YMMV / The Tragically Hip

• Americans Hate Tingle: The group had a career that spans 30-plus years, and were hugely successful and revered in Canada, but were treated with outright indifference or irrelevance in the United States. They were never able to break through into the American market (besides Michigan ^note  particularly Detroit and the Buffalo, New York area), despite appearing on at least one episode of Saturday Night Live and doing several American tours, and had more or less given up on trying to make it south of the border.
  • Trouble at the Henhouse was, in fact, their final attempt to break through into the US market. If one looks closely at the content, they'll find it contains much fewer Canadian references versus their releases both prior and future. Ironically, it went on to tie their highest-charting album in Canada with their prior release, Day for Night, and spawned what might still be their most well-known song, "Ahead By A Century".
  • They've been public referred to as "Canada's biggest band", and downplayed that by saying "That's like being called the world's tallest midget."
  • Interestingly, when the Hip played their final concert, it received worldwide attention and raised awareness of how important they are in Canada. No telling if it raises their standing in the US, but at least they're acknowledged more by non-Canadians.
  • Gord Downie's passing in 2017 was covered in Canada like the loss of David Bowie, Prince or Tom Petty. In the United States, his death received a comparatively muted reception: It certainly got ample coverage from most music publications - many of whom brought in a Canadian writer to explain how much the band meant to the country - and he got the standard lengthy obituary from The New York Times, but it didn't nearly have the reaction it had above the border. It was particularly telling when many NHL stars and teams, as well as the league itself, paid tribute to Downie on Twitter the day of his death, but his beloved Boston Bruins did not take part in it.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: "Nautical Disaster" is not a regular on radio playlists, but is still viewed as one of the band's best songs by much of the fanbase.
• Growing the Beard: Many fans seem to agree that, for all the success of the band's first three albums, 1992's Fully Completely is the point where all the elements of the band fully coalesced, and produced the most hits of any of the band's albums.
• Harsher in Hindsight: "New Orleans Is Sinking" after Hurricane Katrina, for obvious reasons.
  • So much so that for a long time after the disaster, Canadian radio stations refused to play the song. Oddly enough, the song isn't about the city physically sinking, and Gord Downie stated in 2006 that the message of the song is praising a city that will rise up again.
• Tear Jerker:
  • "Heaven Is A Better Place Today".
  • The end of "Bobcaygeon" can evoke an entirely different type of tears.
  • "Fiddler's Green" is about a boy who dies long before his time, and how he'll have help in the afterlife. The band rarely plays it live, because it's too personal and because they can't.
  • "The Last Recluse", with its airy sound and subdued vocals can definitely cue the waterworks, especially at the end.
  What do I do
  Without you?

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