Customer Reviews

Music at Work

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Over three years after its release, I'm ready to go out on a limb and say that "Music @ Work" is The Tragically Hip's best record - certainly not a consensus view, given the comments here. But I believe in terms of musicianship, lyrics, variety, innovativeness, and sonic excellence, it's second to none in the Hip's discography.

Unfortunately, "Music @ Work" begins with its weakest song, the relatively inane title track - a fairly cynical attempt at a hit single. The next song, "Tiger the Lion," is unquestionably an acquired taste, with its sinister guitar chords and obscure John Cage references. But to me, this is the type of song that makes The Hip great - a gutsy, idiosyncratic reworking of the rock idiom. After that comes one of the Hip's best songs ever, "Lake Fever." It's simply a beautiful song, with lush acoustic instrumentation, spine-tingling chord changes, and one of vocalist Gordon Downie's strongest performances.

The rest of the record weaves through varied musical territory. There are straight-ahead rockers, like "Putting Down" and "The Bastard," as well as atmospheric ballads such as "Toronto #4" and "As I Wind Down the Pines." How many bands have written a song from a carnivorous bear's point of view? Not many - but on "The Bear," the Hip do it with tongue-in-cheek aplomb.

The Hip's charmingly peculiar style establishes a sense of continuity that helps guide the listener through their diverse musical landscape. Their Canadian milieu informs their music with a unique cultural and geographical sensibility that sets them apart from other current alternative artists.

As bold and varied as the colors on its cover, "Music @ Work" is a wonderfully diverse and grand accomplishment. For everyone? Maybe not. But for this Hip fan, it's their best.

As I mentioned praising "Violet Light" I always find "Tiger The Lion" a jarring, disruptive tune that I think puts a lot of people off playing this record through. I just don't get why it's there - and I take no real issue with the Hip's other 100 songs, just this beast on track #2 of this otherwise fine CD.

This record did not do very well. (Damn that track #2!) Yet it has as many good tunes as their best sellers. I generally skip tracks playing any CD (opinionated as I am) yet most of this CD has me glued to the speakers rather than the skip button.

There are essential tunes on this CD for any Hip music consumer. And they sound great which is a bonus.

Music @ Work was my first TTH album ever, and remains one of my favorites. The band has come a long way from this style of music with the recent release of 'In Between Evolution' and the difference is quite stark. The days of 'Music @ Work' seemed to have been simpler times, with simpler, more 'popular' tunes and solid, stick-with-you songs. "The Completists", "Tiger the Lion", and "Sharks" sit high on my favorite Hip songs list. A definite must-have for your Hip listening pleasure. There is just something about song lyrics that actually mean something...

The fact that this altogether excellent album suffered from relatively underwhelming sales confirms one of two theories: either listeners have begun to take the band's dependability for granted, or the multi-faceted system in place to promote quality rock music has faltered though sheer laziness and indifference. Music @ Work mirrors the structural strides made by the last release - producer Steve Berlin has been a godsend - while imparting significantly more aural interest. Variety is the key; a quick spin through the disk exposes straightforward rave-ups ("Freak Turbulence", the tilte track), moody devastation ("Sharks", "The Bear"), big-guitar bombast ("Tiger the Lion"), and acoustic tenderness ("Stay", "As I Wind Down the Pines"). To be blunt, everything impresses and nothing disappoints

For years I've been wanting to like this album. I keep returning to it, thinking I missed something, thinking: "This time the genius will reveal itself." Except, there is no genius to be revealed on this album, only sparks of brilliance scattered across a lamentable release by an otherwise extraordinary band. That said, "The Completists" is a marvelous song, "Lake Fever" establishes a deft and irresistible groove, "Stay" is downright moving (before it wanders off into the Zen parody of the final verse), and "As I Wind Down the Pines" is a work of singular beauty, far and away the most emotionally direct and engaging song on the album. As a whole, "Music @ Work" benefits greatly from Steve Berlin's production: the textures are rich, subtle and inventive. But there's something lacking at the core of these songs. Gordon Downie has never been guilty of cozying up to the listener, but this time he goes to ridiculous lengths to keep his distance. "I'm the Islander," he sings on "The Bear." Indeed he is. But why? Is he angry? Has someone broken his heart? Is it lonely on that island of his? We'll never know. One senses in the willful obscurity of Downie's lyrics a veritable contempt for those who would dare to ask such questions. On the title track he sings: "in a sink full of Ganges, I remain- / No matter what you heard." As in: whatever meaning you find--or think you find--in my lyrics, you won't find me. This petulant need for distance runs through all of the writing, leaving an emotional vacancy inside even the best songs (with the exception of "As I Wind Down the Pines," where in a rare moment of candor we find Downie in "a nest in the hole of / this dead / tree"). In general, the writing on this album feels forced, with Downie's idiosyncratic diction straining to find a place in the melody. This is perhaps what's most disappointing about "Music @ Work," given Downie's extraordinary ability to wed complex and inventive verbal cadences to music (as evidenced to perfection on "Phantom Power"). There's a weariness behind these lyrics, a bitterness even, as of a man seriously questioning the merits of life on the road. At it's worst, Downie's songwriting becomes an act of revenge, as on the abominable "Sharks," a work of punishing futility that seems to have been created as a kind of anti-song. To include a piece like this on the album lends a sad irony to an exceptional line from "Putting Down": "I'm starting to fail to know what's best."

Of course, no review of "Music @ Work" would be complete without some discussion of "Tiger the Lion." Now there's a song that divides people. I can't say I love it, but I do love the fact that it exists. It's not every day you run across a song espousing John Cage's aesthetics. One reviewer has written that he can't decide if the Cage references are "unbearable or endearingly earnest." Well, they sound pretty earnest to me, and that in itself is endearing, given the aloofness that characterizes most of the album. Downie is actually committed on this one: he's out on a limb, he's celebrating something he believes in, and he's inviting ridicule for doing so. That takes courage. Also, the song is just so damn weird everybody should listen to it at least once. The subject matter, coupled with the slow, heavy, head-banging groove that drives most of the song creates a totally surreal effect, as if a drowsy grad student were suddenly forced to be the lead singer of Deep Purple. Not to be missed.

Hmm. I didn't mean for this review to turn out so negative. I think that The Tragically Hip have recorded some of the greatest albums of all time. "Music @ Work" just isn't one of them.

His music has words. Or at least that's what Gord Downie sounds like he's asserting on the title track to the Hip's latest. That his music has words has never really been a question: part of the appeal of Canada's celebrated five-piece of cerebral songmakers has been making sense of Downie's Scrabblesque wordplay and juxtaposed literary obscurities. Prepare yourself - he's in fine form here, with mindboggling mergers of John Cage, the Ganges, tigers and lions and Aussie-eating sharks, surrealistic sentiments seemingly designed with the same intent as I Am the Walrus - to confound those who would dissect the songs of others. That said, Music @ Work is a complete reversal from the jangly commercial Phantom Power. The unmistakably eclectic presence of Los Lobos' Steve Berlin pulses in and out of the band's new bag of tunes like a moody weather front, particulary on the breezy Stay, with it's hip-hop beats and flamenco riffs and the click-clock cloudburst of Sharks. Elsewhere, Julie Doiron steps in to add her distinct vocal finesse, the highlight being the plush but steady Toronto #4 where she and the band are joined by Sarah Pinchette on cello. The rest is a now-standard mix of white boy blues (Tiger the Lion), dreamy Brit pop psychedelics (Lake Fever), stripped-down raggedy-edged rock (Stay) and jangly mid-Canada punch (The Completists) with wonderfully esoteric lyrics designed to be sung like a mantra and understood by no one. But despite - or because of - a little help from their friends, Music @ Work is a worried and fussed over thing (Downie's repeated reliance on the word caramelized aside), an album which serves to bolster the theory that the Hip sound so much better when their music's at play.

This is Canada's worst and most overrated band. They are a disgrace to the country. I am sad to know they are from here and wish they weren't. The singer's voice sounds exactly like the singer from REM which is another horrid band. It is such an annoying and bland voice. It never changes and sounds exactly the same on every song. I especially can't stand My Music At Work which got so sickening I wanted to literally shoot the song. I wanted to kill a song. I don't know how that's possible but after hearing that song I realized it was. What a completely horrible poopy band. And to think they're the band that is generally mentioned first when Canadian rock music is talked about. Pathetic.