I have been chewing on the new Bruce Springsteen album or four days now, soaking it in and considering what I might say about that I haven’t said about much of his catalog in the past. Readers of this blog know that Bruce is part of my big four: The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Bruce and Lou Reed. And some of you might have read previous blog posts or columns in which I’ve gushed over the latest. In some cases, my judgments hold up — Magic is a complete record in a way that The Rising and its shorthand lyrics just isn’t. So where does High Hopes fit into The Boss canon?
Some random thoughts to carry me through. High Hopes is an odd record in that it is a collection of material that Springsteen apparently liked a lot, but which did not fit onto earlier releases. In that way, it is like Devils & Dust (my original review), which was composed of outtakes from The Ghost of Tom Joad sessions — a record that came out in 2005, 10 years after Tom Joad, but sounded like a completely new effort. Devils & Dust‘s lyrics, which continued the southwestern motif of The Ghost of Tom Joad, managed to connect to current topics — the war in Iraq, immigration, cultural and economic dislocation — and turned the canned material into a meditation on a broken American dream and made it feel more acutely attuned to the times than Joad.
So how does one judge an album of older material that includes three cover songs — the first time he has done this on an album of otherwise original music — and two covers of his own work? High Hopes, lyrically, hits upon all of the familiar Springsteen themes — working class despair, economic dislocation, the meaning of identity and Americanness. “American Skin (41 Shots),” which was written as an homage to Amadou Diallo, the immigrant killed by New York police in 2000, fits here seemlessly, with acknowledgement that race and identity remain central to our lives. It is not just the dead black man who he is mourning in this song — which is all the more powerful in the wake of the Trayvon Martin death and the acquittal of his killer — but the police who pulled the trigger, who stand over the dead body and wonder what happened.
“The Ghost of Tom Joad”‘s reappearance, nearly 18 years after he first put the song on a CD, reminds us that all of the issues that were in play then remain relevant today. I could go song by song, but I think this review from Star Pulse does a good job and I don’t see the point in retracing its steps.
What I find compelling about this album is its sonic palette. Springsteen has not always been known for the sound of his records — aside from Born to Run, though I would argue that the two records that followed offered a distinct sonic sensibility and albums like Magic and Wrecking Ball present different elements of Springsteen’s aural approach.
High Hopes has a massive sound, with Springsteen making use not only of his traditional band, but a big horn section, strings and an array of studio tricks. Tom Morrello’s guitar is a key element here, taking these efforts in new directions for Springsteen, adding an extra edge of nastiness to many of the tracks.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine on Allmusic.com describes the album, quite accurately as an “unkempt collection,” on which “protest songs and workingman’s anthems are surrounded by intimate tunes” — which is quite a distance from the meticulous approach Springsteen usually takes. This meticulousness, of course, has resulted in classics, but has at times (The Ghost of Tom Joad, Tunnel of Love) lessened the potential impact of the songs by making them a little too neat. That is not the case here, as Erlewine says.
Much of this record oscillates between the moody and militant, particularly in the politically charged numbers, which are often colored by percussive guitar squalls
He goes on to make it clear that
these 12 songs don’t cohere into a mood or narrative but after two decades of deliberate, purposeful albums, it’s rather thrilling to hear Springsteen revel in a mess of contradictions.
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Hank Kalet 