Northern Voice
Footballguy
I've been thinking about starting this thread for a while, so here goes. Most people likely know who The Tragically Hip are, they're the band that sells out stadiums in Canada that never really broke through in the states. They've started to get more US media coverage in the past months, with their lead singer Gord Downie being diagnosed with brain cancer and going on one final tour. In this thread, I'm going to slowly go through their best songs and albums, along with some of the more recent press pieces on them for context on what they mean in Canada.
The Hip aren't my favourite band but I like them a lot, I've seen them live four times, including in Toronto, Bobcaygeon and Kingston (cities which are important in context to the band) and on their farewell tour that has recently concluded (they named it the Man Machine Tour after their new album and deliberately didn't call it a goodbye tour but he does have inoperable brain cancer).
For some context on how big they are, last week Frank Ocean's Blonde was the third largest grossing debut of the year in the United States. In Canada, it failed to even reach #1 on the Canadian album charts. Rather #1 was The Hip's compilation double album Yer Favourites, which was released in 2005. Three other Hip albums cracked the top 10 in Canada and all 17 of their albums (yeah this thread is going to take some time) re enterred the top 100. The CBC special of their last concert was watched by over 10 million people (Canada's population is just over 30 million).
The Hip aren't my favourite band but I like them a lot, I've seen them live four times, including in Toronto, Bobcaygeon and Kingston (cities which are important in context to the band) and on their farewell tour that has recently concluded (they named it the Man Machine Tour after their new album and deliberately didn't call it a goodbye tour but he does have inoperable brain cancer).
For some context on how big they are, last week Frank Ocean's Blonde was the third largest grossing debut of the year in the United States. In Canada, it failed to even reach #1 on the Canadian album charts. Rather #1 was The Hip's compilation double album Yer Favourites, which was released in 2005. Three other Hip albums cracked the top 10 in Canada and all 17 of their albums (yeah this thread is going to take some time) re enterred the top 100. The CBC special of their last concert was watched by over 10 million people (Canada's population is just over 30 million).