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The Tragically Hip

Canadian rock band

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ682030
Source-derived summary

The Tragically Hip, often referred to simply as the Hip, was a Canadian rock band formed in Kingston, Ontario in 1984, consisting of vocalist Gord Downie, guitarist Paul Langlois, guitarist Rob Baker (known as Bobby Baker until 1994), bassist Gord Sinclair, and drummer Johnny Fay. They released 13 studio albums, two live albums, two EPs, and over 50 singles over a 33-year career. Nine of their albums have reached No. 1 on the Canadian charts. They have received numerous Canadian music awards, including 17 Juno Awards. Between 1996 and 2016, the Tragically Hip were the best-selling Canadian band in Canada and the fourth best-selling Canadian artist overall in Canada.

Following Downie's diagnosis with terminal brain cancer in 2015, the band undertook a tour of Canada in support of their thirteenth album, Man Machine Poem. The tour's final concert, which would ultimately be the band's last show, was held at the Rogers K-Rock Centre in Kingston on August 20, 2016, and broadcast globally by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a cross-platform television, radio and internet streaming special.

After Downie died on October 17, 2017, the band announced in July 2018 that they would no longer perform under the name. The surviving members have, however, continued to pursue other musical projects, and have begun releasing deluxe reissues of their albums featuring previously unreleased songs from the band's archives.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Tragically Hip” is canadian rock band. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Tragically, Canadian and rock, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1984, 1994, 1996, 2016—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1984. For this dossier, Tragically, Canadian and rock is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “canadian rock band” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q682030. VIAF identifies the subject as 146749081. The Library of Congress control number is n91128401. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1984, 1994, 1996 and 2016.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “The Tragically Hip”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow The Tragically Hip primary sources, The Tragically Hip archive and Tragically research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Tragically Hip”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from The Tragically Hip” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.