Day for Night | ||||
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Studio album by The Tragically Hip | ||||
Released | September 24, 1994 | |||
Recorded | Kingsway Studio (New Orleans), Le Cave de Dave (Kingston, Ontario) | |||
Genre | Rock, Alternative rock | |||
Length | 59:26 | |||
Label | MCA | |||
Producer | Mark Howard, The Tragically Hip, Mark Vreeken | |||
The Tragically Hip chronology | ||||
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Singles from Day for Night | ||||
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Professional ratings | |
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Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | |
Rolling Stone | (favourable) |
Day for Night is the fourth full-length album by the Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip. It is named for the film of the same name.
The album was very successful in Canada, with domestic sales of 300,000 units within four days of its release. It was the band's first album to debut at #1 on the Canadian Albums Chart. The album has been certified 6x platinum in Canada. Promotional tours for the album included stints touring with The Rolling Stones and Page and Plant.
The band appeared on Saturday Night Live in 1995, performing "Grace, Too" and "Nautical Disaster" in an episode hosted by John Goodman, in order to promote the album. They were introduced by Dan Aykroyd.
In Have Not Been the Same, the authors note that "the initial response was mixed" due to the "darkness" of the album and its stemming "from the unconscious.". Although AllMusic.com's rating is a lukewarm 3 out of 5, the review calls the album's "signature lyrical mysteries... lush, but much more dark-spirited" than previous albums. "Day for Night stands on the minimalism of Downie's poignancy -- nothing is overproduced and the songs themselves are left alone to arrive on their own." Elsewhere, Jason Schneider says this was the album that made The Tragically Hip more than "just a rock 'n' roll band... miraculously, the vast distances they had been absorbing for the previous five years merged with the equally limitless vistas of Gord Downie's imagination via a Daniel Lanois-inspired sonic canvas. Day For Night got inside the Canadian psyche in a terrifying way that simple nationalistic tall tales never could. The songs remain gloriously impenetrable, but their landscapes feel like home." It is listed as #13 in ChartAttack's Top 50 Canadian Albums Of All-Time, just behind Neil Young's After the Gold Rush.