Hopes and Fears is the debut album by the Englishalternative rock bandKeane. It was released on 10 May 2004 in the United Kingdom and topped theUK Albums Chart upon release. It was the UK's second best-selling album of 2004, and has since been certified 9× Platinum by theBPI. The album returned to the top of the charts after winning aBrit Award for Best Album in February 2005.
Most songs were already composed by the album's conception date; the track "She Has No Time" was composed circa 1999, making it the earliest composed song appearing on the album. Some were already played in a guitar-led form with Dominic Scott still in the band. The tracks "On a Day Like Today" and "We Might As Well Be Strangers" were the last to be composed, circa 2003.
Four songs on the album were recorded inNormandy, France, on the property of the record producer James Sanger, from July to November 2001. Sanger co-wrote these songs, including "This Is the Last Time" and "Bedshaped". The rest of the album was recorded at Helioscentric Studios in Peasmarsh, Rye, by Andy Green and the band from September to Christmas 2003. Sanger did not attend any recording sessions in England.
The album was mixed down to six channels to enable a release onSuper Audio CD (SACD).
Hal Leonard music published two versions of the officialscore book forHopes and Fears, designed for differing skill levels. The Music Sales Group also published a book, including two demo CDs with accompanying bass and drum tracks.
Hopes and Fears received generally positive reviews from critics. Review-aggregating websiteMetacritic, reported a normalised score of 61/100, based on 18 reviews, indicating "generally favourable" reviews.[7]
Playlouder was very positive, calling it "one of the best albums you'll hear this year",[7] as wasQ magazine, which gave it four out of five stars and wrote that "as a debut album, its confidence is right up there with [Oasis's]Definitely Maybe."[15]AllMusic, giving the album four and a half out of five stars, praised its "beautiful, emotive dalliance of instrumentation", singerTom Chaplin's "rich vocals", and the band's "open-hearted ambition...audible on every song",[8] whileRolling Stone noted that the album "contains more hooks than most pop groups manage in their careers."[16]
In a mixed three-star review,The Guardian criticised the first half the album for "rely[ing] too heavily on Chaplin's show-stopping vocals" and for the "radio-friendly simplicity of the lyrics", while praising "Can't Stop Now" as a "swooning, epic pop song" and the "booming drum and bass" of "Untitled 1" on the second half.[11]Drowned in Sound gave it 5 out of 10, accusing Keane of excessively imitatingColdplay (specifically comparing "Your Eyes Open" and "On a Day Like Today" to, respectively, "Daylight" and "Politik" on the band's albumA Rush of Blood to the Head), criticising the album as being "stylistically all over the place" and its lyrics as being "immature" and "cringe-worthy". However, it gave credit to the album's "fine moments", praising lead single "Somewhere Only We Know", for example, as "breathtaking".[18]
In 2006,British Hit Singles & Albums andNME organised a poll in which 40,000 people worldwide voted for the 100 best albums ever, andHopes and Fears was placed at number 51 on the list.[19] The album was ranked number 5 in Amazon's Best Selling Albums of the Decade.[20] In 2005, the album won theBrit Award for best album.[21] In 2010 the album was nominated for Brit awards in the category Album of 30 Years; however, it lost to Oasis's(What's the Story) Morning Glory?
In 2011,Q magazine made a list called 250 Best Albums of Q's Lifetime 1986–2010 and the album appeared at number 34.[22]
Issued in 2009. The first CD includes the original UK track list, as seen above, plus tracks 13–19. The second CD presents B-sides, early singles, and other rare tracks.
* Sales figures based on certification alone. ^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
A CD+DVD version was released internationally over the course of 2005. This version included two bonus tracks, "Snowed Under" and a remix dance version of "We Might as Well Be Strangers" byDJ Shadow. The DVD contained the four international videos for "Somewhere Only We Know", "Everybody's Changing", "Bedshaped", and "This is the Last Time", and the US video for "Somewhere Only We Know".
This version ofHopes and Fears also featured a different box cover design: white and with Keane's "Everybody's Changing" promotional image. The inner 2-CD box had the same cover as the international version.[citation needed]
[8]
