Saskadelphia by The Tragically Hip

Saskadelphia, a six-song EP released on May 21, 2021, was the Tragically Hip's first release since Gord Downie died in 2017, and it plays like a time capsule. Every track comes from the sessions for 1991's Road Apples, which was going to be called Saskadelphia, a mash-up of Saskatchewan and Philadelphia, until the label said no. So here is the Kingston band in its early-'90s prime: Downie up front, Rob Baker and Paul Langlois on guitars, Gord Sinclair on bass and Johnny Fay on drums.

The songs nearly stayed buried. In 2019 a New York Times Magazine story counted the Hip among the artists whose masters had gone up in the 2008 fire at Universal Studios, which led to the happy news that their tapes had been shipped back to Canada long before. Five songs are the original studio takes; the sixth couldn't be found and appears as a later live performance. Rick Mercer and Jay Baruchel star in the video for "Ouch", and an animated clip for "Montreal" honors the victims of the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.