I know...which is funny, because of the dozen or so fans know, none of them read Pitchfork or are considered "Hipsters" in the least...they're just college kids with an interest in music that drink too much. And even when I discovered it, it was one of the first indie albums I ever got, and nobody else I knew had heard of them.

People are just resentful because its not the hidden gem it once was.

Exactly.

I was reading this topic yesterday and I figured that I would give this band a shot. I downloaded like 12 songs, some of which didn't turn out good, and I was blown away. This band seriously had something good.

Neutral Milk Hotel has that effect on new listeners more often than any other band I've ever heard. That alone makes Mangum one of the best songwriters of all time.


Download all of "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" if you're just getting into them, it's their masterpeice.

I would listen to Brad Stengel. It's what I did, and ended up buying it anyway. Now I'm saving the big bucks to get it on vinyl (my CD skips, sigh).

Just an observation:

Out of all the people I know who love music or listen to it, the ones who have a reasonable sized collection of music don't list ITAOTS or OK Computer in their top 10 albums. Some of them like the albums but they just understand that there is simply much more better music out there than just listening to Neutral Milk Hotel or Radiohead.

They only ones who even consider NMH to be anything as 'amazing, awesome, best ever' are those who haven't heard much music or their first serious foray into music happened to be NMH, OK Computer etc etc.

I consider myself an exception. Yes there are better albums, but despite having hundreds of albums spanning many genres, ITAOTS is still in my top ten.

Again, why so concerned with the image, or who likes it?

I don't mind that so many people like ITAOTS, and I can even see why they would. But that doesn't mean that everyone has to. I'm just tired of people shoving it down my throat.

And I liked On Avery Island better...

The point I was making is:

Are albums like NMH or OK Computer (the two most whored albums on this site) two of the best albums...or two of the best albums you've heard?

Like I stated in my previous post, it seems as though they are good, but not that good.