Review: The Tragically Hip--Hipeponymous

Having recently been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, now was the perfect time for the Hip to release a career-spanning retrospective and that is exactly what Hipeponymous functions as. Consisting of a 2 disc set called 'Yer Favourites' (voted on by the fans, including myself), a DVD of a blistering sold-out show at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto entitled 'That Night in Toronto' and a disc of bonus features including all their videos, a documentary, and a batch of musical and visual vignettes, this set tells the story pretty convincingly of how the Hip became Canadian icons.

'Yer Favourites' has pretty much all the hit singles and album tracks that you would most want to hear (though hard core fans such as myself are glad to own all the albums) as well as 2 new tracks (sweet!) all remastered for superior sound. The sound quality difference from the albums is noticeable, especially on tracks from Up to Here and Fully Completely. I heard nuances and guitar fills in the song "Fully Completely" that I had never before noticed. Sitting in my room listening to these songs I have heard dozens and dozens of times before, it occurred to me how uniformly excellent the Hip's output has been from the beginning until now. They are one of the few bands whose albums I can put on and listen to from beginning to end, EVERY album. One of the other things I realized was the Hip's secret weapon: Gord Sinclair. His bass playing is fantastic, especially how he drives "Blow At High Dough" and the sweet bass line that runs throughout "Grace, too". He consistently comes up with interesting, contrapunctual bass lines that really add much to the Hip's overall sound.

'That Night in Toronto' DVD displays the Hip's pedal-to-the-metal live presence and Gord Downie's manic rambling and odd dance moves. The bonus features are interesting, but a more traditional documentary would have been nice rather than the somewhat arty and unfocused flic that Christopher Mills gives us ('Macroscopic'). At the time of this writing I had not yet watched the vignettes section, but putting all the videos on the bonus disc was a nice touch. I loved re-watching "Poets" and "Ahead By A Century" and seeing some of the other videos for the first time (they are not played much on MuchMusic) was a kick.

Hipeponymous is one of the finest box sets that I have ever seen in both content and presentation (the booklet would have been nice had it had some sort of historical essay rather than just cool pics and poetic meanderings, but I digress) with much to offer to both casual and dedicated fans. Both 'Yer Favourites' and 'That Night in Toronto' will be released seperately for those not willing to foot the bill for the entire set. I highly recommend this set (or its consistent parts) to anyone interested in the Tragically Hip, but for those who wish to dig deeper, do yourselves and favour and go buy the albums. Grade: A.