Also iconic…but nobody would ever call him just "Gord".

The first time I met him was 20 years ago too.

Yeah, they definitely had a large following in US border towns that could access Canadian radio — which probably verifies the theory expressed below that their non-breakthrough in the US had less to do with a fundamental incompatibility with USian musical tastes, and more to do with just not committing to the amount…

Power didn't mean they were stylistically in the same category as Kid Rock — he just meant in terms of not understanding who their fan base was because he wasn't encountering any of them in his daily life, which is a very different thing.

He was a complete sweetheart to me the couple of times I met him…though I'll admit that fan interaction can be very different from working with someone.

Just to be clear, I still like many of the later albums — they just don't rank as highly as the enduring classics of their heyday. Blue Rodeo never topped Five Days in July either, but that doesn't mean their later albums aren't still worthwhile.

Probably true. But I wasn't trying to address the "why didn't they make it big in America" part of the equation, so much as the "how did they manage to stay aloft in Canada despite not making it big in America, when normally Canada would drop a Canadian band from its iPod playlists like a hot potato if that band…

But if Ry Cooder sings his eulogy, wouldn't that mean he died of vanity?

Headstones were never a band I got into as much, although Hugh Dillon always struck me as a cool guy (and, of course, has a second career as an actor now too.)

Yeah, I'm looking forward to that album. I'm not as familiar with Laura Veirs as I am with Neko or k.d., but I guess that just means I have a new artist to investigate.

This thread has been a first all around for AV Club in a lot of ways: this thread also contains the first mentions I can recall seeing on here of Rheostatics, Sudbury, Bala, Weyburn SK, Spirit of the West and even the Tragically Hip itself. Canadian invasion, baby!

I was in high school when the Hip first emerged, which of course means the very early pub-rock albums (the self-titled EP and Up to Here). I was more of a Smiths/R.E.M./Cure guy, while the jocks and douches who were harassing me at school were the Hip crowd, so I had no time for them at all.

Haven't had a chance to see that yet, but I really want to.

Ex-Sudbury boy here as well. (Toronto now.) Never even occurred to me that I might not be the only one on AVClub from the Nickel City!

He might as well go for soda

That and you never, ever, ever stopped hearing "Home for a Rest".

I'll grant that "Spirits" is pretty catchy…

Even though the Hip never made it big in the United States, you'd be surprised how many Americans at least know that they exist as a band that are huge in Canada.

Mmmmmm, another great one.

Yeah, we're harder to find these days but we do still exist…