[chives]

Order of Canada - Check. Next mission is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That's what I will be working on. Who's with me? Who's against me?

[spasticreelin]

Fuck that place

It's a badge of honour NOT to be in that dump

[arewhyehen]

I don't really see them ever getting inducted..

[Moosehead]

Well, they are in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame eh?

Unfortunately they don't register on the US and international scale. Some intrepid interviewer should ask the band why they never made a successful push into the US market.

Putting my hockey helmet on here expecting some disagreement but two of the American bands most commonly compared the Hip would be R.E.M. and Phish. R.E.M. is in, Phish still hasn't made it (apparently a small controversy in that circle.) So you won't see The Hip, not even close.

~
Besides, why not dream bigger? Nobel Prize in Literature!! If Bob Dylan can get it, why not!

[arewhyehen]

Unfortunately they don't register on the US and international scale. Some intrepid interviewer should ask the band why they never made a successful push into the US market.

We did ask Rob a form of this question. His response was that they were successful. They sold out venues with capacities of a couple thousand people all across the USA. A lot of bands make a living off just that and most bands will never reach that..... so who is to say they weren't successful in the USA? I think they did just fine.

[arewhyehen]

Besides, why not dream bigger? Nobel Prize in Literature!! If Bob Dylan can get it, why not!

Dylan's lyrics are genius. Don't think the Hip's are on the same level. haha

[potsie]

Besides, why not dream bigger? Nobel Prize in Literature!! If Bob Dylan can get it, why not!

Dylan's lyrics are genius. Don't think the Hip's are on the same level. haha

Some of Dylan's lyrics may qualify as genius but his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize was plagiarized (in part), as discovered by a writer for Slate. This is not the first time the criticism of plagiarism has been volleyed at him, with Love and Theft (apropos!) being an example. News of Dylan plagiarizing gets nothing more than a shoulder shrug from me (and I'm a Dylan fan), but if I found out Downie had plagiarized something, I would be deeply disappointed.

As for lyric writing greatness, I don't put Dylan that far above Downie. If lyrics are examined without cultural context (i.e. excluding the trailblazing uniqueness of Dylan in the 60's) I certainly think Downie is the same room. Although I'm sure there are more that would disagree (including Gord himself) than agree with me.

[direwolf74]

Besides, why not dream bigger? Nobel Prize in Literature!! If Bob Dylan can get it, why not!

Dylan's lyrics are genius. Don't think the Hip's are on the same level. haha

Absolutely no disrespect to Bob, because I love him. But I would argue strongly that Downie's lyrics are just as genius as anything Dylan has ever written. Yea that's right, I said it.

[cochise]

I would never expect them to be in the RnR hall of fame, but there is one thing where they stand out over any other band in the world if you ask me, and that's the past tour.

Make be I am wrong, but I do not think there is any other band in any other country that could have pulled an entire country together like The Hip did last year. The Man Machine Poem tour deserves to go down in history as one of the most important and impressive concerts in music history, period, Canadian, American, British or otherwise.

RnR aHall of Fame or not, no one will ever take away from the importance and impact the tour had on an entire country, or the importance and impact The Hip have had on music.

[potsie]

Well, they are in the Canadian Music Hall of Fame eh?

Unfortunately they don't register on the US and international scale. Some intrepid interviewer should ask the band why they never made a successful push into the US market.

Putting my hockey helmet on here expecting some disagreement but two of the American bands most commonly compared the Hip would be R.E.M. and Phish. R.E.M. is in, Phish still hasn't made it (apparently a small controversy in that circle.) So you won't see The Hip, not even close.

~
Besides, why not dream bigger? Nobel Prize in Literature!! If Bob Dylan can get it, why not!

I've never heard the Phish comparison, and I'm not a big enough Phish fan to recognize any strong similarities.

Certainly the REM one was common in the early to mid 90's. Jake Gold used to make this comparison when talking about the Hip breaking into the US market around the time of DFN. He was pointing to the fact that it took REM five albums to make a dent in the US (when they released Document and had their first hit with "The One I Love") and was saying that the Hip was going to do the same with their fifth release. Outside of career trajectories at that time there were also musical likenesses.

When it comes to the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame, the Hip have a near zero chance of ever being nominated, let alone elected. I'd be happy if they ever were recognized, but given the list of great bands still not in there, they are a long ways away. And if their amazing year in 2016 didn't move the needle much in terms of US coverage, nothing ever will.

[direwolf74]

Unfortunately they don't register on the US and international scale. Some intrepid interviewer should ask the band why they never made a successful push into the US market.

We did ask Rob a form of this question. His response was that they were successful. They sold out venues with capacities of a couple thousand people all across the USA. A lot of bands make a living off just that and most bands will never reach that..... so who is to say they weren't successful in the USA? I think they did just fine.

Agreed. I remember an interview with Jake Gold a few years back where he talked about how unfair it was to say the Hip were never successful in the U.S. He argued that they're actually on the same level as a lot of mid-level American bands due to the fact that they can sell out large clubs and 1000-seat theaters down there. They've toured the States a lot over the years, probably more often than they've toured Canada. I imagine they probably made a good chunk of change from touring down there, otherwise they likely wouldn't have bothered.

[potsie]

Besides, why not dream bigger? Nobel Prize in Literature!! If Bob Dylan can get it, why not!

Dylan's lyrics are genius. Don't think the Hip's are on the same level. haha

Absolutely no disrespect to Bob, because I love him. But I would argue strongly that Downie's lyrics are just as genius as anything Dylan has ever written. Yea that's right, I said it.

I got your back on this!

[Moosehead]

I would never expect them to be in the RnR hall of fame, but there is one thing where they stand out over any other band in the world if you ask me, and that's the past tour.

Make be I am wrong, but I do not think there is any other band in any other country that could have pulled an entire country together like The Hip did last year. The Man Machine Poem tour deserves to go down in history as one of the most important and impressive concerts in music history, period, Canadian, American, British or otherwise.

A Heritage Moment.

[arewhyehen]

Besides, why not dream bigger? Nobel Prize in Literature!! If Bob Dylan can get it, why not!

Dylan's lyrics are genius. Don't think the Hip's are on the same level. haha

Absolutely no disrespect to Bob, because I love him. But I would argue strongly that Downie's lyrics are just as genius as anything Dylan has ever written. Yea that's right, I said it.

Did Sinclair not write a lot of the stuff early on? Not Downie... Meaning a lot of the iconic lyrics you are probably referring to would not be Downie's lyrics. Someone else also mentioned this in another thread the other day. Something about how it was Sinclair's job to write the lyrics and Downie's job to forget them...

Either way, I think the Hip's lyrics are beautiful but not on the same level as Dylan's. FYI, The Hip are one of my favourite bands and I have never really been a huge Dylan fan. Just know his impact on songwriting..

[direwolf74]

Absolutely no disrespect to Bob, because I love him. But I would argue strongly that Downie's lyrics are just as genius as anything Dylan has ever written. Yea that's right, I said it.

Did Sinclair not write a lot of the stuff early on? Not Downie... Meaning a lot of the iconic lyrics you are probably referring to would not be Downie's lyrics. Someone else also mentioned this in another thread the other day. Something about how it was Sinclair's job to write the lyrics and Downie's job to forget them...

Sinclair wrote most of the stuff on the EP, but I'm pretty sure Downie took over the lyric writing duties from Up to Here onward, and he really started to hit his stride on Road Apples. Personally I would easily hold up Downie's lyrics against any songwriter or poet on the planet, living or dead; particulary his work on albums like RA, FC, DFN, TATH, PP, CMG, TGB, and just about everything up to and including MMP. Downie and the Hip may not have the worldwide recognition of people like Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Springsteen, or Tom Waits. And obviously they haven't had the same level of cultural impact on popular music. But looking at it strictly from a lyricist/songwriter point of view, I think Gord is most definitely in the same league as those guys.