Maria Mena

2002: Another Phase (Sony Music Norge)
2004: White Turns Blue (Columbia)
2004: Mellow (Sony Music Norge). According to the Elephant 6 website, however, there are plans to eventually release a Neutral Milk Hotel rarities album on the Orange Twin label. The young singer quickly gained fans and soon earned her first gold record. Although all the members are still active with one another in other projects, it is unknown whether any more Neutral Milk Hotel albums will be released. The song received heavy rotation on NRK P1, P4, Radio 1, Radio Oslo and NRK Petre. Although it met with scant response from the general public when it was released, the recording has continued to gain momentum in indie music circles and has become a cult classic, selling well over 100,000 copies according to Merge Records. In January 2002, Maria's single "My Lullaby" debuted. (Mangum is reported to have, during a live performance, described some of the songs off this album as based on urgent, recurring dreams he had of a Jewish family during World War II.) The album was highly praised by critics for its wildly inventive instrumentation and Mangum's provocative lyrics.

Sony Music signed Maria Mena onto their label. It is a spiritually motivated work conceptually based on the beauty to be found in the horrific fate of Anne Frank and similarly overwhelming tragedies. Then he presented his daughter's demo to the music industry. The band's second LP, In the Aeroplane over the Sea is notable as a critically acclaimed work and a fairly popular recording. After pleading with her father to make a demo, he contacted some industry experts to record Maria's songs in the studio. Neutral Milk Hotel is a part of the Elephant 6 collective. Not all the stories in her diary became songs, but "My Lullaby" was one of them, expressing her pain from her parents' divorce. Neutral Milk Hotel is an American popular music band, centering around its chief lyricist and songwriter, Jeff Mangum, who, on the band's two full-length albums, plays with a number of other musicians, notably Jeremy Barnes, Scott Spillane and producer-instrumentalist Robert Schneider.

She sang and wrote lyrics as a therapy for her feelings and frustration. Cooper, Kim, 33 1/3: In The Aeroplane Over The Sea (2005)(forthcoming). When Maria was 13 years old she moved to live with her musician father. Derogatis, Jim, Turn on Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock (2003) ISBN 0634055488. She suffered from depression and developed an eating disorder. Azerrad, Michael, Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 (2002) ISBN 0316787531. When Maria was nine years old her parents divorced, at which that time was very rough on Maria. Blue Rose Sampler (Blue Rose; CD; 1998).

Her father played in several bands in Oslo, which influenced Maria towards music. The Basement Tapes, Volume Two: Live Underground (CD; 1997). Both Maria and her younger brother Tony are named after characters from Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story. 21 (Ptolemaic Terrascope; EP; 1996). Her mother wrote plays and her father Charles was a drummer. Ptolemaic Terrascope No. Maria Mena was born into an artistic family. Yoyo A Go Go (Yoyo; LP/CD; 1996).