I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE TRAGICALLY HIP-World Container™ (2006).

After delivering a number of different-sounding yet great records since their musical heyday, The Hip turned a commercial corner with this release.  The producer is Bob Rock, famed for all manner of commercial pop-metal recordings, and his style is all over this disc.  I don’t know how commercially successful this disc was or if it made a dent at all in the U.S., but it’s not for want of trying.

“Yer Not The Ocean” is the big opening song with big chords and soft verses.  The best song is the second one, “The Lonely End of the Rink” a breakneck track which brims with intensity (as a song about hockey ought to).  And then the album shows its commericalness.

“In View” is so aggressively poppy it could be on the soundtrack to any teenybopper movie.  It’s followed by “Fly” an unreasonably over-the-top ballad.  It’s somewhat unfathomable to think that the Hip had this kind of poppiness in them, as they’ve always been slightly left of pop-land.  But wow, they pull out all the stops there.

The Kids Don’t Get It” starts awkwardly (but with fun/clever lyrics) and then it gets catchy.  Those same clever/fun lyrics are repeated in the piano ballad “Pretend.”  It’s a very nice ballad, but seems odd for the Hip.  An instant encore/lighter moment, it’s not sappy exactly, it’s just lacking any kind of edge.

By this time, one hardly expects “The Drop Off” an aggressive track in which Downie’s voice sounds kind of bratty.  It’s an interesting effect.  And it leads to the final track, “World Container,” another major plea for airplay.  It is such an aggressively over the top radio anthem that you almost feel bad for the band.

I remember enjoying this album a lot when it came out, but listening to it now in the context of their other records, it seems like a strange plea for commercial success.  I’m not sure if that’s what they were after, but I hope they got a bit of it.

[READ: March 8, 2011] “Miss You Already”

I’ve read a few stories lately that have been rather dark. So when this one opened with “Mary Ann didn’t think she would want the casket open,” I thought, oh boy another one.  However, this story proved to be dark in an entirely different way.   And in fact, the darkness is tempered with incredible tenderness.

So, we know right off the bat that someone Mary Ann loves has died. It turns out to have been her husband.  He was a cyclist and was very fit.  But he was in an accident with a car and didn’t survive.  She loved him very much, and since they both agreed to never have children, they were very content with their lives.   So it was a surprise to many of her friends how quickly she seemed to move on.  But indeed, she was moving on in her own unique way.

And here’s where the story gets oddly touching and yet kind of creepy. She buys a camper van and drives around the country following a map that she has highlighted in pink.  We don’t learn what the locations are until she gets to the first one.  And here I have to give a kind of spoiler because there’s no way to talk about the story without revealing this bit so, the next paragraph will be a spoiler but nothing after that will be.

SPOILER: When her husband died, he had agreed to donate his organs.  She travels around in her van visiting all of the men who received his parts.  She wants to see her husband in these men, and when she finally arrives at everyone’s doors, she believes she does.  Indeed, as she gets closer she can see (in the eyes) or feel (in the scars) or smell (from the lungs) her husband, so she gets closer and closer.  And closer.

When she arrives unannounced at each circled destination, the people at the other end are overjoyed to see her, for she (via her husband) gave something so precious to each of them.  She spends some time with each one and then moves on to the next.  I found myself tearing up at the warmth and emotional reunions these people had, especially when she realized that she could see her husband in these man.  Yet at the same time I was kind of creeped out by it how close she wanted to get with everyone.

She proves to be a tender woman, expressing her love in an unusual way.  And the multiple uses of the title are really wonderful.  And all of that made it a very good story indeed.