[edgoffin]

Released July 14, 1998

Poets
Something On
Save the Planet
Bobcaygeon
Thompson Girl
Membership
Fireworks
Vapour Trails
The Rules
Chagrin Falls
Escape Is at Hand for the Travellin' Man
Emperor Penguin

I think the first album fully recorded at The Bathhouse. This is the album with, as I recall up to that date, the longest leading radio single. I remember Poets was played a lot on the radio well in advance of release. Escape had also been teased on the TATH tour. Pretty amazing considering how long they toured Trouble that they were able to hit the studio and crank out this album.

Steve Berlin produced, I assume a relationship fostered on the ARA tour with Los Lobos, maintaining their propensity for switching up producers on a regular basis.

I do wish Save the Planet had lasted in set lists a bit longer. I was always glad to hear Vapour Trails, one of the favorite "deep cut" tracks from their catalogue. Penguin will go down as my great missed track. Again, a strong song that never seemed to make it onto set lists (past this tour?). Always wondered if there was a technical challenge in performing it, or just a track that they never really cared for.

When you listen to the albums chronologically, and with the benefit of hindsight, PP stands out to me as possible their most complete and consistent album. The only track I'm a bit indecisive on is Membership, but it gets points for guitar work, lyrical imagery, and Gord's vocal delivery. It has a bit of everything for Hip fans -- some standard rockers, a few acoustic tracks, and a couple of tracks towards the end of the album that separate the radio fans from the diehards.

It was as I recall, also a hugely successful album. For all the shows that I saw over 30 years, this tour is vastly under-represented. I think in part that was just due to scheduling and life, but I also have a feeling that it was becoming a bit less comfortable to go see the Hip. I'd made it through the college crowds and the bikers unscathed, but there was something about the audience at these shows that was a bit more "violent bro" for lack of a better description. I went to one show in the northern US, believe it was Erie, that just plain mayhem. Spirit of the West wrote a bitter song about misplaced Canadian patriotism (Our Ambassador) and the perils of crowd surfing (Get Down Tonight) based on opening for the Hip in 1997.

They vinyl reissue of this really kicks butt -- I'm not a big waveform analyzer, but there's a lot of depth in the tracks that Ludwig brought out on the vinyl mix.

[Killer Whale Tank]

An important album following TATHH. Notwithstanding the success of 'Ahead By a Century' and 'Gift Shop,' they needed an album that reassured the fan-base that the Hip still had some urgent, focused albums in them - that they weren't just going to give themselves over the eclecticism and fooling around. This one delivered. In 'Poets' and 'Bobcageyon,' this record gives two of the Hip's most defining moments - and two of my favourite Hip tracks - while continuing to push their musical evolution forward towards something like pop-rock, via cuts like 'Fireworks' and 'Something On.'

One thing I didn't like about this album was that some of the songs had a decidedly 'studio' quality for me. 'Vapour Trails' sounds to me like something assembled in the studio rather than a song with its own really strong organic logic, and 'Membership' too - although maybe what that one is really crying out for is some decent drumming, drumming that conveys the movement and thundering of the river instead of the plodding bang...bang...bang we get. 'Chagrin Falls,' there's a third entry that just isn't what it needs to be (in this case, the song simply isn't good enough; a younger band, endlessly on the road, would have figured this out). The band is thus showing some of the costs of no longer being a relentlessly locked-in touring act, but rather reassembling itself somewhat artificially on a schedule. But that would only really start to hurt with M@W.

Besides, any album that closes with the splendid 'Emperor Penguin' has lots going for it :thumb: A good, strong, 'mature' record. Not quite up their with their best stuff, but its good moments are really, really good.

[potsie]

It has a bit of everything for Hip fans -- some standard rockers, a few acoustic tracks, and a couple of tracks towards the end of the album that separate the radio fans from the diehards.

I'm going to be the apostate on this one. That above line for me partly summarizes why I don't love Phantom Power as an "album", but more a collection of great songs. I tend to feel that way about albums that offer "something for everyone". The album scaffolding and container is there for the songs, but due to a lack of a coherent feel, atmosphere, sound, and production style, I can't get behind PP as one of the Hip's best albums, even though as a collection of songs it ranks up there with the finest the Hip has put together and contains a number of my favourite Hip songs. This all sounds like semantics but the feeling of lack of "album greatness" is real for me on this one.

PP was really the last great gasp of the Hip as a band that was a record-selling force. Poets was massive hit and garnered heavy play on MuchMusic in the summer of 1998. They followed Poets with the release of "Something On" and "Fireworks", keeping BobC in the pocket for the fourth single. This is surprising and I often wonder if the band felt unsure about what they had with that song at that time. In hindsight it seems foolish to contemplate but to leave BobC as a fourth single, a point at which albums are running their course and song releases struggle to make an impact at radio, seems risky. Escape as the fifth (and final) single suffered this fate. One of the Hip's most beloved tunes, I'm not sure I ever heard it on the radio back then (or maybe ever).

[direwolf74]

My 2nd favorite Hip album, right behind DFN. Not a single dud on the entire thing. By the time this album came out, my obsession with all things Hip was at an all time high. It was around this time when I started collecting and trading bootlegs through the mail with various kind souls across the country (the old "blanks & postage" days). There was nothing better than checking the mailbox and finding a brown bubble envelope full of CDs and cassettes. 1998 was also the year where I finally ventured south of the border to see a few shows, following the band along the west coast and Northwestern U.S. My first ever cross-border show was October '98 at the High Sierra Festival in Novato, CA, just north of San Francisco. It was a pretty small festival with maybe 900-1,000 people there, tops. Incredible show and very intimate. almost like seeing them at a private event. The crowd was super mellow too, and I remember we were able to maneuver our way to the front quite easily. Compared to the massive sea of bodies, mosh pits, and crowd surfing we were used to in Canada, the experience was night and day. Needless to say I was immediately hooked on the idea of seeing them in smaller venues, and a bunch of friends and I ended up seeing shows in Seattle and Spokane a few months later when they came back through on the 2nd leg of the PP tour in '99. We also went to both Calgary shows that year. My family thought I was insane.

I was also playing music in a band during this time. We had just put out our first (and only) CD and were lucky enough to do some touring around western Canada and Ontario between '98 and '00. PP was of course a constant companion in the van on those long trips, as we were all big Hip fans. So it's an incredibly nostalgic and significant album for me. When I hear songs like Poets, Save the Planet, Bobcaygeon, Membership, Escape, etc... it always reminds me of how fun and exciting my life was at that particular time. Of being young and naive, and the exhilaration of feeling like anything is possible. To this day it's my automatic go-to album anytime I'm feeling low, and it never fails to perk me up and put a smile on my face. Not to mention it contains some of the most masterful lyrics of Gord's career.

[WillyB]

[edgoffin]

It has a bit of everything for Hip fans -- some standard rockers, a few acoustic tracks, and a couple of tracks towards the end of the album that separate the radio fans from the diehards.

I'm going to be the apostate on this one. That above line for me partly summarizes why I don't love Phantom Power as an "album", but more a collection of great songs. I tend to feel that way about albums that offer "something for everyone".

I agree with you -- what I should have said was it had a bit of everything for Hip fans at the time -- covered all the bases for most following the band at the time. And maybe the last album they made that did this, I think intentionally as they moved forward.

When I listened to the recent vinyl release, it was the first time in a long time that I listened to the full album versus tracks coming up on random shuffle. My first thought was what a great collection of songs, some of their best tracks. But if someone were to ask me to rank top Hip albums, it would end up somewhere in the middle and then I'd be moving it up as I think of individual songs.

It does have one of my favorite lines -- "there's nothing uglier than a man hitting his stride" . Also has one of the funniest background lyrics -- "It's time to let them sprinklers hose". I've used both lines numerous times. When I think of "best album", I always put DFN at the top just because it does work as a complete album. Similarly, I think MPP has that "whole album" concept. But like Potsie said, it's all semantics -- for my wife, also a Hip fan for 30 years, she'd likely say this is her favorite album.

I don't want to jump ahead, but it is interesting to listen to PP and then think about the album that comes next.

[loach]

I agree with some of you that this is their most consistent album. If I had to list my 3 least favorite songs off every Hip album, the 3 songs I would be forced to choose for this one I would 'like more' than the 3 least favorite I'd have to choose off any other Hip album, if that makes any sense.

I didn't connect initially with Poets, even though I've come around on that song, and it did bug me at the time that was the first release from this album. However, I always loved the ending of this album as it has the best closing songs of any one in the Hip catalogue - Chagrin Falls, Escape, Penguin - I just love all 3 of those songs.

A rock-solid album. When I have people ask me about the Hip (I live in the States now) and what albums they should listen to first, I generally go with FC and PP as the two albums that represent the best ones to get them started with.

[cochise]

Interesting reads and opinions. For me, the very first time I heard Poets I thought, this is it, this is the song that's going to break them in the States. I thought it had a great sound, catchy hook, everything needed for a hit. I remember turning to my girlfriend and saying "this is going to be their Life is a Highway". But alas, I was wrong and always felt if that didn't do it, then I didn't think it ever would.

Overall a pretty solid album in my books, and as said by someone else, probably the best close outs on an album. Hearing Escape followed by Emperor, then that being the end of the album was cruel! Two songs on one album that can easily be considered two of the best songs they ever recorded IMO.

But I do have to admit one thing that will cause debate on here.......... I hate Fireworks. There I said it, I hate it. I don't know what is is about it, I mean its got Bobby Orr in it, its got the Summit Series in it, its talking about a teenage relationship that we can all probably relate to in one way or another, fairly good guitar riff, I should like it, but I don't, I just hate the damn song and it annoys the hell out of me that it is a popular track, LOL.

[cheney50mc]

It's ok, I also never liked Fireworks, was never quite sure why, I play guitar and would play along with all the other tracks on the album, the intro is just F and C, I didn't get into playing it that much.
But this was a good time for me, I was old enough to drive down to the states with some buddies and see them is some small places (Burlington, Hartford, the theatre they played in Long Island was really nice). was front row a couple of times. Got to meet them on this tour.

Does anyone know where the Bathhouse is actually located? I know it's a bit west of Kingston. I was trying to find it on Google maps, was just wondering...

[Killer Whale Tank]

'Fireworks' lacks a really good chorus. Maybe that's what bugs you? I also find the first verse outstrips the rest of the song; you get this exhilarating opener where the rest of the song is workmanlike. That kind of structural anti-climax can be frustrating.

Good thought on 'Poets.' I loved that song from the moment I heard it. It was a different sound for them - groovy, even - yet still arch and intense, a real case of a band pushing its basic formula forward. And it does seem unfathomable that it wouldn't get airplay in the states; it's so catchy and so distinctive; but that just goes to show that airplay has little relationship to merit or even whether a song has 'hit' potential. The Hip had been written off after Fully Completely, and that was that.

[sean.bonner]

It's ok, I also never liked Fireworks, was never quite sure why, I play guitar and would play along with all the other tracks on the album, the intro is just F and C, I didn't get into playing it that much.
But this was a good time for me, I was old enough to drive down to the states with some buddies and see them is some small places (Burlington, Hartford, the theatre they played in Long Island was really nice). was front row a couple of times. Got to meet them on this tour.

Does anyone know where the Bathhouse is actually located? I know it's a bit west of Kingston. I was trying to find it on Google maps, was just wondering...

It's in Bath.

[cochise]

Does anyone know where the Bathhouse is actually located? I know it's a bit west of Kingston. I was trying to find it on Google maps, was just wondering...

In total, its about 20 minutes West of Kingston, right on Bath Road (Highway 33). It's about 1km West from the actual village of Bath, and just before you get to the Lafarge cement plan. If you pass the plant, you've gone too far.

[chancellor]

https://goo.gl/erSBfR Its roughly about there/

It's about there. They don't do tours, at least back about 7 years ago they didn't do tours. I was lucky enough to be shown the place by Aaron Holmberg. One of the best experiences I ever had.

[senrab]

Penguin will go down as my great missed track. Again, a strong song that never seemed to make it onto set lists (past this tour?). Always wondered if there was a technical challenge in performing it, or just a track that they never really cared for.

I have a bootleg from a show in Cleveland from 2007 where they played it

[sean.bonner]

Penguin will go down as my great missed track. Again, a strong song that never seemed to make it onto set lists (past this tour?). Always wondered if there was a technical challenge in performing it, or just a track that they never really cared for.

I have a bootleg from a show in Cleveland from 2007 where they played it

'Too Damn Powerful'