ALBUM RELEASE NEWS

You gotta do what you feel is real, and The Tragically Hip continue doing just that with the upcoming 180g 4LP/1BD box set commemorating the 35th anniversary of their September 1989 debut album, Up to Here, which was produced by Don Smith and recorded at Ardent Studios in Memphis. An expansive collection featuring scores of unreleased tracks, demos, and live material, The Hip’s Up to Here box is set for release via UMe on November 8, 2024.

The commemorative package includes four 180g LPs, a Blu-ray with a Dolby Atmos mix of the core album and four bonus tracks plus an hour-long of-era live concert on video, as well as a book documenting the history of The Hip’s debut-album era. The SRP for the Up to Here 4LP/1BD box set is $175, and it can be pre-ordered here.

The Up to Here box set’s techie stats are these, as confirmed exclusively and directly to AP by the band’s ace technical team. This reissue includes a 2024 remastering of the original album by longtime Hip production associate Mark Vreeken and, quote, “the source material for all songs were the original analog tapes. Nothing was mastered/remastered from a digital source.” Furthermore, this collection was “direct metal mastered through our production supplier, Precision Record Pressing NA.” (All of this, of course, is music to our analog-loving ears.)

Up to Here was originally released on MCA on September 5, 1989, as The Tragically Hip’s first full-length studio album, following their January 1987 seven-track, self-titled EP that was initially issued on RCA Victor before being picked up and re-released by MCA. Up to Here brought The Hip breakthrough success, including two Canadian rock radio No. 1 singles, “Blow at High Dough” and “New Orleans Is Sinking,” as well earning the band a JUNO Award for Most Promising Artist in 1990.

On the U.S. side of the ledger, those two aforementioned songs gained much traction on the hipper (pun intended) FM and college radio stations of the times, and they both remained key entries in The Hip’s live sets all throughout their active performing career.

If you read my News report on The Hip’s RSD 2024 1LP release Live at CBGB’s that posted here back on February 8, 2024, you know how much the band means to me personally. Just last week, on June 13, 2024, I appeared on-camera at my local PBS station, WNED, during three pledge-drive breaks that occurred during their airing of an hour’s worth of the final Hip concert in Kingston, Ontario, from 2016, and I talked about the band’s live prowess and ongoing legacy — but I digress.

Currently, I have four copies of Up to Here on vinyl — one copy of the original Canadian LP on MCA (MCA-6310), two copies of the 2013 180g Music on Vinyl reissue (MOVLP848), and one copy of the 2016 MusicVaultz/MCA reissue (0255704060) — so I’m very much looking forward to obtaining (and listening to) the November-earmarked reissue, in addition to having officially released versions of all the bonus tracks, demos, and live show material that I, er, may or may not have in hand via other means.

Speaking of, said bonus material includes four previously unreleased songs on the second side of LP3 that didn’t make it onto the original Up to Here album — “She’s Got What It Takes,” “Get Back Again,” “Rain, Hearts and Fire,” and “Wait So Long.” Additionally, three sides of LP2 and LP3 include the complete recording of Live at Misty Moon, the audio portion of the live special that was filmed for MuchMusic in 1990 from the Misty Moon Cabaret in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Finally, LP4 contains ten demos from 1988, all of them recorded prior to the official Up to Here recording sessions.

Today, June 20, 2024, The Hip are releasing “Get Back Again,” the newly remixed version of a track that was recorded before the band signed their first major record deal with MCA (now Universal Music Canada). It was produced by Chris Wardman in November 1988, before the Up to Here sessions. The Hip performed “Get Back Again” as part of the aforementioned Live at Misty Moon set, which had been the only recorded version of the track from the band, until now.

A brand-new official music video for “Get Back Again” — directed by Cleveland Henderson, son of Pete Henderson, who had previously directed many videos of the band, including two Fully Completely-culled cuts, “Locked in the Trunk of a Car” and “Courage (For Hugh MacLennan)” — premiered at 7:00 p.m. EST on June 20, 2024, on The Tragically Hip’s YouTube channel, and you can also watch it above. Whoo, baby, I feel fine / I’m pretty sure it’s genuine. . .

THE TRAGICALLY HIP
UP TO HERE: COMMEMORATIVE BOX SET
180g 4LP/1BD (UMe)

LP 1 – Up To Here (2024 remaster of original album)

Side One
1. Blow At High Dough
2. I’ll Believe In You (Or I’ll Be Leaving You Tonight)
3. New Orleans Is Sinking
4. 38 Years Old
5. She Didn’t Know

Side Two
1. Boots Or Hearts
2. Everytime You Go
3. When The Weight Comes Down
4. Trickle Down
5. Another Midnight
6. Opiated

LP 2 – Live At The Misty Moon

Side One
1. Crack My Spine Like A Whip (Live At The Misty Moon)
2. She Didn’t Know (Live At The Misty Moon)
3. Highway Girl (Live At The Misty Moon)
4. Just As Well (Live At The Misty Moon)
5. Boots Or Hearts (Live At The Misty Moon)
6. Trickle Down (Live At The Misty Moon)

Side Two
1. Get Back Again (Live At The Misty Moon)
2. Three Pistols (Live At The Misty Moon)
3. Fight (Live At The Misty Moon)
4. 38 Years Old (Live At The Misty Moon)

LP 3 – Live At The Misty Moon (continued; Side Three only),
plus previously unreleased studio tracks (Side Four only)

Side Three
1. Blow At High Dough (Live At The Misty Moon)
2. I’ll Believe In You (Or I’ll Be Leaving You Tonight)
(Live At The Misty Moon)
3. New Orleans Is Sinking (Live At The Misty Moon)
4. On The Verge (Live At The Misty Moon)

Side Four
1. She’s Got What It Takes
2. Get Back Again
3. Rain, Hearts And Fire
4. Wait So Long

LP 4 – How We Got Here: The 1988 Demos

Side One
1. Hailstone Hands Of God (1988 Demo)
2. When The Weight Comes Down (1988 Demo)
3. I’ll Believe In You (Or I’ll Be Leaving You Tonight) (1988 Demo)
4. New Orleans Is Sinking (1988 Demo)
5. Rain, Hearts And Fire (1988 Demo)

Side Two
1. She Didn’t Know (1988 Demo)
2. Blow At High Dough (1988 Demo)
3. Boots Or Hearts (1988 Demo)
4. Everytime You Go (1988 Demo)
5. Just Another Midnight (1988 Demo)

Blu-ray Disc
contains 15 Dolby Atmos mixes — the core album’s 11 tracks plus four previously unreleased studio tracks — in addition to video of the full one-hour concert film of the Live At Misty Moon show