The Dream Is Over

PUP’s second full length album, The Dream Is Over was released on May 27, 2016. The band had toured for over a year after their first album, playing 250+ shows with a catalog that still consisted only of songs from their first, self-titled album. When the time came to record a new album, the group was faced with the obstacle of their vocalist, Stefan Babcock, hemorrhaging his vocal cords.

As outlined in a Noisey article from 2016, on the first day of a tour opening for Modern Baseball, Babcock learned that a cyst had developed on his vocal cords which ended up hemorrhaging.By doctor’s orders, the band was forced to drop off the tour a few days early. The doctor not only advised Babcock to drop off the tour, but to quit music altogether. Upon handing him the color photos of a set of vocal cords torn up and raw from over use, Babcock’s doctor revealed that his rock and roll aspirations may have been jeopardized, saying “The dream is over.“ This provided the inspiration for the album and its title, as explained by Noisey:

Babcock had a choice. He could heed this medical advice and close the book on PUP forever, or he could throw caution to the wind and get back in the van. Anyone who’s ever seen him on stage can probably guess which option he picked. Babcock is someone who treats his body with reckless abandon, a man who routinely launches himself off whatever high platform he can find with complete disregard for what might be waiting below.

I have in my possession a photo someone took of him jumping off an amp, clear over my six-foot-tall body with a good two feet to spare. So, unsurprisingly, Babcock told the doctor to fuck off. Not literally, as his Canadian-bred manners make him extremely polite, but the title of PUP’s new album is his own middle finger of sorts. There it is, printed defiantly in the bottom corner of the cover: The Dream Is Over."

On July 14, 2016, the album was announced as a Short List nominee for the 2016 Polaris Music Prize, awarded annually to honor artists who produced Canadian music albums of distinction for that year.