[Marcus1970]

Someone needs to remind the Hip that their album Music @ Work doesn't end after the first 4 songs. The album contains 14 quality tracks yet the Hip appear reluctant to play any of the last 10 songs live.

I understand that this isn't the most popular album among Hip fans but I'm sure the boys are proud of the songs and would probably enjoy breaking them out from time to time. Now that Fiddler's Green is in the rotation, why not The Pines? Great Song!

The first Hip concert I attended was at the ACC on Dec. 23, 2000. They played Toronto #4, Freak Turbulance, The Completists and Wild Mountain Honey. These songs rocked and yet 3 of them have never been played again. For songs like Stay, Sharks and The Bear it's been even longer. Where is the love?

I'd love to attend a Hip concert where the setlist consisted of songs taken from the last 4-5 tracks on each album, not the firt 4-5. The ACC concert I attended also had On the Verge, 3 Pistols, IOD, Looking for a Place to Happen and EMPEROR PENGUIN, not to mention Pigeon and Yawning. What a Great Show!

Anyway, I didn't want to start another thread about why the Hip don't mix up there setlists or add more gems. I was just listening to Music @ Work and reliving some good memories. I hope to hear some of these tunes as they continue their tour, but I won't hold my breath. Thanks for listening

[Zenith]

This is the album that got me into The Hip, and I love it! I'd definitely love to hear some more songs from M @ W slipped into the live shows - especially things like 'The Bear'.

Plenty of love coming from me! :thumb:

[ewallman]

Someone needs to remind the Hip that their album Music @ Work doesn't end after the first 4 songs. The album contains 14 quality tracks yet the Hip appear reluctant to play any of the last 10 songs live.

I understand that this isn't the most popular album among Hip fans but I'm sure the boys are proud of the songs and would probably enjoy breaking them out from time to time. Now that Fiddler's Green is in the rotation, why not The Pines? Great Song!

The first Hip concert I attended was at the ACC on Dec. 23, 2000. They played Toronto #4, Freak Turbulance, The Completists and Wild Mountain Honey. These songs rocked and yet 3 of them have never been played again. For songs like Stay, Sharks and The Bear it's been even longer. Where is the love?

I'd love to attend a Hip concert where the setlist consisted of songs taken from the last 4-5 tracks on each album, not the firt 4-5. The ACC concert I attended also had On the Verge, 3 Pistols, IOD, Looking for a Place to Happen and EMPEROR PENGUIN, not to mention Pigeon and Yawning. What a Great Show!

Anyway, I didn't want to start another thread about why the Hip don't mix up there setlists or add more gems. I was just listening to Music @ Work and reliving some good memories. I hope to hear some of these tunes as they continue their tour, but I won't hold my breath. Thanks for listening

Well, I just played this CD in my car for the last few days. To me it is the weakest CD so i was giving it another shot to see if I was missing anything. After the first 4 songs, the others don't seem to give me a feel that they are good live. Maybe the band thinks the same and does not care to play those particular tunes.

[sean.bonner]

Sharks is one of the most amazing songs that I have ever heard.
As well as TO #4.
And The Bear.

And Wild Mountain Honey


The whole effing thing is amazing!

[laliber]

Stay and The Bastard are a great one two after the first four songs -
Music At Work is a fine album in my books :thumb:

[daylight]

Yeah, I love M@W as well. Shame it was so ill-received, as I'd kill (well, maybe) to hear a lot of those songs again. I've had Train Overnight stuck in my head for the past 24 hours or so, and it's not even one of my favourites! I can understand why they don't do songs like The Bastard, because of the tablas, and a few of the other ones are too piano-y or whatever, but a lot of it could easily be adapted. Unfortunately, I don't think enough fans agree with us for the band to bother.

[Hard Canadian]

i hated the song music @ work when it first came out until i heard it live. the song is so much better live then it is on the record, in my opinion anyways. best song on the record to me is the bastard and isn't that track 6 if im not mistaken?

[skippy the wonder dog]

Music @ Work was badly received because, to put it in the simplest terms, it's a bad album of good songs.

The problem with M@W is that it's diffuse and unfocused as an album, and it doesn't flow. You get Tiger the Lion at one end and something like Toronto #4 at the other. The listener comes out of one song with a sound in his head, and when the next song goes somewhere else entirely, his natural reaction is 'what is this shit?" So the album as a whole doesn't work.

If you take the songs individually, there are a lot of good songs on that record. And unfortunately, the Hip in their arena shows tend to play it safe and avoid playing unknown songs from ill-received albums, so we don't see those songs in setlists anymore.

I love Sharks.

[The Horrible Esthete]

M@W is a fantasic record.

Tiger, Lake, Stay, Completists, Toronto, WM Honey, Sharks, Train, Bear, Pines -- love 'em.

Incidentally, "Pines" was recorded at Kingsway on Esplanade in the French Quarter, and the sirens you hear are NOLA PD. Daniel Lanois suggested that it be left in the record, reminiscent of the airplane passing overhead that is audible in Zeppelin's "Black Country Woman", which was recorded in the cottage garden at Bron-Yr-Aur (that's what Plant is referring to during the intro when he says "Nah - leave it.")

[ewallman]

Music @ Work was badly received because, to put it in the simplest terms, it's a bad album of good songs.

The problem with M@W is that it's diffuse and unfocused as an album, and it doesn't flow. You get Tiger the Lion at one end and something like Toronto #4 at the other. The listener comes out of one song with a sound in his head, and when the next song goes somewhere else entirely, his natural reaction is 'what is this shit?" So the album as a whole doesn't work.

This is a far better explanation than what I mentioned previously. The songs seem disconnected from one another.

[cferneyh]

The problem with M@W is that it's diffuse and unfocused as an album, and it doesn't flow.

I really don't understand the concept of an album's "flow". I simply don't care if track 12 sounds nothing like track 1.

Maybe that's why I'm one of the few who would put M@W among the Hip's best work. The Bear and Sharks are easily among the best songs in the Hip's catalog (IMO, of course).

[Zenith]

The problem with M@W is that it's diffuse and unfocused as an album, and it doesn't flow. You get Tiger the Lion at one end and something like Toronto #4 at the other. The listener comes out of one song with a sound in his head, and when the next song goes somewhere else entirely, his natural reaction is 'what is this shit?" So the album as a whole doesn't work.

Actually, I agree with you there. I think the 'it's a bad album of good songs' thing is quite acurate. However, the good songs are VERY good! :thumb: But I agree, it doesn't flow too well.

And the artwork is awful.

[skippy the wonder dog]

I really don't understand the concept of an album's "flow". I simply don't care if track 12 sounds nothing like track 1.

Maybe that's why I'm one of the few who would put M@W among the Hip's best work.

I'd suggest that most people aren't as adaptable in their listening. Most people like things to stay the same, or to transition gradually. I think the attempt to make M@W flow resulted in a record that seems to peter out on side 2.

It is in some ways among their best work. Lots has been said about how their songwriting process changed on that record, with Downie having moved to Toronto, songs being written in the studio, etc. The result was a much more varied collection of songs than we'd seen previously. The band broke the mould on that record, more so I think than on any other.

Paradoxically, the strength of the album is also the source of its weakness. With all the defences of World Container as the band changing and growing, it's actually M@W that was the boldest thing they've done. (cf. Rob Baker's comment on Tiger the Lion being their most adventurous song.) And it's too bad it was badly received, as that may have affected what they did since.

[The Horrible Esthete]

The problem with M@W is that it's diffuse and unfocused as an album, and it doesn't flow.

I really don't understand the concept of an album's "flow". I simply don't care if track 12 sounds nothing like track 1.

I'm right there with ya. I never understood why "flow" matters, unless the goal is a "concept album". If someone tries to claim that the album is worse because "Wild Mountain Honey" is preceded by "Toronto #4", then perhaps real the issue isn't that the record is "disjunct", but that the critic is obsessive-compulsive.

It's a rock album, not a Broadway musical.

To me, each song is a seperate and individual entity that has no relationship whatsoever to another, except general technical characteristics.

[skippy the wonder dog]

The problem with M@W is that it's diffuse and unfocused as an album, and it doesn't flow.

I really don't understand the concept of an album's "flow". I simply don't care if track 12 sounds nothing like track 1.

I'm right there with ya. I never understood why "flow" matters, unless the goal is a "concept album". If someone tries to claim that the album is worse because "Wild Mountain Honey" is preceded by "Toronto #4", then perhaps real the issue isn't that the record is "disjunct", but that the critic is obsessive-compulsive.

It's a rock album, not a Broadway musical.

What you're struggling wth is not the product of my obsessive-compulsive disorder, but of your failure to separate the general from the specific, and the objective from the subjective.

People favour the familiar and repetitious in music. That statement is backed up not only by a large body of research (you can start at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.psych.mcgill.ca/labs/levitin/">http://www.psych.mcgill.ca/labs/levitin/</a><!-- m -->), but by the simple and oft-repeated observation that the music industry gets people to buy crap by repeatedly forcing them to listen to it.

That's true of everyone to some degree, but individuals vary in how they respond to music and how actively they listen to it. It's not a stretch to suggest that people who listen to music less actively tend to favour greater familiarity and less change; this is supported by the nature of Muzak and pop-music clone acts, whose listeners surely are the least active listeners around. It's also not a stretch to suggest that the less active listeners are the larger group; again, this is supported by the nature of music that has the broadest appeal.

From that, it should be pretty clear that an album will have broader appeal if changes in tempo, timbre, etc. are gradual and minimal, rather than significant and abrupt. It will have broader appeal because it is more "listenable," that is, less demanding of the listener's attention. And this leads us to the suggestion that a less "listenable" album may sell more poorly, even if the individual songs are appealing, which is the case with M@W.

This can be verified by a simple experiment. You compile two playlists. One playlist groups a set of songs that flows, and the other jumbles them at random. You then subject a large number of volunteer listeners to one or the other of the playlists, and record their impressions -- not of the flow but of (a) the individual songs and (b) the playlist as a whole.

My suggestion is that the listeners of the jumbled playlist will not only rate the playlist lower as a whole, but also rate the individual songs lower.

If I actually do that experiment and post my results, then you can call me obsessive.

To say an album is "bad" is completely subjective. It depends what your yardstick is. If your concern is with whether you like the songs individually, you can call M@W a great album. But in calling it a "bad album," my concern is with why it was a sales failure.