MUSIC

Stylus Magazine muses on the Hip

Best Hip Singles:

01. Highway Girl (Self-Titled EP)
The best from their humble beginnings, before they realized how much further their ambitions could take them.

02. Blow At High Dough (Up To Here)
As good a classic rock song as the Hip can make. Also a great introduction to Downie’s enigmatic style of warbling.

03. New Orleans Is Sinking (Up To Here)
With the greatest respects to the city itself, this song will have you humming its guitar solo-esque hook for hours.

04. Little Bones (Road Apples)
There may be greater rock songs to play loudly in a Canadian pub, but I can’t think of any.

05. Courage (Fully Completely)
The song that simultaneously cemented their reputation as a great rock band and introduced us to how effective Downie’s lyrics can be when they are subtle.

06. Scared (Day For Night)
The drums are resting, and Gord takes the wheel for a while, showing his most fragile self.

07. Ahead By a Century (Trouble At The Henhouse)
As previously mentioned, this is the greatest modern rock single of the past 15 years. If you listen to nothing else by the band ever again, listen to this.

08. Poets (Phantom Power)
The lyrics are pure abstractness, but damn this is fun!

09. The Darkest One (In Violet Light)
Bonus points go to the music video, which stars the members of Canada’s most vulgar comedy, Trailer Park Boys. Gord has never wailed better than in this track.

10. Vaccination Scar (In Between Evolution)
Classic Hip structure salted with a twangy Nashville guitar that works surprisingly well.

Interesting and Intriguing Hip Songs:

01. Grace, Too (Day For Night)
As magnificent an opening opus to an album as can be found in The Hip’s archives. Sublime.

02. Boots or Hearts (Up To Here)
Not so experimental, but it serves as the band’s one true foray into becoming a roots rock band. Might not have been so bad, actually.

03. Lake Fever (Music @ Work)
Great track that lost its shot at greatness when fans turned their back on the album far too quickly.

04. Escape Is At Hand for the Traveling Man (Phantom Power)
Easily the best song title in the catalogue, and also one of the best storytelling mood pieces the band ever produced.

05. The Luxury (Live) (Live Between Us)
The original is a fine soft-spoken gem, but there is something about this song done live and the contrast between the subdued verses and the crashing chorus.

06. Bobcaygeon (Phantom Power)
Named for a small Ontario town, and probably one of the most unlikely successful singles the band cited for the spotlight. Plus, the line “I saw the constellations reveal themselves one star at a time” is an all-timer.

07. The Dire Wolf (In Violet Light)
The background two-note guitar plucks that anchor the song are the real kicker. Downie’s voice is at its compelling best.

08. Thugs (Day For Night)
Tiny drums and funky bass lines. Isn’t this all a really good song ever needs?

09. Locked in the Trunk of a Car (Fully Completely)
Lyrics are told from the perspective of a serial killer. If that isn’t enough to creep you out, Downie yelling “LET ME OOOOOUUUUUTTTT!!!” at the end of the song will.

10. Fireworks (Phantom Power)
I don’t know what distortion they put on that opening guitar, but it always leaves me begging for more. Also, contains the shocking “You said you didn’t give a fuck about hockey” line, a sacrilegious one to Canadians everywhere.

Experimental Gems:

01. Nautical Disaster (Day For Night)
For my money, the single greatest song the band has ever made. The lyrics are sung paragraphs, and the memories they drum up are so vivid in their unsettling nature. Brilliant from start to finish.

02. Thompson Girl (Phantom Power)
Gord’s almost-there falsetto in the chorus acts as a metaphor for the dizzying weather the song obviously exists within.

03. ‘It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken’ (In Violet Light)
The most ambient song The Hip have made to date. Downie’s much more vulnerable here, but the slow build of things steadies the ground underneath him.

04. The Bastard (Music @ Work)
It’s the unique structuring, and not the sounds emitting from it, that lend the edge to this needle in the haystack.

05. Flamenco (Trouble At The Henhouse)
The whole song is barely there, but it still beckons to us: “Walk like a matador / Don’t be chicken shit.”

06. Toronto #4 (Music @ Work)
A song you must simply put in the stereo and listen to. Not doing anything else. If you listen close enough, you can feel yourself sitting in on a Tragically Hip jam session.

07. Butts Wigglin’ (Trouble At The Henhouse)
Maybe the biggest head scratcher in the collection, but more for the lyrics than anything else. Could it be that’s what makes it so compelling? Maybe it’s just the sheer amount of funk just laying around.

08. Don’t Wake Daddy (Trouble At The Henhouse)
To be filed under “Queer songs with crazy lyrics that are named after short-lived children’s board games.” I’m sure it’s not a large file.

09. The Last of the Unplucked Gems (Road Apples)
Closing track to Road Apples that truly hinted at what was to come from the band. Very spacey and light.

10. New Orleans Is Sinking (Killer Whale Tank Version)
Epitomizes the abstractness of their live show. If the sheer randomness of the story does not make you want to see this band perform live, we can never see eye to eye.