The Tragically Hip: The Tragically Hip [MCA]

Why you'll love it

This 180g pressing is the international version, with "All Canadian Surf Club" closing Side B. It's where the Kingston band behind nine Canadian No. 1 albums and 17 Juno Awards began.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Bonus track "All Canadian Surf Club"

About the album

Every great Canadian band story starts in a bar, and the Hip's has several. Gord Downie, Rob Baker, Gord Sinclair, Johnny Fay and Paul Langlois spent the mid-1980s playing student pubs at Queen's University and small rooms across Ontario, and pollster Allan Gregg, who co-managed them with Jake Gold, paid for this first EP in 1987.

Ken Greer produced, and you can already hear the band's swagger: the twin guitars of Baker and Langlois, Sinclair and Fay locked tight, and Downie singing like he's got stories to tell. "Small Town Bringdown" is a bar-room rocker, "Last American Exit" and "Cemetery Sideroad" lean into the blues, and "I'm a Werewolf, Baby" has a wicked grin. "Highway Girl" became a live centrepiece, with Downie spinning long, made-up stories in the middle of it on later tours. It's a young band in a hurry, and it sounds great loud.

A showcase at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern in 1988 landed them a long-term deal with MCA, and Up to Here followed. The Horseshoe sits just along Queen Street from our shop, so we like to claim a little credit, purely on geographical grounds.

Also at Kops: more The Tragically Hip on vinyl · browse CDN Pop / Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On MCA (cat# 0255704051), a reissue of the 1987 EP.