Today is the day for a new Bruce Springsteen album

By Michael J.W. Stickings

High Hopes, Bruce Springsteen's 18th studio album, comes out today. Am I excited? Yup, crazy excited. Why? Five reasons:

1) It features a lot of Tom Morello and that wicked guitar-playing.

2) It's an E Street record that amazingly includes contributions from Clarence "Big Man" Clemons and Danny Federici, both of whom have sadly passed away.

3) It includes new studio versions of two of my favorite Springsteen songs ever, "The Ghost of Tom Joad" and "American Skin (41 Shots)."

4) The last song on the last Pink Floyd album was called "High Hopes." Springsteen's High Hopes includes a song called "The Wall." Call me crazy for reading into that, but it's allowing me to connect two of my musical loves.

5) It may be mostly a collection of older songs he's been performing live for a long time, but it's a new Springsteen album!!!!! And I love Bruce Springsteen!!!!!

So, without further ado:


And while we're at it, because there's pretty much never a bad time to play some Springsteen, like this one, another of his very best: