Every Tragically Hip album finds a place on latest Canadian Billboard chart - Action News
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Entertainment

Every Tragically Hip album finds a place on latest Canadian Billboard chart

Canada's insatiable appetite for the Tragically Hip has sent the rock band's entire discography back onto the national Billboard charts.

The highest-charting Hip album from their back catalogue is Fully Completely, at No. 8

Tragically Hip lead singer Gord Downie is shown during the band's July 22 show in Victoria. Every album from the band, which includes Paul Langlois, Gord Sinclair, Johnny Fay and Rob Baker, is on the Canadian charts. (Kevin Light/Reuters)

Canada's insatiable appetite for the Tragically Hip sent the rock band's entire discography back onto the Billboard charts last week.

All 17 Hip albums, ranging from their debut EP to their most recent Man Machine Poem, found spots on the Billboard Canadian Albums in the wake of the much-anticipated CBC broadcast of their final tour stop in Kingston, Ont.

Billboard's Canadian album chart is tallied by Nielsen Music and based on album sales, digital song sales and audio on-demand streams. In late 2014, the Billboard album chart tweaked its rules to qualify 1,500 song streams from an album as equivalent to one album sale.

Sitting at No. 1, just ahead of Frank Ocean's Blonde, was the band's 2005 release Yer Favourites, a greatest hits compilation that was chosen by their fans through a vote on the band's website. The album saw its total consumption rise 238 per cent, selling 17,000 physical and digital copies, or 28,000 album equivalent units, which also takes into account a spike in plays on streaming music services.

Also finding positions in the Top 10 were this year's Man Machine Poem, holding steady at No. 6, 1992's Fully Completely, which climbed to eight from 39, and 1989's Up To Here, which shifted to ninth place from 28 last week.

The Hip's other albums, which include a number of live concert recordings, also found spots on the chart.

Interest in the Hip skyrocketed earlier this year when frontman Gord Downie revealed he has terminal brain cancer, but planned to launch a tour across much of the country anyway.

Tickets to the shows sold out almost immediately, leading to CBC picking up a national broadcast of the final tour stop in Kingston. The concert quickly became a major event as fans made plans to host viewing parties and some local communities organized their own public screenings.

CBC's broadcast of the concert averaged just over four million viewers, according to the network.

Overall, the band's total album sales rose 157 per cent from the previous week, Nielsen Music reported, while digital song sales were up 342 per cent and online streams are up 185 per cent.