High Hopes

Slice-of-life look at a sweet working-class couple in London, Shirley and Cyril, his mother, who's aging quickly and becoming forgetful, mum's ghastly upper-middle-class neighbors, and Cyril's pretentious sister and philandering husband. Shirley wants a baby, but Cyril, who reads Marx and wants the world to be perfect, is reluctant. Cyril's mum locks herself out and must ask her snooty neighbors for help. Then Cyril's sister Valerie stages a surprise party for mum's 70th birthday, a disaster from start to finish. Shirley holds things together, and she and Cyril may put aside her Dutch cap after all.

Recorded in New Jersey, LA, Atlanta, Australia and New York City, High Hopes marks Springsteen's 18th studio album and features the members of the E Street Band as well as guitarist Tom Morello. The album features his latest single "High Hopes." Clarence Clemons, who passed away in 2011, and Danny Federici, who passed away in 2008, also appear on several songs of what Springsteen calls “some of our best unreleased material from the past decade”.

Academy Award nominated writer/director Mike Leigh dissects the barriers of class in this daring and compelling black comedy set during Thatcher's England. Cyril and Shirley are a young, working-class couple who, in their struggle to make ends meet, have become absorbed in socialism. Cyril's sister Valerie and her husband aspire to a more privileged class. The only glue holding the siblings together is their withdrawn and wistful old mother. While the country faces social discontent, each of these characters fights for their own version of survival as the world around them plummets rapidly into an era of political upheaval and confusion.

High Hopes is a 2013 album by artist Matt Krefting. This was released by the Open Mouth corporation and is a vinyl rip.