The band gets unfounded guff for this by , but the Decemberists distinguish themselves with their songwriting (a lot more seaworthy tunes, a lot less Kafkaesque).
Father John Misty
Psych-folkist Father John Misty would scoff and writhe angrily at the mere idea of this list. But his music has many of the same spirits Mangum’s does, especially in its penchant for the absurd. While Mangum’s is seemingly powered by sober hallucinations, FJM’s are stirred up by Ayahuasca and what sounds like reams of LSD. FJM’s music is of course more playful than Mangum’s which can at times can blindside on those listens when you dig in your heels, but Misty’s “Fear Fun” is full of wry subtext that can prod between your ribs as it tickles them.
Beirut
The most prominent link between Beirut and NMH are their East European horns, a considerable piece of each group’s songs. But NMH is more deeply embedded in the music of Beirut: NMH multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Barnes helped record Beirutap proper debut, “Gulag Orkestar.”
Animal Collective
Animal Collective seemingly occupy a different space in every album they’ve released. The group comes closest to Neutral Milk Hotel in their earlier, folkier albums, like “Feels” and “Sung Tongs” (largely because there are semblances of traditional instruments in those albums). But even on their later works like “Strawberry Jam” and the highly touted “Merriweather Post Pavilion,” their confidence in going deep conceptually—in lyrics and technique—owes a lot to the brash weirdness of Mangum and co.
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Dylan Owens is Reverb’s all-purpose news blogger and album reviewer. You can read more from him in Relix magazine and the comment sections of WORLDSTARHIPHOP.
