[Tthip]

(And what are the names of the three halfs :roll: of The Depression Suite?)
ct

The Rock
NewOrleansWorld
Don't You Wanna See How It Ends?

[direwolf74]

Forgot to mention how much I love the three bonus tracks- Ultra Mundane, Forest Edge, and Problem Bears. It's absolutely baffling that these were left on the cutting room floor in favor of below-average tunes like Are You Ready and All Tore Up.

[Chris Tanz]

Forgot to mention how much I love the three bonus tracks- Ultra Mundane, Forest Edge, and Problem Bears. It's absolutely baffling that these were left on the cutting room floor in favor of below-average tunes like Are You Ready and All Tore Up.

Forgettable:
- Are You Ready -- worst album opener of all time?
- All Tore Up -- The exact feeling I get from all tore up leaves me frozen in my tracks and seems to take forever.

Regrettable:
- IAGLIYDW -- second verse same as the first. little bit louder. little bit worse.
- Silver Jet -- the contrails just fall apart in this song lacking structure
- Throwing Off Glass -- why's the song so moan-y, he asked; I didn't need to buy this song twice (Men With Brooms soundtrack was enough)
- Use it Up -- meh. People like it. Not me
- Forest Edge -- eked out after the other two bonuses; too similar to them

Respectable:
- The Darkest One - didn't belong on Yer Favourites, but solid rocker. "Thin and wicked prairie winds" is a good line
- Leave -- love the bird / blind imagery
- Ultra Mundane -- a bit mishmashy, but "Hey what you building? Another ocean?" is a lyric that knocked me on my ass

Formidable:
- A Beautiful Thing -- classic Gord inversion wordplay (so we talked about time and where it went ... so we talked about things and where they went; unremarkable events ... big remarkable events; one day took two days ... each day's a new day; continue, carefully in degrees ... continue, artfully like the breeze)
- Problem Bears: what can I say, should been on the album. Shakespeare, Voltaire, and the two tough-talking goalies wuz robbed

Hero-Incredible:
- The Dire Wolf -- canon heavyweight - slugfest in the final
- The Dark Canuck -- coulda been the greatest of all time. Imagine a 1990s Hip Crowd tapping into this song and singing in unison "Jaws and the Dark Canuck! Should we stay for the Dark Canuck? Everyone hands up! Who's for the Dark Canuck!" to burn down a concert

ct

[direwolf74]

- All Tore Up -- The exact feeling I get from all tore up leaves me frozen in my tracks and seems to take forever.

:thumb:

Regrettable:
- IAGLIYDW -- second verse same as the first. little bit louder. little bit worse.

Gotta disagree with you there. I f'n love that song.

[Chris Tanz]

- All Tore Up -- The exact feeling I get from all tore up leaves me frozen in my tracks and seems to take forever.

:thumb:

Regrettable:
- IAGLIYDW -- second verse same as the first. little bit louder. little bit worse.

Gotta disagree with you there. I f'n love that song.

I meant to add a note to my comments on A Beautiful Thing that if Gord did some wordplay like that for a second verse of IAGLIYDW it could have been an all-timer. The basically verbatim repetition just makes me think what could have been - hence the regrettable classification.

ct

[Tomacco]

Love this album. So much better than Music @ Work. I like every song, and love the last two especially. Since I became a fan in 2004 though, I only ever saw Good Life and Silver Jet live.
Then came 2016, and I was lucky enough to be at Toronto night 2 where it was one of the featured albums. After the little intermission, them going into Dire Wolf (my favorite song on the album) made me lose my shit. Then getting to hear Use it Up and Throwing Off Glass... man, I felt lucky.

Excited to see where this poll goes. My ranking:

The Dire Wolf
The Dark Canuck
It’s a Good Life
Use it Up
The Darkest One
Throwing Off Glass
All Tore Up
Are you Ready
Beautiful Thing
Silver Jet
Leave

[andrew sharpe]

The Darkest One has to be their best video, hands down.

Up there for sure, but I have to give it to Poets.

[nestene1]

Favourite video poll at some point?

[potsie]

Regrettable:
- IAGLIYDW -- second verse same as the first. little bit louder. little bit worse.

Gotta disagree with you there. I f'n love that song.

"IAGLIYDW" is so good that it doesn't even need lyrics. Case in point, the closing credits of LTR. Just beautiful...

[potsie]

IVL is an album that could benefit from re-sequencing. 'The Dire Wolf' needs to be in that opening slot. Johnny's drums on that song were made to be the first thing you hear. I'd also drop 'Are You Ready' and 'All Tore Up', adding in 'Problem Bears' and 'Ultra Mundane':

1. The Dire Wolf
2. Silver Jet
3. Problem Bears
4. IAGLIYDW
5. Throwing Off Glass
6. The Darkest One
7. Leave
8. Use it Up
9. A Beautiful Thing
10. Ultra Mundane
11. The Dark Canuck

[Killer Whale Tank]

Sorry. "METAMORPHOSIS" = the name of the second part of The Dark Canuck. You know, the awesome part. :wink:

I agree that the discussion in this thread has been particularly interesting. I'm also relieved to learn that I'm not the only Hip fan who hates "Use It Up," thinks "The Darkest One" is merely OK, and has serious reservations about how this album sounds. And as for Gord's voice, let's face it. It was one of the Hip's greatest assets in the first decade. It became thinner, wobblier of pitch, and yet in some ways harsher and spikier, as he got older, and a big part of the reason why the Hip lost commercial appeal. IVL is the first record where it's not an obvious strength, and even a problem on some tracks (i.e., the first half of "Dark Canuck").

On "Silver Jet"..well, there is *something* wrong with that track. It seems like it should be a go-to Hip song; it follows their classic formula. Maybe the problem is just more of the light bass-end that I've argued compromises the entire record. But the song seems to sag at the "your heart jumps to" pre-chorus, which would be precisely where classic Hip would be slipping into killer mode. Maybe the whole thing needs to be sped up. I don't know.

"Good Life?" It's kind of the opposite: the whole is more than the sum of its parts. I would normally dislike a song about being a performer (yawn), with hints of faux-poetic grandiosity ('colour of the night'), yet it rises above any such reservations to become a soaring, moving statement. The line "get with the times" used to give me shivers, considering its context, i.e., the post-9/11 war on terror. And that "forget your skates dream" is beautiful.

"Beautiful Thing?" Great verses, horribly overblown chorus. Rob B's solo carries the song's cheesiness over the top. I admire the willingness to just go kitsch, but - bleech.

[Moof_Milker]

I'd also drop 'Are You Ready' and 'All Tore Up', adding in 'Problem Bears' and 'Ultra Mundane'

No love for Forest Edge? For christsakes...it's darkness on the edge of town!

I agree with most of everyone's thoughts on this album. Like many of you, I thought was M@W was bloated. This seemed like a conscious effort to tighten things up -- tighter production, fewer tracks, etc. I liked this. That said, I do agree that the sound is thin at times. Where you at, Gordy S? Let's hear that bass fatten up the sound! I'd be curious to hear a remixed version of this album with more low-end. The song where this production sounds best is IAGLIYDW -- such a beautiful sounding song on every level. One of the best sounding Hip songs of all time, imho. And it's aged like a fine wine. Sounds just as good today as it did back ol' 2002. So glad I got an ILV set at one the of the shows I attended on the last tour. Hearing Dire Wolf, Use it Up, Throwing Off Glass, and IAGLIYDW was a highlight for me.

Shout out to the great album cover by Rob Baker too. Makes up for that microsoft-paint-looking bukkake atrocity that was the M@W cover.

[andrew sharpe]

No love for Forest Edge? For christsakes...it's darkness on the edge of town!

Nah they were right to leave that one off. The melody is nice but GD butchers the verses with a weird low octave vocal. Curious to know who's singing background though...too low for PL...could it be one of the only recorded appearances of RB? We know he can sing...

The song where this production sounds best is IAGLIYDW -- such a beautiful sounding song on every level. One of the best sounding Hip songs of all time, imho. And it's aged like a fine wine.

Agreed...in fact I like it more now than when it was released. I love the title...it runs around through my head and pops up on a weekly basis. I've grown to love the video more and more as well.

Shout out to the great album cover by Rob Baker too. Makes up for that microsoft-paint-looking bukkake atrocity that was the M@W cover.

LOL...it sure does. Still wishing I'd gotten one of those prints...I guess Rob probably has the original eh?

[gsmacleod]

Just went back and listened to the three bonus tracks:

Ultra Mundane - really enjoy this tune; like much of the production, I think Gord is a little too much front and centre (especially early) but I've always been surprised that this didn't make the album

Problem Bears - I really like the rhythm guitar; simple but it seems like Paul is playing around with attack to go between fairly clean to a bit more grit. Also, this song seems to fit very well with Gord's voice at this period and feels like it is mixed better with the song as well

Forest Edge - it sounds to me like there's a pedal steel in here (maybe just lap steel) and I wonder if this is when Rob really set out to add this to the mix (like in Vaccination Scar); it adds a nice sound to the song and while there are certainly pedal and lap steel elements in earlier songs, they were much more subtle and could have easily been replaced live with some slide playing.

Shane

[sean.bonner]

Very surprised at all the 'Use It Up' discussion here. I know it's not generallyconsidered the best on IVL, however, it's hands down my fav. track on IVL. It's 100% in my top 10 Hip tunes of all time, and it may even crack my top 5.