Hip

I just saw these sales figures on hipbase.com, an excellent Tragically Hip site. These figures sadden me. How could Phantom Power, far and away their best album says I, sell so (relatively) poorly?

The Tragically Hip (1987) 350,000
Up To Here (1989) 1,250,000
Road Apples (1991) 935,000
Fully Completely (1992) 1,035,000
Day for Night (1994) 780,000
Trouble At The Henhouse (1996) 575,000
Live Between Us (1997) 375,000
Phantom Power (1998) 405,000
Music @ Work (2000) 210,000
In Violet Light (2002) 130,000
In Between Evolution (2004) 101,000

Posted by Bryan on December 1, 2005 with category tags of

5 comments
Phantom Power was good but "far and away"? I'll politely differ and privately mock. If I only had to buy one fo those, I'd probably go with Live Between Us, just because it's a good compilation and it captures their live show, which, to be honest, is only so-so but the CD is pretty decent despite.

Oddly, I recently read about these stats in this cbc.ca article.
   comment by vinny9 (#33) on December 1, 2005

Bryan is correct: "Phantom Power" is far and away the Tragically Hip's best album.

Even more tragic, though, is the excellent first solo album by Gordon Downie, as I suspect it sold less than 40k...
   comment by Sean on December 1, 2005

Was GD's second solo album any good?
   comment by Bryan (#22) on December 1, 2005

Fully Completely and Day for Night are my favorite Hip albums. Although, I haven't really listened to some of the later ones. It's very interesting to see these numbers.
   comment by dustin (#1) on December 1, 2005

Bryan - I quite liked it live, but it was only a mediocre record. A couple great songs - "Steeplechase", "More Me Less You", - but the rest is just sort of meandering. He didn't make very many strong choices - neither the wry and very-slightly-experimental stuff of Coke Machine Glow, nor the rock-out pop of Trouble at the Henhouse. The idea of a single was kind of unthinkable on Coke, but of course with Battle of the Nudes there was one ("Pascal's Submarine," I think), and it was emblematic of the entire record: nothing special at all.
   comment by Sean on December 2, 2005

   

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