HIGH HOPES
| Bruce Springsteen
HIGH HOPES
High Hopes is the 18th studio album by American recording artist Bruce Springsteen, released January 14, 2014, on Columbia Records. The album was Springsteen's 11th #1 album in the United States, placing him third all-time for most No. 1 albums only behind The Beatles and Jay-Z. It was his tenth No. 1 in the UK, putting him joint fifth all-time and level with The Rolling Stones and U2. Rolling Stone named it the second-best album of 2014 on their year-end list. -wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Rolling Stone
rock-soul dynamite and finely drawn pathos bound by familiar, urgent themes
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The Guardian
Bruce Springsteen's album of offcuts, covers and reworkings adds up to a slice of the Boss at his best
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NPR
High Hopes suggests a vitality, an undimmed eagerness, that makes you want to follow Springsteen wherever he may go
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Ultimate Classic Rock
'High Hopes' is somewhat aimless
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Consequence of Sound
High Hopes is a standstill album
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The Telegraph
a collection of revamped and re-recorded lost songs – but it doesn't quite fit together
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Independent
A few low notes but the Boss has still got it covered
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NME
a collection of previously unreleased offcuts
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All Music
it's rather thrilling to hear Springsteen revel in a mess of contradictions
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The Current
isn't one for the record books, but it's one of the more interesting entries in the Springsteen catalogue
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Slant Magazine
Springsteen remains an active, if soft, voice of dissent, still interpreting current events with an eye for how they relate to wrongs of the past, continuing to carry the banner for fans still gripped with a functioning social conscience.
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The Daily Beast
High Hopes falls short
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Drowned in Sound
Springsteen's most vital-sounding set since The Seeger Sessions
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Music Feeds
High Hopes is not the finest showcase of the fact, it’s certainly a worthy one
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Tiny Mix Tapes
The selections run the predictable gamut of great to interesting to wholly disposable, but the breadth of material here nonetheless reaffirms Springsteen’s talents as a songwriter and interpreter of others’ work.
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UPROXX
has plenty of delights
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Creative Loafing
the majority of High Hopes should please and elate long-time Boss fans
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Mojo
High Hopes is a good song selection, rather than a great album.
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American Song Writer
Springsteen has loosened his grip and become his own folk archivist on High Hopes, mining outtakes, cover songs, and fresh recordings of previously released material to help tell his latest story
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The Star
High Hopes at least advertises itself as uneven, since it’s not really a new Springsteen album, per se, but a collection of songs left homeless after previous recording sessions
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The Line of Best Fit
High Hopes will tide fans over until the next bona fide LP
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Clash Music
there isn’t quite enough to hold our attention
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Spectrum Culture
High Hopes catches Springsteen at his most engaged
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Spin
It’s well within the Boss’ right to try and freshen up old material, especially 18 albums in, but this one lacks a through-line beyond the distracting
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The Highlander News
the nice hits are easily matched by the painful misses
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Audiophile Review
High Hopes delivers a Springsteen doing what he loves to do-being a rock and roll musician. This is Bruce performing the music he loves most. What can be wrong with that?
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The Con
I reckon it’s the best album Springsteen has released since Magic
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Los Angeles Times
If "High Hopes" were a new model year car, it would be a midsize six cylinder with factory hubcaps, good gas mileage and just enough spunk to zip past the wood-paneled minivans on the two-lane.
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The Mix Tape
I’ll happily take as many High Hopes as he has in him
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Cherwell Archive
the songs are sufficiently enjoyable for it feel successful
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Herald-Standard
While “High Hopes” certainly has its share of memorable moments, it’s an album for only hardcore Springsteen fans to fully savor.
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RET
Clearly, Springsteen is still guided by hidden forces.
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The Charlatan
High Hopes is a must-have for even the most casual fan of The Boss.
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The Fire Note
even a record like “High Hopes,” produced from songs borrowed and revisited bits from here and there, manage to connect and deliver on the titles’ hope to lift our spirits
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Renowned for Sound
High Hopes provides a home for some of Bruce’s songs which had previously only been recorded live or been otherwise unfinished
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punknews.org
If anything, High Hopes just makes proper albums like Wrecking Ball and Magic sound better by showing the detritus Springsteen had to clear away to get to those records.
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Gigslutz
this collection of outtakes is a worthy addition to his collection of blockbuster features
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Under the Radar
A cynical mind would wonder if High Hopes is just a rushed product to fulfill contract obligations with the label, or an excuse for lucrative touring—or both.
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Hot Press
This is a collection that pushes the pedal to the floor early on and mostly keeps it there.
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Platform
High Hopes is an okay collection of covers, outtakes and retakes, twelve in total, that shows Springsteen churning out another release which seems the result of the lack of anything better to do while on tour around the world
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indieLONDON
Springsteen, it seems, has delivered the first great album of 2014.
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cleveland.com
Bruce Springsteen's 'High Hopes' dashes a few
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Montreal Gazette
There is little here that is either revealing or essential, but Springsteen completists will be thrilled to seek the right spots for these new pieces of the never-ending jigsaw puzzle that is the Boss’s recording career.
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Tone Deaf
what High Hopes does do is act as a remarkably apt analogy for The Boss’ 21st century career. It’s a mixed bag of quality with only sparing moments of the working class relatability that made him famous in the first place.
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Music Is My Oxygen
High Hopes is laden with the energy, vibe, and stellar musicality that first made the E-Street Band a household name, and listening to this record will only make fans hungry to go see Springsteen perform live once again.
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rockol
he worked on selecting a good collection of his own previously unreleased tracks, some live-only performed and heard anthems and 3 covers
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METRO
the 64-year-old has transformed that nostalgia into an art form
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The Filtered Lens
it’s another great addition in a pretty much entirely great discography
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The Sydney Morning Herald
it has good songs that are worth hearing
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beckettgasco.com
full of surprises, all with a reason for being there
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The Art Desk
Listeners may not find the experience especially consistent, but, still, there are some real nuggets here.
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Las Vegas Weekly
High Hopes is a solid indication of where Springsteen & Co. have been—and where they’re going in the future.
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Delaware Online
Some of the material on this disc was originally set aside for good reason, but Springsteen’s loyal audience will find things to enjoy. It’s best not to come in with hopes too high.
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Pop Matters
So it is safe to say that, by manner of his ridiculous, overbearing guitar playing, Tom Morello nearly cracks the already-thin ice High Hopes stands on.
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Rock The Body Electric
The musicality and freedom with which Springsteen is working with feels fresh if the tunes themselves may not.
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Pear Shaped Dexter
For any fans of Bruce Springsteen therefore, I recommend picking up this album, as it proves to be a valuable anthology of his work over the last decade and a half.
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Missoulian
Springsteen’s loyal audience will find things to enjoy. It’s best not to come in with hopes too high.
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Buzzfead
A lot like the album's artwork, the ok songs aren't incredible, but they certainly aren't bad.
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Popdin
it's not very good really
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Wild Fires Reviews
High Hopes is the first great album of 2014
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Eric Mack Attacks
As an odds-and-ends album that captures modern-era Springsteen, it does its job fairly well (everything here is new to some degree), but it sags in comparison to Springsteen‘s classics — even the ones from the era this material is drawn from.
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Daily Local News
A quixotic collection of odds ’n’ sods, it finds him mostly diving into his prodigious vaults to revisit (and in some cases re-create) years-old material that mostly merits more than leftover status.
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Tampa Bay Times
For the most part, though, Springsteen cherry-picked from the vault wisely.
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Time Out Dubai
As it is, we’re left with a set of schizophrenic Springsteen offcuts peppered with cool/garish guitar weirdness. Not that we’re necessarily complaining.
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Legends of Springsteen
it is another 56 minutes of new(ish) Bruce music, which is a great way to start any year
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Jeremy Etc.
Well, if he’s no longer able to come up with better material than “Down in the Hole,” maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
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