The following is a Designated Cheerleader piece by @LunarMariaRilke for the Best Album of 1991 tournament. I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you follow the link to vote in the tournament. Thanks!

Never popular anywhere else, The Tragically Hip were kings in their native Canada. When they played their final show in 2016, a full third of the country tuned in to the country's public broadcaster to watch live. I was among them, sitting on the chesterfield with my fiancée, waving my lighter and coming close to tears for a band that, to be honest, I didn't think I cared that much about. It was a bittersweet, but inspiring, farewell: frontman Gord Downie had entered the final stages of terminal brain cancer, and the band refused to go on without him. At times, Downie seemed to break down, at others he pushed through and the whole nation pushed right back, urging him to do one more song.

The Tragically Hip's sound was hard to pin down. Sometimes they were a bluesy bar band, other times an atmospheric alternative group that could have played on any college rock station right between REM and The Pixies. Rob Baker's reverb-laden guitar lines were offset by Gord* Sinclair's patient, ponderous bass, making room for Downie's tightly-wound mannerisms and stream-of-conscious sensibility. They steeped this sound in rich, syrupy Canadiana, writing songs about dead hockey players and inmates at the Kingston Penitentiary, Hugh McLennan and the 100th meridian. The band's third album, Road Apples, finally integrated these elements into a singular, signature brew. 

Road Apples kicks off with what would become a fan favourite and a permanent fixture of the band's live show. “Little Bones” stomps and growls, turning the mundane joys of chicken and beer into something rowdy and menacing as a roadhouse saloon. The song has no chorus, only a refrain in which Downie snarls ironically 

Happy hour, happy hour, happy hour is here.

There's no slowing down, or cheering up, from there. “Twist My Arm” spins pure funk from a suicide pact, “The Luxury” layers moody jazz chords over a darkly surreal post-breakup binge. The band also rocks incredibly hard on songs like “On the Verge” and “Cordelia.” The musical variety is appealing, but it's Downie's storytelling that really sells the album. Armed with influences from beat poetry, the Stones, and the mysterious landscapes of painters like Tom Thomson (for whom the album's eighth track, “Three Pistols,” was written), Downie gamely reports from the grimier edges of the Canadian psyche.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the album's stand-out track, “Fiddler's Green.” An unexpected flirtation with country rock, “Fiddler's Green” pays tribute to Downie's recently deceased nephew. It is mournful, introspective, and, unlike so much of the album, hopeful.

It's impossible to talk about the Hip without saying how much they meant to their homeland. Few rock bands had ever acknowledged, let alone embraced, Canada's culture or geography in their music. Even now, we insecure Canadians worry that, what made them so beloved in their home country, may have stifled their success abroad. Let's hope it doesn't hurt their chances in the poll, eh?

 *Yes, there were TWO dudes named Gord in this band.

– @LunarMariaRilke