[gsmacleod]

With Round 5 we see Rink eliminated to give us the final three on this album.

Eliminated Round 1
Pretend
Last Night I Dreamed You Didn't Love Me
In View

Eliminated Round 2
Fly
Luv(sic)

Eliminated Round 3
World Container

Eliminated Round 4
Yer Not The Ocean

Eliminated Round 5
The Lonely End Of The Rink

Vote for the song you believe to be the weakest on World Container and after 48 hours, we will remove the song that has the most votes.

The poll will end Saturday at 10:23am Eastern.

Happy voting!

Shane

[Moof_Milker]

I've always been intrigued by the influence of parenthood on Gord's writing...ever since he wrote unfriendly things on the day his first child was born. Each album has references or allusions to being a parent, usually mirroring Gord's own parental stage at the time -- from toddler's spilling paint and so on. Ten years after Put It Off, in 2006, we've now got a bunch of young kids in the Hip family - enough to entertain the notion of getting them all together in one big travelling family band. But parenthood isn't always easy and sometimes those kids we love so much just don't get it...just how hard it is. So, I love the idea of The Kids Don't Get It and Family Band being in the final two. But again The Drop Off has a comet from earth in a Kiss Alive shirt saying "Holy Fuck it's Jesus" - so I don't know where to put my vote.

[potsie]

I've always been intrigued by the influence of parenthood on Gord's writing...ever since he wrote unfriendly things on the day his first child was born. Each album has references or allusions to being a parent, usually mirroring Gord's own parental stage at the time -- from toddler's spilling paint and so on. Ten years after Put It Off, in 2006, we've now got a bunch of young kids in the Hip family - enough to entertain the notion of getting them all together in one big travelling family band. But parenthood isn't always easy and sometimes those kids we love so much just don't get it...just how hard it is. So, I love the idea of The Kids Don't Get It and Family Band being in the final two. But again The Drop Off has a comet from earth in a Kiss Alive shirt saying "Holy f**k it's Jesus" - so I don't know where to put my vote.

One could imagine parenthood also coming into play on the Drop Off: "Don't go swimming past the drop off" sounds like Gord dispensing sage fatherly advice to his young kids at the beach.

[Escape@Hand]

This Kids DO get it...the boot that is! Great song but a notch below the obvious final round.

[andrew sharpe]

This Kids DO get it...the boot that is!

LOL. I voted the same. Paul & Johnny are a snip more interesting on Drop Off. I do love the unhinged vocals (and some great woo's) on both Kids and Drop Off. And I also love the "if I ask you a question" merge from Drop into Pretend.

[andrew sharpe]

One could imagine parenthood also coming into play on the Drop Off: "Don't go swimming past the drop off" sounds like Gord dispensing sage fatherly advice to his young kids at the beach.

No doubt, and it's also a reference to a near-drowning that Gord had as a child.

[Chris Tanz]

Family Band -- the least-talked-about, best song. What does it have like 6 votes this whole poll.

I voted for Drop Off, and then hated myself for it, and then thought, well how was I gonna vote for Kids?, and I certainly wasn't going to vote for Family Band. These songs may not be (or may be) Hall of Famers, but they're perennial All-Stars. I'd listen to all three of them anytime. #Neverskippers.

ct

[Chris Tanz]

One could imagine parenthood also coming into play on the Drop Off: "Don't go swimming past the drop off" sounds like Gord dispensing sage fatherly advice to his young kids at the beach.

No doubt, and it's also a reference to a near-drowning that Gord had as a child.

Just a touch different from the My First Girlfriend recounting of the incident.

[fingernailsonhull]

Kids is a great tune. But Drop Off and Family Band are the two strongest on the album. Amazing songs.

[Killer Whale Tank]

Drop Off is a fabulous composition, but it shoots itself in the foot with the bizarre vocal. The sad truth is, I don't listen to that song any more, just because I find the vocal so intrusive; of all Hip songs, this is the one that suffers the most from bad vocal decisions. So I voted against it. However, I'm not surprised to see 'Kids' losing this one, although I AM pleasantly surprised to see that it held in there for this long.

The funny thing about 'Family Band' is that yes, it's a good song. But is it really so great that it should be the champion cut on a Hip record? It seems, rather, to be one of a handful of incontestably strong cuts on an otherwise misbegotten album, and of those strong cuts, it has the fewest 'triggers:' i.e., no extreme vocal or battering chords like 'Kids,' no vocal self-sabotage like 'Drop Off,' no controversial middle eight like 'Rink,' no grotesque plodding keyboards like the dreary 'Ocean' or the featherweight 'In View.' Certainly I have trouble thinking of 'Family Band' as one of a rarified clutch of true Hip classics - yet I could see people giving 'classic' status to 'Drop Off' or 'Rink,' for instance (even if I personally wouldn't). In other words, I see FB as winning the WC competition less because of its intrinsic fabulousness and more because of perceived flaws in the other songs. Just a thought.

[Chris Tanz]

^ What he said. What I kinda meant too.

ct

[potsie]

Drop Off is a fabulous composition, but it shoots itself in the foot with the bizarre vocal. The sad truth is, I don't listen to that song any more, just because I find the vocal so intrusive; of all Hip songs, this is the one that suffers the most from bad vocal decisions. So I voted against it. However, I'm not surprised to see 'Kids' losing this one, although I AM pleasantly surprised to see that it held in there for this long.

The funny thing about 'Family Band' is that yes, it's a good song. But is it really so great that it should be the champion cut on a Hip record? It seems, rather, to be one of a handful of incontestably strong cuts on an otherwise misbegotten album, and of those strong cuts, it has the fewest 'triggers:' i.e., no extreme vocal or battering chords like 'Kids,' no vocal self-sabotage like 'Drop Off,' no controversial middle eight like 'Rink,' no grotesque plodding keyboards like the dreary 'Ocean' or the featherweight 'In View.' Certainly I have trouble thinking of 'Family Band' as one of a rarified clutch of true Hip classics - yet I could see people giving 'classic' status to 'Drop Off' or 'Rink,' for instance (even if I personally wouldn't). In other words, I see FB as winning the WC competition less because of its intrinsic fabulousness and more because of perceived flaws in the other songs. Just a thought.

An interesting perspective. Let's say Yer Favs came out in 2007, instead of 2005, allowing for potential entrants from World Container. Is Family Band worthy of a place on that collection, alongside Three Pistols, Locked, Grace, ABAC, etc (picking some of the previous poll winners)? Maybe... but to me it's not a hands-down, no-f**king-doubt-about decision like it should be for the "best" song from a Hip album. Is Family Band simply a big fish in the small (shallow?) pond of World Container?

Regardless, I love it, and all the final four for this poll. The hard manner in which Gord comes down on the biting "Smokin'" (the first time) feels right in all the ways that the hard come down on "thing" in the chorus of "Beautiful Thing" feels wrong. And how about Paul on this song? He's the star member of Family Band. My one small complaint would be the manner in which the song opens. Paul's rhythm guitar feels hollow (I think it's isolated to one channel) whereas at the 2:30 mark of the song, right after the pause, Paul gets a 15 second rhythm spotlight where his guitar is foregrounded and it sounds awesome. I wish the song had opened the same way.

[ryan93]

An interesting perspective. Let's say Yer Favs came out in 2007, instead of 2005, allowing for potential entrants from World Container. Is Family Band worthy of a place on that collection, alongside Three Pistols, Locked, Grace, ABAC, etc (picking some of the previous poll winners)? Maybe... but to me it's not a hands-down, no-f**king-doubt-about decision like it should be for the "best" song from a Hip album. Is Family Band simply a big fish in the small (shallow?) pond of World Container?

Regardless, I love it, and all the final four for this poll. The hard manner in which Gord comes down on the biting "Smokin'" (the first time) feels right in all the ways that the hard come down on "thing" in the chorus of "Beautiful Thing" feels wrong. And how about Paul on this song? He's the star member of Family Band. My one small complaint would be the manner in which the song opens. Paul's rhythm guitar feels hollow (I think it's isolated to one channel) whereas at the 2:30 mark of the song, right after the pause, Paul gets a 15 second rhythm spotlight where his guitar is foregrounded and it sounds awesome. I wish the song had opened the same way.

You can say that about most albums, post TATHH really. Emperor Penguin won the Phantom Power poll, and yet it wasn’t on Yer Favoirtes which came out 7 years after PP was released. Lake Fever made the cut, though I wouldn’t say it’s a “no brainer...” as you said. The Dire Wolf & Goodnight Josephine aren’t on YF either. I’m not so sure any of the upcoming winners from WATS, Plan A, or MMP will be no brainers either. Now if it was just us hipbasers voting on the album cuts as opposed to just the average fans as well, then it might be another story...