Soundtrack of our lives

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This article was published 04/08/2016 (3383 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Tragically Hip — singer Gord Downie, guitarist Paul Langlois, guitarist Rob Baker, bassist Gord Sinclair and drummer Johnny Fay — has released 14 studio albums since forming in Kingston, Ont.

The Hip will play its final Winnipeg show at the MTS Centre on Friday, Aug. 5; Downie’s terminal brain-cancer diagnosis has called a premature halt to the band’s career. Here we look at the evolution of one of Canada’s most beloved musical act over the course of 29 years.

 

THE TRAGICALLY HIP

 

Released: Jan. 1, 1987

Producer: Ken Greer

Length: Eight songs, 24:13

Best tracks: Small Town Bringdown; Last American Exit

Unplucked gem: Evelyn

Synopsis: The band’s first recording was raw; basically a snapshot of its best original material. But “The Blue EP” did give the Hip reason to cross the country and hone its live act. Despite many requests, songs from this recording haven’t been played live for years. ★★★

 

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UP TO HERE

 

Released: Aug. 8, 1989

Length: 11 songs, 43:13

Producer: Don Smith

Best tracks: Blow at High Dough; New Orleans is Sinking; 38 Years Old

Unplucked gem: Opiated

Synopsis: Frontman Gord Downie took the lyrical reins on this album and the group’s non-stop roadwork in ‘88 and ‘89 ensured that Canadian radio and a burgeoning fanbase were ready to take the Hip over the top. Clubs quickly became too small to hold them and the band began to sear itself into the national consciousness. ★★★1/2

 

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ROAD APPLES

 

Released: Feb. 19, 1991

Producer: Don Smith

Length: 12 songs, 48:41

Best tracks: Little Bones; Three Pistols; Long Time Running

Unplucked gem: The Luxury

Synopsis: Road Apples finds the Hip stretching limits and realizing they’re capable of doing whatever they want. Downie’s lyrics really sparked to life on this album; a cat from a Timothy Findley novel, William Shakespeare, New Orleans cab drivers and assorted Canadian ephemera all factored into the mix. ★★★★1/2

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FULLY COMPLETELY

 

Released: Oct. 6, 1992

Producer: Chris Tsangarides

Length: 12 songs, 46:54

Best tracks: Locked in the Trunk of a Car; Courage (for Hugh MacLennan); Fifty-Mission Cap; At the Hundredth Meridian; Fully Completely; Wheat Kings

Unplucked gem: Pigeon Camera

Synopsis: It seems almost every Canadian between the ages of 35 and 55 knows these songs, and because of them they know who Bill Barilko was, who David Milgaard is, and where Brandon can be found on the map. In 2015, the band acknowledged Fully Completely’s popularity by creating a tour based around playing the album in its entirety. ★★★★★

 

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DAY FOR NIGHT

 

Released: Sept. 6, 1994

Producers: Mark Howard and the Tragically Hip with Mark Vreeken

Length: 14 songs, 59:26

Best tracks: Grace, Too; Thugs; Scared; Nautical Disaster; Inevitability of Death; So Hard Done By

Unplucked gem: Yawning or Snarling

Synopsis: The band explored its full dynamic range on this wondrous sprawl of a record. Downie got darker, too; confidently beginning to express all the power of his lyrical ability. And, in the midst of it all… Nautical Disaster. Wow. ★★★★★

 

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TROUBLE AT THE HENHOUSE

 

Released: May 7, 1996

Length: 12 songs, 55:03

Producers: The Tragically Hip and Mark Vreeken

Best tracks: Gift Shop; Ahead By a Century; Springtime in Vienna; Flamenco

Unplucked gem: Put it Off

Synopsis: Self-produced at the band’s own Bathouse recording studio in Bath, Ont., Gift Shop is simply majestic, the chiming acoustic melody of Ahead By a Century is one for the ages and “we live to survive our paradoxes” from Springtime in Vienna is simply a wonderful chorus. ★★★1/2

 

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PHANTOM POWER

 

Released: July 14, 1998

Producers: Steve Berlin with the Tragically Hip and Mark Vreeken

Length: 12 songs, 50:27

Best tracks: Poets; Fireworks; Something On; Bobcaygeon; Escape is at Hand for the Travellin’ Man

Unplucked gem: Emperor Penguin

Synopsis: Steve Berlin (Los Lobos, the Blasters) came in to co-produce and the band delivered a much more focused effort. Bobcaygeon is simply beautiful and the raucous, punky thrall of Poets was a sign that the thrill was far from gone. ★★★1/2

 

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MUSIC@WORK

 

Released: June 6, 2000

Producers: Steve Berlin with the Tragically Hip and Mark Vreeken

Length: 14 songs, 51:34

Best tracks: My Music at Work; Puttin’ Down; Lake Fever

Unplucked gem: Tiger the Lion

Synopsis: A complex — many would say uneven — album. The magnificently celebratory title cut, Puttin’ Down and Freak Turbulence were the only upbeat rockers, yet the depth of songs such as Tiger the Lion, The Completists and Toronto #4 (for Downie’s late grandmother) were not the work of a band running out of ideas. ★★★1/2

 

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IN VIOLET LIGHT

 

Released: June 11, 2002

Producer: Hugh Padgham

Length: 11 songs, 41:16

Best tracks: ‘Use it Up’; The Darkest One; ‘It’s a Good Life if You Don’t Weaken’; Silver Jet

Unplucked gem: Throwing Off Glass

Synopsis: Producer Padgham (the Police, Genesis) brought sonic clarity but at times it felt as if the band and Downie were trying too hard to force poems into songs. That said, the philosophies of ‘Use it Up’ and ‘It’s a Good Life…’ were eminently admirable and Throwing Off Glass turned a child’s backseat comment into an exquisite song. ★★★1/2

 

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IN BETWEEN EVOLUTION

 

Released: June 29, 2004

Producer: Adam Kasper

Length: 11 songs, 43:44

Best tracks: Vaccination Scar; It Can’t Be Nashville Every Night; Are We Family

Unplucked gem: Gus: The Polar Bear from Central Park

Synopsis: An underrated and often-overlooked record, as the band hit reset, cranked the guitars and blew out the jams. Nothing leapt out and grabbed you by the lapels, but IBE was just consistently good, from beginning to end. ★★★★

 

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WORLD CONTAINER

 

Released: Oct. 17, 2006

Producer: Bob Rock

Length: 11 songs, 42:45

Best tracks: Yer Not the Ocean; The Lonely End of the Rink; In View; Luv (Sic)

Unplucked gem: Family Band

Synopsis: Bob Rock, eh? Eyebrows were raised when this pairing was revealed, but Canada’s premier commercial rock producer polished up these apples, and the band was clearly willing to be moulded, prodded and pushed. ★★★1/2

 

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WE ARE THE SAME

 

Released: April 7, 2009

Producer: Bob Rock

Length: 12 songs, 56:47

Best tracks: The Depression Suite; Love Is a First

Unplucked gem: Coffee Girl

Synopsis: I’ve read and heard eloquent defences of this album and there are indeed great performances and wonderful sounds to be heard. The Depression Suite is tremendous. (“Bring on the requisite strangeness,” is a great Downie line.) But, to my ears, the Bob Rock records are the two most incongruous Hip albums — almost uncomfortably so, in places. ★★★1/2

 

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NOW FOR PLAN A

 

Released: Oct. 2, 2012

Producer: Gavin Brown

Length: 11 songs, 39:22

Best tracks: At Transformation; Man Machine Poem; The Lookahead; Now for Plan A; Goodnight Attawapiskat

Unplucked gem: About This Map

Synopsis: Read into the title what you will. Plan A distilled the explorations of a decade and a half into a finely honed outing that seemed the harbinger of a new dawn. The revelation that Downie’s writing was informed almost wholly by his wife’s battle with breast cancer gave these songs a heart-rending, transcending pull. ★★★★1/2

 

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MAN MACHINE POEM

 

Released: June 17, 2016

Length: 10 songs, 41:29

Producers: Kevin Drew, Dave Hamelin

Best tracks: In a World Possessed by the Human Mind; What Blue; In Sarnia; Ocean Next; Machine

Unplucked gem: Great Soul

Synopsis: An excellent album has been overshadowed by the news of Downie’s cancer diagnosis and the band’s final shows. But MMP picks up just where Plan A left off (it’s named for one of that record’s best songs, after all), and producers Drew (of Broken Social Scene) and Hamelin (most notably of the Stills) have clearly encouraged the Hip to reach for the arty and the sublime, to great effect. ★★★★

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