The Tragically Hip
Music @ Work
Album · Rock · 2000
On The Hip’s seventh album, the latent contrast between the band’s steady rock ‘n’ roll strut and Gord Downie’s eccentric nature is thrown into stark relief. His subversive sensibility permeates the title track, an ascendent, anthemic rocker…about depression. On the prog-grunge opus “Tiger the Lion”, he’s name-dropping John Cage; atop the gleaming guitars of “Sharks”, he ponders the titular fish’s taste for Australians. And that’s just the second-strangest song here about carnivorous creatures: over the dreamy folk drive of “The Bear”, Downie gives voice to a grizzly feasting on a woman whose “heart must be a caramelized onion”.