I became a fan around 1998, and obviously I was late to the party. Looking back, I wish I had gotten into the band when I first heard about them in 1994, but better late than never. And they've been a huge part of my life over the past 18 years. All in good time, I suppose.
This latest tour, and the show on Saturday, is evidence that this has always been a pretty popular band. But I wonder how and why the commercial decline began. To me, it seemed like Phantom Power was the last album that had a bunch of hit singles that really took off. Music@Work has some nice moments, but beyond the quasi-title track, the other big songs didn't become radio staples in the way that Ahead by a Century, Poets, New Orleans did.
In Violet Light followed and I think it has some amazing tracks - The Dark Canuck, A Beautiful Thing, The Dire Wolf, Leave, etc. But I remember It's a Good Life getting some airplay here in the Buffalo region, but that's about it.
And then with subsequent albums, the first single would hit for a while, but the follow-up ones wouldn't stick with the public consciousness. Not that this really matters, because IBE and WATS both have a ton of great moments. But I wonder about why certain stuff sticks with the public while others don't.
Perhaps it was impossible for the band to maintain their ridiculous Up To Here - Phantom Power run. And that may be the case, because, geez, what a run that was. To me, Music@Work was the first side-step, but that seemed to be enough to drive away some of the casual fans. Because each of the 2000+ albums have some kick-ass songs. But by that point, it seemed like the casual fan was long gone (their loss, really).
Radio changed a lot during this time. You had a lot of angry rap-rock music that was popular there in the early 2000s. I think part of it may have been that the Hip just didn't fit the (lousy) format that well, at least here in the US.
Curious as to what other fans think about this. To me, they've been giving me brilliance pretty much all along the way. World Container, The Lookahead, You're Everywhere, The Depression Suite - incredible stuff. I just wish the mainstream would have realized/remembered that well before the awful news of May 2016.
Longevity can be a curse. The longer you stick around as a band, the more people take you for granted and mainstream interest starts to wane at a certain point. Pearl Jam has gone through the same thing. They can still sell out arenas all over the place, but their hit single days are behind them and the general radio-listening public is basically unaware that they made any albums after 1998.
As for the Hip, I agree that shifting tastes and changes in radio probably contributed to their commercial decline, not to mention the fact that their music evolved quite a bit during the late 90s and into the 00s. Music@Work had the one great single of course, but the rest of that album was very arty and experimental when compared to previous albums. Their music continued in that vein with IVL, although it baffles me why The Darkest One wasn't a bigger hit. That song is ridiculously catchy. IBE was kind of a throwback album to their earlier stripped-down sound, but the problem with that album in a commercial sense was a lack of material that could be deemed single-worthy. Vaccination Scar and Nashville were complete duds at radio if I remember correctly, and the album faded into obscurity as a result. The only Hip single I can think of in recent years that was a pretty big hit was In View. Since then they haven't really made much of a dent on commercial radio at all in terms of new material. At Transformation did pretty well, but the band's management/label waited too long to release the full album. By the time NFPA hit the shelves, the song had fallen out of the charts and they had lost all their momentum.
I think World Possessed is a great single, but sadly it didn't seem to get a lot of radio play. Here in Vancouver I can count on one hand the amount of times I heard it on the local rock station during the two month lead up to the album. While at the same time, a song like Cage the Elephant's incredibly annoying "Mess Around" was played at least once every hour. Sadly, it took a cancer diagnosis and a farewell tour to get the Hip back into the public consciousness. It's been cool witnessing Hip mania again, but it's just so damn bittersweet. They currently have 4 albums in the Canadian top 50 album chart. Yer Favourites currently sits at #2, sandwiched between Drake and the Suicide Squad soundtrack. MMP is #6. We haven't seen chart domination like this from the Hip since the mid-late 90s. It's amazing.
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direwolf74 Wrote:Since then they haven't really made much of a dent on commercial radio at all in terms of new material. At Transformation did pretty well, but the band's management/label waited too long to release the full album. By the time NFPA hit the shelves, the song had fallen out of the charts and they had lost all their momentum.
I think you're spot on. The marketing of all of their more recent albums was pretty poor. Virtually no internet presence, and as you mentioned, the delays in releasing albums subsequent to singles being released really hurt them. That, combined with their longevity as you mentioned was an unfortunate combo commercially. People are always looking for something new. You're even seeing it with guys like Sam Roberts now. He used to be one of the biggest acts in Canada, and now you barely hear him on radio. Even when new material is released.
I remember reading somewhere that where Phantom Power sold something like 400 000 copies, M@W halved that at 200 000, and IVL halved it again at 100 000. So clearly that's the moment when the commercial status of the band cratered and never recovered (until the current album, under tragic circumstances; in the absence of those circumstances, I'm quite confident MMP would also have been doomed to obscurity).
In a way, this makes sense. Neither M@W not IVL are very strong efforts by Hip standards, franky. M@W is bloated and lacks focus, while the production on IVL is just terrible. (I''ve come to appreciate M@W a lot more after I had another go at it years later and discovered that if you just skip 3-4 dud tracks, you get a very nice little album). Objectively speaking, the later records are simply less commercial: Gord's singing is more erratically pitched, the songs are often much subtler, etc.. But that aside, I agree with many of the explanations offered here. I'd add that one reason longevity is a problem is a double-whammy:
1. A lot of your original, massive fan-base loses interest as it gets older. This is partly due to life-changes - music in general often grows much less important to people as their identities and lives solidify, and they become locked into a specific historical period that's 'their' period (the hits of the '90s, say). So part of your audience just drops out because they lose interest in music generally. (They probably never really were that interested to begin with, but likely paid more attention when they were going to lots of parties and dating lots of strangers, etc.. Once their lives become about commuting and mortgages, music vanishes as a lifestyle accoutrement). Another part of your audience just wants you to keep doing EXACTLY the same thing over and over again, and thinks you're 'not as good as you used to be' unless you do so. So, boom, that's a gigantic percentage of your audience gone (except for monkeys like AC DC or Nickleback, who are quite happy just to do the same damned thing over and over and over).
2. New generations coming up are by definition NOT going to want to listen to the bands that were all the rage 10 years ago. They're going to want new stuff that they can consider 'theirs.' That's the thing, popular music in our culture at least is closely tied to identities - people want to follow acts that are in the right demographic, to follow the 'new' and therefore 'cool,' etc.. This is silly when you think about it, but we've all been there and it's just a fact of life. So it doesn't really matter what you're doing musically, sooner or later you are going to get crowded out by the new. Sometimes an act can endure for so long that eventually a whole new generation 'discovers' it and makes it cool again; this happened to Dylan around the year 2000, say, and to Johnny Cash with Rick Rubin's production. But that is an unpredictable process and not one that befalls every long-running act. And both Dylan and cash had to endure extended commercial and even critical troughs before they emerged out the other side.
So it might be hard for the Hip to stomach, but it's almost an inevitable part of life as a popular musical act. Even U2 has finally fallen off its perch and become uncool. It happens to everyone.
sean.bonner Wrote:2000 = Napster.
And it leaked 3 months early so most oeople had it already.
Killer Whale Tank Wrote:2. New generations coming up are by definition NOT going to want to listen to the bands that were all the rage 10 years ago. They're going to want new stuff that they can consider 'theirs.' That's the thing, popular music in our culture at least is closely tied to identities - people want to follow acts that are in the right demographic, to follow the 'new' and therefore 'cool,' etc.. This is silly when you think about it, but we've all been there and it's just a fact of life. So it doesn't really matter what you're doing musically, sooner or later you are going to get crowded out by the new. Sometimes an act can endure for so long that eventually a whole new generation 'discovers' it and makes it cool again; this happened to Dylan around the year 2000, say, and to Johnny Cash with Rick Rubin's production. But that is an unpredictable process and not one that befalls every long-running act. And both Dylan and cash had to endure extended commercial and even critical troughs before they emerged out the other side.
Excellent points. Just to piggy back on this: veteran artists tend to get a big career boost when illness, death, or tragedy strikes. Prince, Bowie, Lemmy, etc.. all of their discographies shot back up the charts recently, and the same is happening right now with the Hip. The only difference is that Gord is still with us and we've all been given the chance to celebrate the man and pay our respects while he's still here, which is a pretty amazing thing. And while their current chart success is incredibly bittersweet due to the circumstances, it's nice to think that perhaps a younger generation of kids are now discovering the immense catalog of this brilliant band for the first time. The way the Hip have brought the entire country together over the past month, culminating in the unprecedented event that took place on Saturday; I think the Hip are going to be remembered and revered by future generations for a long time. Just the other day I was standing in line for coffee and saw a young girl wearing a Hip t-shirt from the current tour, and she couldn't have been more than 14 or 15. It warmed my heart.
Quote:So it might be hard for the Hip to stomach, but it's almost an inevitable part of life as a popular musical act. Even U2 has finally fallen off its perch and become uncool. It happens to everyone.
True enough. U2 will always be cool to me though. I adore that band. One of the things I really dig about those guys is how they continually revolutionize the live concert experience every time they tour. From Zoo TV, to Popmart, to the giant claw, and last year's tour with that massive transparent arena-length video screen with the surround sound speaker set up (speakers along the venue's ceiling, etc..). Their tours are always state of the art spectacles, and I've been blown away by every one I've seen. Hell, I even like their two most recent albums, which everybody seems to hate. But that's me.
Tthip Wrote:sean.bonner Wrote:2000 = Napster.
And it leaked 3 months early so most oeople had it already.
Haha, I forgot about that. I had the album probably two months before it actually hit the stores. A buddy of mine had burned a copy for me.
I completely lost interest in U2 after 'All that You Can't Leave Behind,' at which point - after about a decade of pushing the envelope - they seemed to revert to trying to satisfy fan expectations and produce 'safe' U2 records. The trauma of the way 'Pop' was received seems to have scared them away from doing anything interesting. That said, I've never had the experience of seeing them live - but I always regretted not seeing the Achtung Baby! tour when I had the chance.
A good debate to have here on this topic would be- are there any bands in the world that once they are no longer in their youth (i.e., ages 40+), do they still have songs on the top 40 and videos played on MTV/Much Music? I don't think there are. I think the HIP post Phantom Power were "less hip" in the eyes of the radio/record industry simply by virtue of their age. Other factors? Sure. If your fav album is Up to Here, Road Apples, FC, or DFN, as most of us fall into that category, than anything the band comes out with is never going to be better sounding to our ears than what we have already committed to being our fav... But I go back to other huge bands that are past their prime but in no way shape or form experience a decline in merch sales or concert ticket sales... Most do, like Motley Crue (their final tour excluded) but it must be primarily an age thing. Remember "American Idol"? There was an age limit on there. I think it was 25 or 29 or something like that. They had an elderly man sing a song for his wife once but he wasn't actually a contestant. Look at U2, even thought the HIP have sold more albums in Canada than them, they are unquestionably one of the biggest bands in the world and of all time, they sell out shows like nobody else but when was the last time they had a song in the top 40 or a video played on MTV or Much? The last HIP video to be played on Much was Music at Work wasn't it? Any video that came out after that was played on Much More Music. I think. I could be wrong. But that's why I lost interest in Much. Though mad respect for them and what they aired all day last Saturday. Look at the Eagles. Best selling band in American history. They could sell out any venue but no way they have a hit in the top 40 post 1980's. Maybe The Rolling Stone 90's hit "Love is Strong" is an exception to this rule. But they're the Stones. In this age of social media, the game has changed a bit. Many young people who never knew who the HIP were a year ago do now and forever will because of Facebook/Twitter (etc). Look at Aerosmith. I've seen them many times in many venues and they have always been sold out shows. Yet, they have not had a top 40 hit since "I Don't Want To Miss A Thing" circa 1998. Bon Jovi sells out Giants Stadium in minutes anytime they play with or without Richie, and though they release albums every 2 years, no top 40 hit since "It's My Life" circa... help me out here... what was that? 2000? If you looks at award shows, the Grammys, MMVAS, MTV, AMMA, Junos, once a band's members are older than 40 they simply don't get nominated. It's actually an odd thing. I think it's wrong. Few Canadian acts can say that they have as many JUNO noms as the HIP, but the fact that they've had virtually no JUNO noms since their "prime" is mind-boggling. So, in conclusion, there is the factor of age discrimination. Or maybe it's an unwritten rule of reverse-seniority in the industry. We all thought the HIP were going to make it big in the States when they played SNL in 95. Then in 1999 when they played Woodstock '99, we kind of knew they wouldn't because they weren't young enough.
Killer Whale Tank Wrote:I completely lost interest in U2 after 'All that You Can't Leave Behind,' at which point - after about a decade of pushing the envelope - they seemed to revert to trying to satisfy fan expectations and produce 'safe' U2 records. The trauma of the way 'Pop' was received seems to have scared them away from doing anything interesting. That said, I've never had the experience of seeing them live - but I always regretted not seeing the Achtung Baby! tour when I had the chance.
No Line On The Horizon kicked my ass outta nowhere.
sean.bonner Wrote:Killer Whale Tank Wrote:I completely lost interest in U2 after 'All that You Can't Leave Behind,' at which point - after about a decade of pushing the envelope - they seemed to revert to trying to satisfy fan expectations and produce 'safe' U2 records. The trauma of the way 'Pop' was received seems to have scared them away from doing anything interesting. That said, I've never had the experience of seeing them live - but I always regretted not seeing the Achtung Baby! tour when I had the chance.
No Line On The Horizon kicked my ass outta nowhere.
Yea, I love that album. All they had to do was remove the god-awful Get On Your Boots, and I'm convinced that album would have been hailed as a masterpiece. Instead it just kinda disappeared off the public radar, and I put the full blame on that one song. It never should have been a single.
Interesting. I have that album around here someplace...maybe I'll dig it out and give it another spin.
As for the new U2 record, it was all right, but the only songs that I felt were really necessary are 'California' (I love the synthesizer in the chorus) and above all the stunning 'Cedarwood Road,' which for one glorious track reminds us of everything that made that band great.
Killer Whale Tank Wrote:Interesting. I have that album around here someplace...maybe I'll dig it out and give it another spin.
As for the new U2 record, it was all right, but the only songs that I felt were really necessary are 'California' (I love the synthesizer in the chorus) and above all the stunning 'Cedarwood Road,' which for one glorious track reminds us of everything that made that band great.
I like quite a bit of that album actually. California, Iris, Song for Someone, and Volcano are all pretty solid. This is Where You Can Reach Me Now reminds me of the Clash, which I like. Raised By Wolves is a killer track and is very reminiscent of early albums like October and War. It's got a real energy to it. I love the stabbing guitars and Bono's vocal on that one, especially in the chorus. I agree with you 100% on Cedarwood Road. Best song they've written in years IMO.
sean.bonner Wrote:2000 = Napster.
I agree with all the points above but mostly this, the entire industry changed. And I think it was just bad timing for the Hip that a big deviation in sound coincided with this period.
I was given DFN when it came out, I was 11. It was my first CD and I listened to it endlessly but didn't really know who the Hip were. Would have recognized Little Bones from that CBC Music Works show. Fast forward to 1998 and the Camp Trillium shows. I was 15 and lined up at 5am to get tickets for one of the London shows. My life changed the night seeing them live. I can remember Grace and 100th blowing my socks off and I was hooked. Quickly got LBU and PP, played them nonstop. And then FC, RA, and UTH. I remember the anticipation for M@W and the first time hearing Tiger the Lion. Saw them on the Evening With tour. By the time IVL came out I was totally obsessed, my last year of high school. I remember skipping 1st period to run out to my car to listen to the first single of the album on the radio for the first time. It wasn't what I was expecting but loved it none the less and the rest of the album. By the time IBE came out I was on the Hipbase and probably not looking to the radio for guidance on music anymore.
UTH, RA, and FC are probably my least favourite Hip albums (I never listen to the EP and basically don't think of it as part of their discography). IVL and IBE are two of my favourites (DFN and PP will always be the top).
All of this is to say for people my age (mid 30's) and definitely younger it would probably have been hard to get into the Hip. If you missed the explosion of FC I could see how it would be hard to get in just through hearing them on radio, especially if you weren't listening to the rock type stations. I was lucky to see them live at 15 and was hooked.