Fully & Completely: Redux

Episode 102 — Up To Here (1989)

A presentation of The Tragically Hip Podcast Series

Hosted by jD and Greg LeGros

If Episode 101 was the band trying to get hired, Up To Here is the band showing up like: we’re already the headliners, you just don’t know it yet.

Released in September 1989, The Tragically Hip’s first full-length LP is the moment where the sweat and swagger of the EP turns into something sturdier — a vibe, a sound, an identity. This is the record that made the country start paying attention in a different way. Not “hey, that bar band is pretty good,” but “oh… this is our band.”

We set the scene: Mulroney still running the country, the first Grey Cup at the SkyDome (and yes, the Rough Riders/Roughriders nonsense is as chaotic as it sounds), and a pop-heavy musical world where Repeat Offender, Milli Vanilli, Paula Abdul, and even Dr. Feelgood are moving units like it’s a national sport. Meanwhile, the underground is brewing — Sonic Youth, the weirdos starting to kick the door open — and out of Kingston comes this bluesy, barroom, don’t-overthink-it-just-turn-it-up record that somehow becomes a diamond-certified Canadian classic.

We talk about why Up To Here connects with everybody — the Queens Pub crowd, the farm-town beer crowd, the “I only know four Hip songs but I know them perfectly” crowd — and how certain tracks became bigger than the band itself. There’s a whole New Orleans is Sinking tangent involving Crown Royal, Lake Ontario, and one of the most wholesome cross-cultural Canadian moments imaginable.

This album is loaded. Side A is basically a greatest hits package. But we also dig into the deeper stuff: the early emergence of Gord’s strange, slippery cadence; the way the band’s confidence jumps from the EP to this like it got shot out of a cannon; and the idea that every Hip album has at least one track that quietly points at what comes next.

Up To Here is where the lesson plan gets real.

In This Episode

• The cultural and musical landscape of 1989 (Mulroney, pop domination, the underground brewing)
• Why Up To Here hit everywhere in Canada — bars, cottages, dorms, and car stereos
• The leap in identity from the EP to a full-on signature sound
• “New Orleans is Sinking” as a national anthem (and as a live-performance launchpad)
• Gord Downie’s early “how-the-hell-do-you-sing-that” cadence taking shape (“38 Years Old”)
• The record’s “top-heavy” track sequencing — and why it works
• Deep-cut advocacy hour: “Every Time You Go” gets its flowers
• The “DNA track” theory: one song per album that hints at the next record
• Listener callout: What’s your Up To Here moment?
• 
  

Album Discussed

Up To Here (1989)

Produced by Don Smith

A barroom-recorded, road-tested, diamond-certified cornerstone.

Time Capsule Tracks

• jD’s pick: 38 Years Old
• Greg’s pick: Opiated

What’s Next

Next week, we keep moving — and you can already feel the band getting sharper, stranger, and more themselves. The evolution is in motion.

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