High Hopes

I've often been pretty hard on Born in the USA as an album.  As a collection of songs, it's great. Seven of the twelve tracks charted as singles, and the ones that didn't probably should have.  With the E-Street Band behind them, those songs move and shake on stage in a way that is second only to cuts from Darkness like "Badlands." But when you hold the album as a whole up against the Boss's great albums, the songs don't tell as much of a story, and the overarching theme of "America" is a bit too broad.

So it seems somehow fitting that 30 years after that release, I'm thinking the same things about Springsteen's newest effort High Hopes.  Taking each track singly, I find a lot to like about this album.  I'm excited to hear almost every track on it live, and I really hope these songs last deep into the tour (because apparently now I expect to see him twice per album?).  The middle of the album especially stands out as it leaves the early covers and remakes behind and reminds us we're still listening to a Springsteen album.  Much like BitU before it, these songs that comprise the meat of the album won't get widespread play, even if this was still the era of putting on seven singles from a twelve song disc.  "This is Your Sword" had me from the word go, and "Frankie Fell in Love" is an ear-worm that grows on you.  "Just Like Fire Would", despite its origin as a cover, definitely feels like a Bruce classic.

The album's problems are only in taking it as a whole, which I understand is probably something about 2% of music listeners do these days.  The movement from the early, crunchy tracks into the more melodic middle is jarring, and then again as we pop back out to "Tom Joad" near the end.  As I told some friends on Facebook, I think tracks 4-9 and 11 would have made a great Springsteen EP.  Maybe keep the other tracks at the end as bonus material?

Overall though, the merit of a Springsteen album is hard to gauge for this fan, because the album itself is overshadowed by one single thought: "When does the tour start?"  If I'm actually excited to hear any of the new tracks live (which I am), then I just count that as a bonus.