The Tragically Hip "Now For Plan A"

 

The Tragically Hip was one of the first bands I championed after moving back to Orlando in 1989 to start the Music 4 Less chain.  MCA Records was very supportive of our efforts to get the retail store off the ground and The Hip was one of their projects.  The first three albums, "Up To Here," "Road Apples" and "Fully Completely" are legendary in my book.  Two of those were million-sellers in their home country of Canada but the best we could do here in the US was #170 on the Billboard 200.  For whatever reason, none of The Hip's subsequent albums reached the same level of greatness for me, but four of them charted higher domestically than the previous benchmark of #170...that is, until now.  "Plan A" peaked at #129 shortly after its release last October and #3 in Canada, which is sort of a let down as they hit #1 with five of the eight full-lengths of the past fifteen years.  Did I mention that they are in the Canadian Music Hall Of Fame, or anything about the Juno Awards they've won, which number in the teens?  Yep, they are the real deal.   

 

I bought "Plan A" about two weeks after it came out and just took it out of the rotation last week.  It's a brief 39 minutes across eleven tracks that hark back to those landmark early recordings.  A killer opening track... 



When I went back to cull my notes, no less than three times did I have "awesome first song" dictated.  Twice I had said the second song could be Robin Zander and Cheap Trick.  From there I noted the overall electricity of the record that had been missing for the past ten years, just a good ol' fashioned kick-ass rock 'n' roll album.  For many years, I saw The Hip compared to R.E.M. and I even called vocalist/songwriter Gordon Downie Canada's answer to Michael Stipe.  During the spins of "Plan A," I found myself relating the record more to Midnight Oil than R.E.M..  My god, Downie has morphed into Peter Garrett...not a bad thing at all! 

Here is the latest official video off the album.  Bizarre, to say the least.  It's a six-minute video for a 2:27 song...



I'm not going to attempt to figure out the Mexican setting...  The lovely lady on accompanying vocals is the grossly underrated Sarah Harmer, whom I discovered about a dozen years ago through fellow Canadians, Blue Rodeo.  I suggest you seek out some of her solo efforts. 

Plenty of great music comes from north of our border, and the Mad Rocker wildly approves "Now For Plan A."