[potsie]

On another note: does anyone have any theories as to what Gord is up to on "Drop Off?" Who is he referencing with that bizarre vocal? As I've been re-listening to WC in light of this thread, I find the vocal pretty much spoils a magnificent song. He doesn't sound like himself at all, and usually when a singer doesn't sound like themselves it's because they're referencing someone else; so I'm wondering who, in fact, he is trying to sound like - ? Or was it just a bizarre experiment?

I love when Gord stretches his vocals and The Drop Off is a fine example. It adds personality to the song. It's good to vary things, even if it doesn't fully work. This song has a "frenetic" feel, both in the vocal, lyrics ("Holy f**k, it's Jesus!") and metre (the "Personal stakes will get raised and get raised" rant).

I get that it's not for everyone, but the "Yer a comet from earth in a Kiss Alive shirt" line, along with the badass GS bass line are enough for me. The Dylan reference doesn't do anything for you, KWT?

I have contradictory feelings about the singing on the "Drop-Off". The verse and chorus contain some of Gord's most grating singing... listen to the first 1:30 of the song, focusing on just the singing, and try to imagine a whole album of him using that voice. Yikes! And yet, it works very well in the context of the music. It was somehow the right voice for the song, which is an absolute beast. For every other Hip song in the catalogue, you can pinpoint at least one song on another album where he used the same voice, except for the "Drop-Off". He doesn't use the cartoonish verse voice or the frenetic and wild voice from the stunning middle eight (too bad!) on any other song. That makes the Drop-Off a unique tune.

[Killer Whale Tank]

Well, I just don't agree that the "cartoon voice" is "the right voice" on "Drop-Off." For all of his talk about "getting out of my own way," Gord transparently fails to do so at times, and never more clearly than on this cut. It basically wrecks the thing for me, which is really too bad, because the song is an absolute beast. (By contrast, the extreme stylings on "The Kids Don't Get It" are indeed exactly right, perfectly capturing the strung-out aggravation of the song's lyrics. That song also has the finest "WHOOOs" in the canon, incidentally).

potsie makes good points about "Struggle." That's the thing about Bob Rock: his instincts when it comes to rock music are absolutely without taste. Like those guys who drive huge pickup trucks that can't even fit in their little townhouse driveways, his only response is MOAR BIGGER. More strings! More keyboard! Let's take an already-ponderous song and carry it over the top to plodding pompous tedium. The way to get good results from him is to keep him as far away from the "Rock" idiom as possible. Since he seems to have stopped listening to music around 1985, the minute you give him what sounds like a serious rock song, he will turn it into some ridiculous, dated artefact from the era of bloated self-important Classic Rawk. That's why he worked well with Ron Sexsmith, who can never be assimilated into Rock Music and therefore brought out his affable pop instincts, and why Rock was rather less offensive on WATS, where the material was more melodic (notwithstanding the horrors of the second half of "Queen of the Furrows," where all the ghastly tastelessness is puked into our ears all over again, or, as you say, the humourless grandiloquence of "Struggle").

[potsie]

Well, I just don't agree that the "cartoon voice" is "the right voice" on "Drop-Off." For all of his talk about "getting out of my own way," Gord transparently fails to do so at times, and never more clearly than on this cut. It basically wrecks the thing for me, which is really too bad, because the song is an absolute beast.

He did seem to back off a bit on using this voice when performing the Drop Off in a live setting, for the betterment of the song. I think I enjoy the threatening and sinister atmosphere of the music so much that I'm able to look beyond the singing. But it does raise the question, "Could the Drop Off have been even better?" Probably....

[direwolf74]

He did seem to back off a bit on using this voice when performing the Drop Off in a live setting, for the betterment of the song. I think I enjoy the threatening and sinister atmosphere of the music so much that I'm able to look beyond the singing.

Indeed, that song was incredible live. They did a version in Seattle in 2007 that rocked so hard, it was frightening.

[Killer Whale Tank]

I was at the pre-release show in Vancouver...two songs in particular stood out. One was an absolutely ferocious number where he yelled "holy fuck it's Jesus!" and I could have sworn he said something about Bob Dylan. The other was something that I heard as "Lonely End of the Lake" - I assumed it to be a song about cottage country :lol: Anyway, yeah, the singing is bad on "Drop off" on record.

(I still think "The Lonely End of the Lake" is a great song title, incidentally :wink: )

[andrew sharpe]

WC and MMP rule. All you tongue clucking armchair quarterbacks can get stuffed.

[direwolf74]

WC and MMP rule. All you tongue clucking armchair quarterbacks can get stuffed.

Lol. Definitely agree with the MMP part.

:thumb:

[potsie]

WC and MMP rule. All you tongue clucking armchair quarterbacks can get stuffed.

Rather than a quarterback I tend to view KWT as more like a linebacker, repeatedly sacking World Container despite Coach Bob Rock's best play calls.

[andrew sharpe]

WC and MMP rule. All you tongue clucking armchair quarterbacks can get stuffed.

Rather than a quarterback I tend to view KWT as more like a linebacker, repeatedly sacking World Container despite Coach Bob Rock's best play calls.

:lol:

[edgoffin]

Listening to music in the car last night, WC came on. One of my kids said it's on of his favorite Hip songs (behind 50 Mission Cap and Lonely End...he's a hockey player). I asked why, and he says he likes the way Gord sings it. I can't disagree it, I really like that last 2 minutes of vocals (there are some good whoos and yeahs in there I'd never picked up).

But it also has the "greatest Bob Rock" moment on the album -- there's a hilarious ascending piano line around 1:50 that's just pure David Foster. I'm not opposed to keys, and I like what they added on the WATS tour with Jim Bryson playing keys (or earlier with Chris Brown), but take out the plunking piano on this song and it becomes an entirely different tune.

This album may be a good case for a "Let It Be...Naked" treatment, remove some of the flourishing productions and see what the more bare bones of the songs sound like.

[sean.bonner]

The 'World Container' and 'Rock Vermont' demos are fantastic.

[potsie]

Like I said...it's a great song (including the 'Dylan' line of course). And I agree that his singing in the middle eight is fun. It's the singing in the verses/chorus that bothers me. He sounds like a demented cartoon character. It doesn't work, to my ear at least, and that's too bad - when you have a tank of a song like that, FFS get out of yer own way.

Mostly because I forgot to mention this in an earlier post - but the lyric "Our shovels meeting in some crisis" and the imagery it invokes is an all time favourite for me. I've wondered if it's a nod to these lines from locked:

Then I found a place, it's dark and it's rotted
It's a cool, sweet kind of place where the copters won't spot it
And I destroyed the map, I even thought I forgot it
However, every day I'm dumping the body

I love that lyric as well. I was thinking about it a few weeks ago as I was helping a neighbour shovel out his driveway after we got dumped on. There we were, shovels in hand, meeting in a winter crisis. It does also fit nicely with the idea of burying a body in "Locked".

[Chris Tanz]

I read somewhere sometime someplace that "shovels meeting in some crisis" was a reference to Manitoba sandbagging to ward off Red River flooding ... maybe picking up a Membership-type theme there too.

ct

[kieffer]

I read somewhere sometime someplace that "shovels meeting in some crisis" was a reference to Manitoba sandbagging to ward off Red River flooding ... maybe picking up a Membership-type theme there too.

ct

That would certainly make sense in the context of the song. While it's not where my mind went it does fit the power of water theme that Gord was a huge fan of.

I got a good chuckle at your comment in the thread you just bumped

[direwolf74]

The 'World Container' and 'Rock Vermont' demos are fantastic.

Care to share? I've never heard of these before. Can you find them in the hipbase archive?